Latest / Your Money, Your Rules | Financial Mastery, Wealth Mindset, Leadership Principles, Intuitive Decision-Making, Human Design / 214 | Your Business Doesn’t Always Need More Growth. It Needs More Discernment

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214 | Your Business Doesn’t Always Need More Growth. It Needs More Discernment · Your Money, Your Rules | Financial Mastery, Wealth Mindset, Leadership Principles, Intuitive Decision-Making, Human Design

• 0:02
  Erin Gray: I think we've gotten really good at asking how do I grow my business, and not nearly good enough at asking why would I want to?
• 0:09
  Erin Gray: And what does that actually look like for me?
• 0:12
  Erin Gray: So today, what I want to share with you is some of the questions I'm always asking my clients when we're talking about growth.
• 0:20
  Erin Gray: Because before we figure out how to grow something, what I actually want to understand is why are we growing it in the first place and what that growth is actually gonna require of you.
• 0:29
  Erin Gray: Let's dive in.
• 0:31
  Erin Gray: I want to say that not every opportunity that is presented to you deserves a yes.
• 0:38
  Erin Gray: But actually, what I want to say is that nine times out of 10, how can you say no so that when that one really true opportunity comes to you, you can say yes.
• 0:49
  Erin Gray: If you think about the demands that we constantly have on our time, on our attention, clients, new clients, new offers, partnerships, whether that be like with contractors, whether that be with different types of vendors, maybe it's with other people that you're collaborating with, depending on what niche you're in.
• 1:09
  Erin Gray: Even sometimes I've had clients want to take on a business partner.
• 1:14
  Erin Gray: I should do a whole podcast series on business partners.
• 1:17
  Erin Gray: You know, when you think about new hires or investments in your business, expansion, like you can't just look at what is the revenue that it's going to produce, because I think a lot of times growth in business, we equate that with obviously more money.
• 1:33
  Erin Gray: You have to look at it from an energy expenditure place.
• 1:36
  Erin Gray: And you have to get behind, like, why are you wanting to say yes?
• 1:40
  Erin Gray: And I think even deeper than that level is what is the feeling that I'm trying to have?
• 1:46
  Erin Gray: I think I mentioned this on a couple of previous podcast episodes of like, we're always going for a feeling.
• 1:52
  Erin Gray: And if we aren't clear with what is that feeling that we are desiring to have, and multiple feelings, but like sometimes we expect our business to meet those feelings, and that's not our business's responsibility.
• 2:04
  Erin Gray: So, you know, if you are wanting to feel more free or more calm, you might think adding in another offer is going to help you create more revenue, which then your brain is telling you, okay, that's going to create more money, which ultimately you think that the money is going to create the freedom or the calmness, which it will never do that for you.
• 2:27
  Erin Gray: And if it does, it will be very short-lived and then the goalpost will move, and then here we are back again.
• 2:32
  Erin Gray: You know, I had a client, she was talking about like introducing another offer.
• 2:36
  Erin Gray: And I said, Well, let's just look at your current offers right now.
• 2:39
  Erin Gray: What is your, you know, conversion rate right now with what you currently have?
• 2:43
  Erin Gray: And she didn't know all of those numbers.
• 2:45
  Erin Gray: And I said, it's not a problem.
• 2:46
  Erin Gray: We can figure this out, but why do we want to add something else when we don't even know if what we currently have is running the most efficient way that we can?
• 2:54
  Erin Gray: And you have to look at it, and I think the book is Essentialism.
• 2:58
  Erin Gray: I'll put that link in the show notes.
• 3:00
  Erin Gray: But if you can imagine a circle, like it's on their actual book of their cover, you know, if you can imagine a circle, a 360-degree circle, and if everything that you are doing energetically has an arrow pointing out, there's only so many arrows and energy that you have to expend.
• 3:19
  Erin Gray: But if you are very concentrated in your thinking, in what you want to go towards, and where you are in your business with your offers and your clients and you know the people that you are working with, they showed it like as in one arrow, right?
• 3:31
  Erin Gray: You're very focused.
