Latest / The 3Bz Podcast - Building Better Business / EP153 - Growth Is Easy. Scaling Is Different

Transcript

EP153 - Growth Is Easy. Scaling Is Different · The 3Bz Podcast - Building Better Business

• 0:01
  Hi there business owner, and welcome to the Three BS Podcast,
• 0:04
  the place where we go beyond the numbers and dive into strategies
• 0:07
  to help you build a Better Business one step at a time.
• 0:11
  I'm your host Stephanie, a multi awarding entrepreneur with over
• 0:13
  a decade of experience in the bookkeeping and currency world.
• 0:17
  If you're a business owner looking to streamline, grow and
• 0:19
  get back the time that you deserve, you're in the right
• 0:21
  place. We're tackling real world
• 0:23
  problems, answering tough questions and digging deep into
• 0:26
  business building secrets in just 15 minutes each week.
• 0:30
  So Are you ready to build a Better Business with confidence
• 0:32
  and clarity? Then let's go.
• 0:35
  Hello and welcome back to another episode of the Three BS
• 0:38
  Podcast, your go to place for 15 minutes of motivation, education
• 0:42
  and inspiration to help you build a Better Business.
• 0:46
  If you're new here, hi, I'm Stephanie, a bookkeeper and
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  business owner with over a decade of experience in the
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  financial world, here to help you build a Better Business.
• 0:56
  Now, today's one of those episodes that might feel
• 0:58
  slightly uncomfortable. If you want to scale your
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  business, grow it properly, increase profit and not just
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  workload, there's some things you need to stop doing.
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  And most of them are habits that feel helpful at the time.
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  And that's the tricky bit. They feel productive, but
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  actually they're slowing you down.
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  Let's get into it. Scaling is not about adding
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  more. It's about becoming selective.
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  And I think it's something we all learn as business owners as
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  time goes on and we start to grow and scale.
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  Every time you say yes to a lower paying client, a custom
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  one off job, a discount, just this once, work that doesn't
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  quite fit, you dilute your focus.
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  And diluted focus reduces margin.
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  Growth is not volume, growth is quality.
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  Now if your diary is full like mine, but your profit isn't
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  rising, you're not scaling, you're stretching.
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  And that's a whole world of pain.
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  So stop saying yes to everything.
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  This one makes me feel a little called out, but it's true.
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  Stop discounting to feel safer. As a business owner, discounting
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  feels like control. It feels like you're doing
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  something to secure income. But actually most of the time it
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  just signals uncertainty. Scaling.
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  Businesses do not compete on price.
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  They have their pricing set in stone.
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  It is what it is. They compete on clarity,
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  positioning and outcomes instead.
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  If someone only works with you because you're cheaper, they
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  will leave you when someone cheaper appears again.
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  And a race to the bottom doesn't benefit any person in your
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  industry. If as bookkeepers and
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  accountants at ABCSUK, we started doing things cheaper and
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  then they went to the next person and got it cheaper and
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  then went to the next person and got it cheaper, it lowers the
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  value of the entire industry. And that's definitely not a
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  scaling strategy. That's a treadmill and
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  treadmills are exhausting and if you want to grow and scale your
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  business, which I presume you do by watching or listening to this
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  podcast, we don't want to be on those treadmills.
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  It's time to get firm with your pricing and not discounting to
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  feel safer or just to secure some income because you're
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  devaluing yourself and the entire industry that you are in.
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  If you've ever listened to an episode of the Three BS Podcast
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  before, you're going to know this next one.
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  Stop avoiding your numbers. You cannot scale what you do not
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  measure. If you don't know your current
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  profit margin, your average client value, your cost per
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  lead, or your operating costs and you're trying to scale, then
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  you're just guessing. It's just becoming guesswork.
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  And as we know, guesswork is dangerous.
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  Revenue growth without actually being aware of what your margins
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  are, create that fragile business that I talk about on
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  multiple episodes. And having a fragile business
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  cannot grow and scale sustainably.
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  And when I say sustainably, I mean something, you know, you
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  can pay yourself at the end of the month.
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  You can double your turnover and still struggle.
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  You can grow your team and reduce your profit.
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  You can look successful but feel really stressed and none of
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  those things are productive. If you want to grow and steal
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  your business, you need financial visibility, not vibes.
