Latest / The Matriarchy Would Never | A Promote Yourself to CEO Podcast Series / How to Scale Sustainably

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How to Scale Sustainably · The Matriarchy Would Never | A Promote Yourself to CEO Podcast Series

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: The last few episodes might have been surprising to you.
• 0:03
  SPEAKER_00: After all, I am a business growth strategist, and here I am going deep into the truth about scaling your business.
• 0:11
  SPEAKER_00: But I want to make sure that when you go into growth mode, your eyes are wide open.
• 0:17
  SPEAKER_00: You understand that growth isn't just about making more sales.
• 0:22
  SPEAKER_00: It's about being able to scale your customer experience, being able to scale your team, being able to scale the infrastructure behind the scenes that makes it all possible so that you don't implode your business.
• 0:36
  SPEAKER_00: Well, in today's episode, I want to break down some of the key things you can start thinking about so that you can be more strategic and more sustainable when you're ready to go into high growth mode in your business.
• 0:50
  SPEAKER_00: Are you ready to grow from solopreneur to CEO?
• 0:53
  SPEAKER_00: You're in the right place.
• 0:54
  SPEAKER_00: I'm your host, Rachel Cook, and I've spent the last decade helping women entrepreneurs start and scale service-based businesses.
• 1:01
  SPEAKER_00: If you're serious about building a sustainable business, it's time to put the strategy, systems, and support in place to make it happen.
• 1:08
  SPEAKER_00: Join me each week for candid conversations about stepping into your role as CEO, the hard lessons learned along the way, and practical, profitable strategies to grow a sustainable business without the hustle and burnout.
• 1:24
  SPEAKER_00: Welcome back to the final installment in The Truth About Scaling Your Business series.
• 1:30
  SPEAKER_00: You know, when I sat down to map out this series, I was a little nervous because I know that entrepreneurs are an ambitious bunch.
• 1:40
  SPEAKER_00: We have big dreams, we have things that we want to do and create in our business.
• 1:46
  SPEAKER_00: But after being in this myself, running my own business for the last 12 years, I have to say I have seen a lot of people come and go.
• 1:55
  SPEAKER_00: I have seen a lot of people burn out and take years off just to recover from the impacts of scaling too fast and growing too fast.
• 2:06
  SPEAKER_00: So I want to make sure that we are being intentional as always.
• 2:11
  SPEAKER_00: That's what I'm all about.
• 2:12
  SPEAKER_00: How do we be intentional in how we are making your business happen?
• 2:18
  SPEAKER_00: Because if you are like me and you want to be in business for yourself, not just for the next year or five years or 10 years, but for the rest of your working career, then we need to make sure that we are approaching our business with eyes wide open strategically and sustainably.
• 2:40
  SPEAKER_00: So in the last few episodes, if you have been listening, I have been talking about some of the major challenges I'm seeing just in this whole scaling grow at all costs culture that is prevailing online.
• 2:53
  SPEAKER_00: And it leads to a lot of people being frustrated when they don't have the instant success that they are hoping for.
• 2:59
  SPEAKER_00: So we talked about why we need to come back to our foundation first, stop trying to skip over steps, get that business growth checklist and review it and see where do you need to double down on your foundation, whether it is the product, program, or service that you're offering, making sure that you can scale up the delivery of that product, program, or service without impacting results, making sure that you can still get amazing results for your clients, making sure that you have clarity around who you need on your team and how your role is going to evolve as a CEO as you continue to bring more people into the mix, how you're going to step up your leadership as you are growing this team, how you're going to finance your growth, how you're going to make sure that your growth on the top line revenue is not at the risk of being unprofitable, which is unfortunately what I see for a lot of people.
• 3:56
  SPEAKER_00: So today I want to make sure we're talking about how do we get more strategic?
• 3:59
  SPEAKER_00: How do we be more sustainable?
• 4:01
  SPEAKER_00: How do we go into this really thinking holistically about how our business is going to get where we want it to go?
• 4:09
  SPEAKER_00: So I really have a few key things that I think will make all of the difference and help you make sure that you are approaching this in kind of the tortoise mode, the slow and steady mode.