• 3:32
  Erin Gray: It's very think about the energy.
• 3:34
  Erin Gray: How much more potent can your energy be when you are very focused on a couple of few things and you do it very well?
• 3:41
  Erin Gray: Then you're doing all of these things and you're being pulled in every direction.
• 3:45
  Erin Gray: And so I really think that you have to get behind like, why are you doing this?
• 3:49
  Erin Gray: You're going to, like in the previous podcast episode that I gave you or shared with you, you know, you're going to have the more people that you have on your team, the more people that you hire and work with, mentor-wise, CPAs, attorneys, all of the advisors that you have in your corner, everyone is going to have an opinion.
• 4:06
  Erin Gray: You got to bring it back to yourself of like, why do I want to say yes to this?
• 4:09
  Erin Gray: What is the feeling that I'm going all the time?
• 4:11
  Erin Gray: We can create the feeling without having to do anything else, right?
• 4:15
  Erin Gray: That is the gold right there.
• 4:16
  Erin Gray: If like you understand how to do that, you stop chasing all of the things.
• 4:21
  Erin Gray: But you have to really get clear on like, why am I wanting to do this?
• 4:25
  Erin Gray: And it's so easy to say yes.
• 4:28
  Erin Gray: It's hard to say no, right?
• 4:30
  Erin Gray: Because then the brain starts to chatter.
• 4:32
  Erin Gray: You start to be like, well, you feel like you're missing out, but you really have to be guided by like what is the end goal?
• 4:40
  Erin Gray: I think also sometimes growth can hide inefficiencies.
• 4:43
  Erin Gray: It's easy, like I talked about how we had doubled our revenue in the construction business.
• 4:48
  Erin Gray: But then I noticed that the cost of goods sold had also increased proportionately because we had bought the type of work that we were doing.
• 4:55
  Erin Gray: We bought some pretty big tanks.
• 4:57
  Erin Gray: And so the cost of goods had gone up substantially.
• 5:00
  Erin Gray: So if you're not paying attention, you can think that you're growing from a numbers from a just a pure, you know, gross revenue, but you're not actually being more efficient.
• 5:10
  Erin Gray: So if you have more revenue and you're not really watching your numbers, you don't really know where your money is moving in and out of your business.
• 5:17
  Erin Gray: It can cover some of those expenses that actually need to be refined or tailored or cut back, sometimes completely gotten rid of.
• 5:25
  Erin Gray: It can, you know, cover up bad hires.
• 5:29
  Erin Gray: It can cover up unnecessary complexity or offers that aren't actually working.
• 5:35
  Erin Gray: And I think it's easy sometimes, and I think also from an emotional standpoint, it's easy to go for the growth, right?
• 5:43
  Erin Gray: We want to grow.
• 5:44
  Erin Gray: It's not so fun to actually like dig into your numbers and be like, this isn't working so well.
• 5:50
  Erin Gray: Or, uh, I really need to have this conversation with this employee.
• 5:53
  Erin Gray: And I've talked to them multiple times, and we're basically at the point where, you know, maybe we need to let them go.
• 5:59
  Erin Gray: Like, that's not the fun stuff to do in our business.
• 6:02
  Erin Gray: And that is what is being a leader is about, right?
• 6:06
  Erin Gray: It's doing some of that air quotes not so fun work, some uncomfortable work that we have to do.
• 6:12
  Erin Gray: But it allows us to, like I have mentioned multiple times, like what I did in the construction business, is I went in and we were much more profitable, but for a couple of years, our revenue stayed the same because I was trying to clean up a lot of stuff, but we were able to be more efficient.
• 6:28
  Erin Gray: We were able to work with less people.
• 6:31
  Erin Gray: We were able to, you know, really run a leaner, cleaner crew.
• 6:37
  Erin Gray: The headaches decreased because we got rid of some of the fat.
• 6:40
  Erin Gray: We also started being able to see like what was working, what wasn't working.
• 6:45
  Erin Gray: And so I think when you just say, Oh, I just want to grow and grow and grow, but you're not actually willing to look at some of the numbers and some of the stuff where you can be more efficient.