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  You need to not bury your head in the sand and get support if
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  you need to. Bookkeepers and accountants like
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  us at ABCSUK are here to help you grow and steal your business
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  with financial clarity with with not with knowing what's going on
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  in your business. I often think of the finance
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  part of a business. If you look at a big business,
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  the finance part is just one small cog, but that cog unlocks
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  every other decision in your business.
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  Whatever you do in the financial armor that's raising prices,
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  cutting prices, adding services, removing products, any decision
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  you make, invest in pulling money out, getting investment.
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  All of those things have a huge impact on your business.
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  Now, if you're going to want to scale, you're going to need more
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  of something, whether that's more delivery, more customers,
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  more staff, something needs to grow and scale.
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  So you need to know you're doing that with confidence that the
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  business can hold those costs or hold that increase or can hold
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  those changes. I'm going to call myself out
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  again. Stop being the bottleneck in
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  your own business. This one hits a lot of business
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  owners, myself included. If every decision, every e-mail,
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  every approval and every solution has to run through you,
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  you are not scaling. Even if you are the only person
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  in your business, you are centralizing.
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  Centralizing caps, growth, scaling requires systems.
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  We've talked about processes and systems so many times on this
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  podcast. Go back and listen to some of
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  those episodes. Clear processes, clear
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  boundaries, clear expectations are what you need to grow and
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  scale your business. If your business falls apart
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  when you step away for a week, it's not scalable yet.
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  It's owner dependent and that's not failure, but it is a
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  ceiling. It's something I'm facing right
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  now at ABCSU K2. Stop confusing busy with
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  productive. I talked about this again a few
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  episodes ago. Busy is comfortable and it feels
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  like you're making progress. But scaling requires strategic
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  time, time away from the business to work on the business
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  and not in it. You need time to review your
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  margins and your pricing. You need time to assess your
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  offers as a whole. You need to step away from them
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  and look at them as a big overview of your offer from end
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  to end, refining your processes, making things more efficient,
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  doing more in less time, and looking at the data.
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  As you know, I am a huge data nerd and data really is the most
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  important part of your business. Not the delivery, not the
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  marketing, not the sales funnel, not even your pricing.
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  Because that data in any part of your business will inform how
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  you need to grow, where the problems are, where the gaps
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  are. Everything in the data will help
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  you build a Better Business. And if you fill every gap with
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  delivery in your diary, you're never going to Createspace for
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  gross decisions. Without growth, nothing
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  structurally changes. You just work harder and often
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  for less money. I have a gap in my diary, so
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  every Monday morning I have two hours where I sit down and
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  review the week before. I have my own KPIs that are
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  relevant to my unique business and I look at my business as an
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  overview. What went well, what didn't go
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  well, what needs to change. Those two hours are non
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  negotiable on a Monday and if for some reason I'm at an event
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  or I'm not in the office on the Monday, I move it to later in
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  the week. But I will always block 2 hours
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  out of my diary CEO time to have that conversation.
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  Even though it's just me in the business right now.
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  As the business grows and scales, that's when the team
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  will get together to discuss what worked, what didn't what,
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  what needs to change, what do we need to look at next?
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  Where is there opportunities for growth whereas things that need
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  to be scaled back on or costs that need to be cut?
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  Stop scaling emotionally now. This is quite a subtle 1 and so
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  many business decisions are made emotionally that is not
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  sustainable or healthy for a business.
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  Raising prices because you feel ready.
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  Launching something because it feels exciting.
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  Hiring because you feel overwhelmed.
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  Scaling should always be data LED, not reactive.
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  It should be proactive and it should be decided upon before
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  the need is there. If your revenue is inconsistent,
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  then higher interest increases, more pressure because taking on
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  more staff will mean that your wage bill increases.
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  But if your revenue is not consistent enough, there's going
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  to be some months where you're going to feel like there's not
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  enough money to actually pay those new employees, those
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  hires. If margins are unclear, if
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  you're just launching new offers, that's just going to
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  increase noise. And then you've got two
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  different things and you won't know which is costing you money
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  and which is actually making you money.
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  Scaling is not about excitement, it's not glamorous, it's not
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  pretty. It's about structure and making
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  a difference and setting those firm foundations to grow and
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  scale your business. When I talk about scaling, I
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  think it's quite a buzzword in the business owner space.