• 4:22
  SPEAKER_00: I always say I am not the hair, I am the tortoise.
• 4:26
  SPEAKER_00: I am the slow and steady, consistently showing up, consistently implementing.
• 4:31
  SPEAKER_00: And that slow and steady approach is a big reason why I am able to have the lifestyle that I want, why I'm able to work really great hours, just 25 or 30 hours a week, why my entire team has been with me so long, because I'm not constantly putting out fires and cycling through people behind the scenes.
• 4:49
  SPEAKER_00: It is because we know that we have to stay focused on the long game.
• 4:54
  SPEAKER_00: So, how can we be more strategic?
• 4:56
  SPEAKER_00: How can we be more intentional as we are looking towards growth in our business?
• 5:01
  SPEAKER_00: Well, I mentioned in the last few episodes a couple of the big mistakes that I'm seeing people make.
• 5:08
  SPEAKER_00: And one of the things that we can do to counteract that is to really invest in ourselves as the CEOs of our business.
• 5:17
  SPEAKER_00: Too often I see entrepreneurs just ignore or attempt to pass off parts of their business that they don't understand.
• 5:25
  SPEAKER_00: And you don't need to become an expert in every different part of your business, but you do need a working knowledge.
• 5:32
  SPEAKER_00: You need to understand the basics so that you can lead that team effectively, so that you can converse with the people that you're hiring, so that you can make smart hiring decisions.
• 5:42
  SPEAKER_00: Where I see people get stuck so often is they just kind of want to put the blinders on and only do one or two things in their business and ignore these other areas.
• 5:52
  SPEAKER_00: They don't want to learn how to get better at them or how they can really improve these areas of their business.
• 5:59
  SPEAKER_00: And that is a huge mistake.
• 6:01
  SPEAKER_00: It truly is.
• 6:02
  SPEAKER_00: I remember early on in my career, I was listening to a talk by Darren Hardy, who has written a lot of great books.
• 6:08
  SPEAKER_00: He used to be the editor of Success Magazine.
• 6:11
  SPEAKER_00: And something he said really impacted me.
• 6:13
  SPEAKER_00: I thought it was so smart.
• 6:14
  SPEAKER_00: He said every year he took 10% of what he made and reinvested it back into his own development because he knew that the ROI of development back into himself was always going to be huge.
• 6:27
  SPEAKER_00: He knew he could always bet on himself.
• 6:30
  SPEAKER_00: And how did he do that?
• 6:31
  SPEAKER_00: Well, he invested in different topic areas very strategically.
• 6:35
  SPEAKER_00: If there was something he wanted to learn more about, he would take a course, he would hire coaches, he would attend events, he would read several books, not so that he could become like a subject matter expert on each area, but so that he would really have a working knowledge.
• 6:53
  SPEAKER_00: And I think this is so important because often where I see a lot of entrepreneurs struggle is they don't have a working knowledge of all the different areas of their business.
• 7:04
  SPEAKER_00: And this is one area that I have to say, having an MBA really plays in my favor.
• 7:09
  SPEAKER_00: I don't think you need to go back to school and get an MBA, but I have a great working knowledge of all the different areas of business.
• 7:16
  SPEAKER_00: And that has helped tremendously as I have been growing this business.
• 7:21
  SPEAKER_00: So you don't have to become a subject matter expert, but you do need to know how these things operate.
• 7:26
  SPEAKER_00: One of the areas I see, especially women entrepreneurs, kind of not really step into their leadership is in finances.
• 7:35
  SPEAKER_00: And if we can't understand the finances and the money in our business, we can't make smarter decisions.
• 7:41
  SPEAKER_00: We can't allocate resources in the best way.
• 7:45
  SPEAKER_00: We can't project out what we need to hit for our sales targets in order to finance and fund the goals that we want to do in the future.
• 7:55
  SPEAKER_00: Because some things, you know, growth does take resources.
• 7:59
  SPEAKER_00: It's going to take time, energy, and money.
• 8:01
  SPEAKER_00: So we have to have a working understanding of our finances.
• 8:04
  SPEAKER_00: If we don't have a working understanding of our finances, then often we go after the strategies that sound good because they bring in that top line revenue that everybody is talking about.