• 6:55
  Erin Gray: And this isn't just about revenue either, right?
• 6:58
  Erin Gray: This is about your time.
• 7:00
  Erin Gray: This is about being efficient with your thinking.
• 7:02
  Erin Gray: This is about being efficient with your leadership.
• 7:05
  Erin Gray: This is being efficient with who you are.
• 7:08
  Erin Gray: Because when you're more efficient with who you are, meaning you think differently, you feel differently, you take action from a different place, your identity is different.
• 7:19
  Erin Gray: That changes everything.
• 7:21
  Erin Gray: And I think that sometimes we just want to do, like I said, the fun stuff versus actually, what is some of the uncomfortable stuff?
• 7:29
  Erin Gray: What is the stuff that I have been avoiding looking at that I actually need to look at that will actually grow?
• 7:34
  Erin Gray: And it doesn't necessarily require adding more people.
• 7:37
  Erin Gray: And I think if we can get really great at asking ourselves questions, which goes back to allowing ourselves space, allowing ourselves time to contemplate and to think, instead of asking questions like, how do I grow this?
• 7:51
  Erin Gray: Start asking questions like, why would I want to?
• 7:54
  Erin Gray: And what would that look like?
• 7:56
  Erin Gray: And how do I create it?
• 7:57
  Erin Gray: Like going back to being efficient, asking better questions, asking more efficient questions, not just how do I grow this?
• 8:04
  Erin Gray: Because that feels like more like surface level.
• 8:06
  Erin Gray: It's like, how do I grow this in a way that supports my life?
• 8:09
  Erin Gray: That I don't have to give up any freedom, that I don't have to give more time, and I can still, you know, create the life that I want and have, and also have a business that I love.
• 8:19
  Erin Gray: Like that is a more efficient, higher level thinking question to ask yourself than just how do I grow this?
• 8:27
  Erin Gray: Like, how do we create more freedom, more time, more money, more impact, more enjoyment without creating more complexity?
• 8:35
  Erin Gray: I think a lot of times we think growth is going to equal complexity, but the question, the more efficient question we need to be asking is how do I create this without creating the complexity with it?
• 8:44
  Erin Gray: And really start to ask yourself, why do I want to grow?
• 8:48
  Erin Gray: Not just I want to make more money, because here you go back to like you're not really getting deep into this.
• 8:52
  Erin Gray: Like, what is the feeling?
• 8:53
  Erin Gray: What do you want to do this for?
• 8:55
  Erin Gray: Because I think so often we're told we need to grow.
• 8:58
  Erin Gray: Like I had a conversation when I first started working with one of my clients.
• 9:01
  Erin Gray: She came to me and she's like, I want to grow and I want to scale.
• 9:04
  Erin Gray: And I was like, why?
• 9:04
  Erin Gray: And she's like, Well, that's just because, like, all the, you know, circles that she ran in, like, that's what everybody's talking about doing.
• 9:09
  Erin Gray: And I'm like, yeah, but why do you want to?
• 9:11
  Erin Gray: And what does that look like for you in order to grow?
• 9:14
  Erin Gray: And it's like she had never even thought about some of those questions.
• 9:18
  Erin Gray: And I'm not advocating to not grow.
• 9:20
  Erin Gray: That's not what I'm saying.
• 9:21
  Erin Gray: I'm just saying, as we grow, make it work for us instead of just taking on what somebody else is saying that we need to do in our business.
• 9:28
  Erin Gray: Why do we want to grow?
• 9:29
  Erin Gray: How do we want to grow?
• 9:30
  Erin Gray: What do we want it to look like?
• 9:31
  Erin Gray: What will this require of me with I grow?
• 9:34
  Erin Gray: Not just financially, but like with the time, with the energy, with the attention, with the management, with the responsibility, with the leadership.
• 9:41
  Erin Gray: Like you have to look at this as a whole system, not just like how do I grow and it's revenue and I add more people and that's that.