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  Let's define what scaling actually is, because I think
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  it's quite a buzzword that is talked about a lot in the
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  business owner space. And it's not always means the
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  same thing. People just kind of use it as an
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  overarching term. Scaling means that your revenue
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  is increasing faster than your costs, IE you are making more
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  money. Systems are absorbing the
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  growth, which means you are getting more done with less
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  time. You are able to be more
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  efficient. You're able to be more
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  streamlined, you're able to offer something a higher quality
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  because some of the legwork is taken away from your systems.
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  Stress does not multiply with income.
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  I think quite often we take we want more clients.
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  That's how we increase our businesses, just by taking on
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  more and more clients, particularly in the service
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  based industry. But the stress shouldn't
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  multiply with that. The income shouldn't multiply
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  with that. If you are doubling your income,
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  you shouldn't have double the stress.
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  That's not scaling. Margins remaining healthy.
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  Again, you should be making money.
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  You should be making money. That's why we all have a
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  business. If you are not trying to make
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  money, you don't have a business.
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  You have a hobby. Decisions become easier and not
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  harder. I think scaling should be easy
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  to rely on the data. If you're looking to grow and
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  scale your business, you must already have some data in there.
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  Using that data should make your decisions easier.
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  They should be less stressful, like you should be able to back
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  up your decisions, whether to increase price, whether to sell
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  more, pull a product. That data should be easier and
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  not harder as you grow and scale your business because you have
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  all that data to rely on. That's scaling.
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  If your income goes up and everything feels harder, you're
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  working more hours, then that's just expansion.
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  Expansion without structure is temporary, and the business
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  could fall apart at the seams any given moment.
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  So you're building and scale in this business that could then
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  just crumble back down to the beginning or lower than where
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  you started, and we don't want that.
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  If you want to scale this year, the shift is simple, but I'm
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  going to be honest, it's uncomfortable.
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  You've got lots of little mindset shifts, so you've got to
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  move from yes to everything to yes to the right things only.
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  If you want to scale this year, you need to shift from let's try
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  this to let's measure this and then look back and reflect on
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  it. We need to move from more
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  clients to better clients. That's definitely one we're
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  working on at ABCSUK. You need to move from more
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  revenue to better margin. Why would you work harder to
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  bring in more income when you could work the same hours, bring
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  in more profit into your business?
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  Scaling is less about acceleration and much more about
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  discipline, which as business owners, I feel we struggle with
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  that discipline because we have all these ideas.
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  We're creative. Even if you're in an industry
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  like bookkeeping and accountancy, I have a new
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  business idea every week. I have a new service offering
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  every week in my brain. But I think, oh, that would
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  really help so and so having a discipline not to launch them
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  all without data is the bit that makes you a sustainable business
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  owner that grows and scales. If this episode made you rethink
• 11:47
  about how you're growing, good scaling should feel intentional,
• 11:51
  not accidental and not chaotic. If you want support looking at
• 11:55
  your margins, your structure, your systems and whether your
• 11:58
  business is actually ready to scale, you'll find all the ways
• 12:01
  to work with ABCS UK in the show notes.
• 12:03
  You can book a free 15 minute discovery call with me and we
• 12:05
  can go through how ABCS UK can help you if we can help you or I
• 12:10
  can point you in the right direction for things that will
• 12:12
  help you get to where you want to go.
• 12:15
  If it's episode helped, please do share with another business
• 12:18
  owner who is stuck in busy mode. Please do like rate and review.
• 12:21
  It takes 30 seconds, but it really does make a difference.
• 12:24
  To push this podcast out to more business owners, subscribe and
• 12:28
  hit that notification bell if you're watching on YouTube so
• 12:30
  you'll know when the next episode goes live.
• 12:33
  I've been Stephanie, this is a 3DS podcast and I will see you
• 12:36
  next week for episode 154. Bye.
• 12:41
  That brings us to the end of another episode of the Three
• 12:43
  Bees podcast. I hope you found it useful and
• 12:46
  that you're walking away with some motivation, inspiration or
• 12:48
  education to help you build a Better Business.
• 12:52
  Don't forget to subscribe, leave a review, and of course, connect
• 12:54
  with us on social media for more insights, tips, and behind the
• 12:57
  scenes content. Your next step in building a
• 12:59
  Better Business is just a click away.
• 13:01
  I can't wait to connect with you and I'll see you on the next
• 13:03
  episode. Bye.