• 8:14
  SPEAKER_00: But at the end of the day, they're not super profitable.
• 8:18
  SPEAKER_00: And this is not the goal.
• 8:21
  SPEAKER_00: The goal is not to make an amazing, you know, top line revenue, only to at the end of the day, not be able to really take anything home.
• 8:27
  SPEAKER_00: We need to understand how these things work in our business.
• 8:31
  SPEAKER_00: Another area that we need to have a working understanding of is some metrics in our business.
• 8:36
  SPEAKER_00: Now, again, you don't need to look at every single metric in your business all the time.
• 8:41
  SPEAKER_00: I don't look at them on a daily or even weekly basis, but you need to know some key metrics to determine whether you are on or off track to achieve your goals for the month or the quarter or the year.
• 8:56
  SPEAKER_00: Often I see people who at the end of the month, they're kind of sitting there like, oh, I didn't hit my revenue goal.
• 9:01
  SPEAKER_00: But they weren't tracking the metrics that would have told them whether or not they were on track.
• 9:08
  SPEAKER_00: And without understanding these things, it is really hard to design a predictably profitable business, much less a business that will grow consistently over time.
• 9:19
  SPEAKER_00: Now, the areas that we know we need to learn about are marketing and sales.
• 9:22
  SPEAKER_00: Like this is what everybody talks about all the time.
• 9:25
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm not going to dive deep into this, but there is a difference between doing marketing in a more high-touch, one-to-one referral-based way, which is how a lot of my clients come to me.
• 9:38
  SPEAKER_00: They're they've been growing in a very high-touch way to learning how to market at scale without losing the intimacy, without losing the connection with your clients and your community.
• 9:49
  SPEAKER_00: Same thing with sales.
• 9:51
  SPEAKER_00: Like, how do you shift from selling in a one-to-one capacity to selling at scale efficiently?
• 9:57
  SPEAKER_00: These are things that take time to figure out and take time to figure out what really works for you and your business and what feels right.
• 10:05
  SPEAKER_00: The bigger area that I want to talk about for a second is operations and team.
• 10:10
  SPEAKER_00: Because this is one of the areas that I think we don't anticipate often as entrepreneurs, that we need to understand what it truly means to step into leadership and to lead a team, to bring people in who are just as fired up about your vision as you are, and really help everybody get on the same page, going in the same direction, working at the same pace.
• 10:34
  SPEAKER_00: How do we do that without constantly having people change directions?
• 10:40
  SPEAKER_00: Slow and steady.
• 10:41
  SPEAKER_00: Slow and steady is how we accomplish most of these things.
• 10:45
  SPEAKER_00: If we are constantly in sprint mode, if we are constantly in, you know, grow, grow, grow, grow, grow mode, it is really hard not only because you're hiring people so quickly and it becomes harder to onboard them and to train them and to get them on the same page, but it also means you're constantly pulling everybody in a million directions.
• 11:07
  SPEAKER_00: It can be very challenging.
• 11:09
  SPEAKER_00: So investing in yourself as CEO is really getting a working understanding and knowing that the things you had to learn to get your business off the ground are not the same things you need to know in order to grow it to multiple six or seven or eight or 10 figures, whatever the big picture revenue goal is.
• 11:25
  SPEAKER_00: There is always something new to learn.
• 11:28
  SPEAKER_00: There is always a next level of leadership to step into.
• 11:31
  SPEAKER_00: And you don't have to become the expert of absolutely everything, but you do need to have an understanding of how these things work so that you can effectively lead your team.
• 11:43
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, our next point when it comes to being strategic and being sustainable about your growth.
• 11:51
  SPEAKER_00: Keep it simple.
• 11:53
  SPEAKER_00: Keep it simple and upgrade as you go.
• 11:56
  SPEAKER_00: I know that we are all seeing these very, very fancy websites and beautiful branding, and we're seeing people who have all of these different things going on in their business, but we cannot compare year one, two, three to someone else's year 10, 15, 20.
• 12:16
  SPEAKER_00: We have to have perspective here.
• 12:18
  SPEAKER_00: And what I want everyone to know is that it took them time to get to where they're going.