• 9:47
  Erin Gray: This it's not that simple.
• 9:48
  Erin Gray: What does this actually give me in return?
• 9:51
  Erin Gray: Right?
• 9:52
  Erin Gray: What kind of money does it give me?
• 9:53
  Erin Gray: What kind of freedom?
• 9:54
  Erin Gray: What kind of enjoyment?
• 9:55
  Erin Gray: What kind of impact?
• 9:56
  Erin Gray: What kind of opportunity?
• 9:58
  Erin Gray: And is the return worth what the output is going to be?
• 10:02
  Erin Gray: If we go back to nature, we look at our bodies or we look at nature, nothing ever grows nonstop.
• 10:09
  Erin Gray: You have seasons.
• 10:10
  Erin Gray: And I think those seasons need to be incorporated into our business.
• 10:14
  Erin Gray: There are seasons for growth.
• 10:15
  Erin Gray: There are seasons for just riding for a bit and like calibrating and letting and looking at everything and seeing like where are you?
• 10:23
  Erin Gray: What is working, what isn't working.
• 10:25
  Erin Gray: Not that you're not doing that while you grow.
• 10:27
  Erin Gray: And also I think that there are seasons where you need to take a step back and instead of growing, growing, growing, growing, growing, actually take a step back and look and see, okay, like what have I created?
• 10:37
  Erin Gray: What do I like?
• 10:38
  Erin Gray: What do I not like?
• 10:39
  Erin Gray: Because who you were a couple, I mean, I always say this like six months ago, I'm not the same person that I was six months ago.
• 10:45
  Erin Gray: I can't imagine five years, right?
• 10:46
  Erin Gray: So your business is gonna change.
• 10:48
  Erin Gray: So if you're just constantly thinking about growing and growing versus optimizing and maybe just allowing for a bit and receiving and just the exhale, because I think too, when we're constantly growing, we can be in that survival place.
• 11:01
  Erin Gray: I'm not saying growing makes you be in survival.
• 11:04
  Erin Gray: I'm just saying that sometimes we can associate it with the same thing.
• 11:07
  Erin Gray: If we're used to constantly solving problems, if we're used to being in a survival state, if we're used to just like pushing and forcing and like that is sometimes the way that it hides itself with growing.
• 11:18
  Erin Gray: I think the most powerful or potent question that you could ask yourself is if nobody knew that I did this, would I still want it?
• 11:24
  Erin Gray: Would I still want to do this?
• 11:25
  Erin Gray: Do I still enjoy doing this?
• 11:27
  Erin Gray: Do I wake up for the love of doing it?
• 11:30
  Erin Gray: Or do I wake up because I want something in return?
• 11:33
  Erin Gray: Yes, there's always going to be a value exchange, but like you have to really start to go and ask yourself some of these deeper questions, which will require you to actually have to answer them and get real honest with yourself.
• 11:47
  Erin Gray: Like, I don't think asking our question ourselves questions are like the uncomfortable part.
• 11:52
  Erin Gray: It's like the answer that we get and then taking the action from the answer.
• 11:55
  Erin Gray: Because sometimes the answer might be like, I want to scale down.
• 11:58
  Erin Gray: I don't want all of these people.
• 12:00
  Erin Gray: I thought I did.
• 12:00
  Erin Gray: That's what I thought.
• 12:01
  Erin Gray: Like I'm actually seeing that with some of the mentors that I had early on in my journey.
• 12:06
  Erin Gray: Like, I think almost in a way, like building a big team is kind of like keeping up with the Joneses in your personal life, like of the cars and the house and all of this kind of stuff.
• 12:14
  Erin Gray: Like that's kind of like what it feels like sometimes with some of the people that I see that I used to work with is like they built this big team and they probably had to do that in order to experience it to then recognize, oh, I can run a lean team.
• 12:26
  Erin Gray: Oh, I can run much smaller.
• 12:28
  Erin Gray: Oh, I want to take some of this stuff in-house.
• 12:29
  Erin Gray: I don't need to be outsourcing all of this stuff.
• 12:31
  Erin Gray: And so I think with business, sometimes growth is like the bragging rights, right?
• 12:35
  Erin Gray: It's like the bravado and like beating your chest up.
• 12:38
  Erin Gray: But sometimes running a really small, tight, lean team where you don't have to have all the Slack messages and all the employees and all of the attorney stuff and the list goes on and on, right?
• 12:49
  Erin Gray: And sometimes for some people, they actually like that and they want to do that.
• 12:52
  Erin Gray: And so I'm not saying one way or the other.
• 12:54
  Erin Gray: I'm just saying you really have to get down to like the heart and the soul of like if nobody knew what I did, if I couldn't talk about this to my business besties, post about it on social media, would I still do it and would I still love it?
• 13:07
  Erin Gray: And does this move me closer to the life that I actually want?
• 13:10
  Erin Gray: Or does my life now have to rearrange around the growth?
• 13:15
  Erin Gray: And I think that when you start to ask yourself these questions, also with your thinking, when you start to ask these questions from a place of like, how do I have this and that?
• 13:26
  Erin Gray: Like I've met so many people that have built businesses around a place where they had limiting beliefs, where they didn't think that they could have more time and more money, right?
• 13:35
  Erin Gray: So they pigeonholed themselves into offers or into business models that they didn't truly enjoy being in, but they thought because they had a limiting belief around time and money, that's where they went.
• 13:46
  Erin Gray: So this is where you have to just strip and let go.
• 13:49
  Erin Gray: And like when you're dreaming and when you're envisioning and when you're journaling for yourself, not having any of the ego stuff, right?
• 13:56
  Erin Gray: None of the 3D material stuff, none of the money stuff.
• 13:59
  Erin Gray: Like, what do I love doing just for the fun of it?
• 14:02
  Erin Gray: I know after having, you know, 30 something employees, I don't like having 30 something employees.
• 14:07
  Erin Gray: I want a small team, have a small team.
• 14:10
  Erin Gray: Like that's something that's important to me.
• 14:12
  Erin Gray: I don't want to be spending my time managing all of these people.
• 14:16
  Erin Gray: Not that you need to be managing them.
• 14:18
  Erin Gray: And also, that's part of like when you have employees, you're going to have some management of it.
• 14:23
  Erin Gray: And so I really think you have to start asking yourself some of these deeper questions and be willing to take action once you receive the answers because that is where the work is, right?
• 14:33
  Erin Gray: It's great to hear the answer.
• 14:35
  Erin Gray: It's another to be like, okay, I need to change my entire business model.
• 14:39
  Erin Gray: Like, not so fun, right?
• 14:41
  Erin Gray: Not so fun to have to like unwind some of this.
• 14:44
  Erin Gray: And also you have to think about like, what am I gonna love waking up doing every single day?
• 14:50
  Erin Gray: Now, this is why I created the life by design pillar, right?
• 14:54
  Erin Gray: This is one of the most important pillars that I work through with my clients.
• 14:58
  Erin Gray: Because if we're constantly asking, how do we grow the business?
• 15:00
  Erin Gray: I want to know what are we growing it for?
• 15:03
  Erin Gray: Because once we know what you actually want your life to look like, we can build the business intentionally around that instead of continuously rearranging your life around your business.
• 15:12
  Erin Gray: And you're if you're ready for someone that provides and creates a safe space to do this with, a thinking partner and someone who's been where you've been, who's had to restructure things, who's had to let people go.
• 15:23
  Erin Gray: And I'm not advocating that that's what we're gonna do, but if you are at a place where you're like, you know what, I do want to make some changes, someone who has been where you have been, you can inquire about working with me in the show notes.
• 15:34
  Erin Gray: I want to leave you with, and I think the most powerful or potent question that you can ask yourself is if I didn't make any money doing this, would I still do it?
• 15:43
  Erin Gray: Is this truly what my soul wants to do?
• 15:46
  Erin Gray: And am I doing it in a way that feels fun and joyful for me?
• 15:51
  Erin Gray: Okay, I'll see you in the next episode.