• 12:24
  SPEAKER_00: And each time they added something new to their business, it was something else to keep up with.
• 12:30
  SPEAKER_00: So I want you to ask yourself, how can we keep your business as simple as possible?
• 12:36
  SPEAKER_00: As simple as possible.
• 12:38
  SPEAKER_00: Ask yourself how many offers do you really need?
• 12:42
  SPEAKER_00: I highly recommend sticking to one core signature offer that you can really put all of your effort in.
• 12:50
  SPEAKER_00: Now, I like one core signature offer because for each offer that you create, you not only have to create the offer and then map out the delivery of that offer and the customer experience of that offer and make sure that it is consistently able to achieve the results your clients are looking for.
• 13:08
  SPEAKER_00: That's one whole thing, just making sure that the offer delivers what is promised.
• 13:13
  SPEAKER_00: But then making sure that you have a marketing system for that offer and a sales system for that offer.
• 13:20
  SPEAKER_00: There's a lot of systems that going into selling one specific thing.
• 13:25
  SPEAKER_00: And when we dilute our efforts by having way too many offers, it becomes very hard to create economies of scale.
• 13:35
  SPEAKER_00: What I mean by that is when you have an economy of scale, and this is kind of an MBA term, but economies of scale is all about getting the biggest ROI out of the least amount of effort, right?
• 13:49
  SPEAKER_00: So if we have too many different systems going on behind the scenes in our business, we're not very efficient.
• 13:54
  SPEAKER_00: And when we're not efficient, we're not as profitable as we could be.
• 13:58
  SPEAKER_00: Our team's attention is spread in too many different directions.
• 14:01
  SPEAKER_00: We're constantly trying to keep up with a million different things.
• 14:04
  SPEAKER_00: It is not the best way, the most sustainable way to keep things going in your business.
• 14:11
  SPEAKER_00: So I often see people who are churning out offer after offer after offer, and they really are diluting their efforts each time.
• 14:19
  SPEAKER_00: Instead of creating the asset once and then maximizing that asset, that product, program, or service by really figuring out the delivery of it and being able to get more and more people through that offer, really maximizing the marketing and sales of it to the point where they can bring people in it on a consistent basis.
• 14:41
  SPEAKER_00: It's just not efficient.
• 14:43
  SPEAKER_00: It's not the best way to scale.
• 14:46
  SPEAKER_00: Growing does not mean you need a million different offers.
• 14:49
  SPEAKER_00: Now, once you have that one signature offer, could you create more offers?
• 14:53
  SPEAKER_00: Sure you can.
• 14:54
  SPEAKER_00: But I usually recommend that each of my clients, when they create their one signature offer, I really want them to go all in on that offer for a year, 18 months, two years so that they can refine it as much as possible.
• 15:07
  SPEAKER_00: And then maybe they can build out a bite-sized offer.
• 15:11
  SPEAKER_00: So something that's a little smaller, that's an easy taste of what you have in the signature offer.
• 15:16
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe it's just a small portion of it, maybe it's like a preview of it, some small step that they can do prior to getting into the signature offer.
• 15:24
  SPEAKER_00: A bite-sized offer can be a great idea.
• 15:26
  SPEAKER_00: It's a smaller price point, kind of a great way to get people a result to show them, you know, that working with you will lead to results.
• 15:35
  SPEAKER_00: So that could be great, but again, it's a whole other system to build out, whole other delivery system, marketing system, sales system.
• 15:43
  SPEAKER_00: Or you could create a VIP offer, you know, something that's only available to your clients or something that's really, really high-end behind the scenes.
• 15:51
  SPEAKER_00: You can create all of those.
• 15:53
  SPEAKER_00: I just want you to remember that each time you're adding in a new offer in your business, you're adding in another level of complication.
• 15:59
  SPEAKER_00: So I want you all to remember that it's easier to grow when you have fewer things you're trying to grow.
• 16:06
  SPEAKER_00: It's easier to grow when you have fewer systems you're trying to build and improve on.
• 16:11
  SPEAKER_00: We don't have to make this so complicated.
• 16:14
  SPEAKER_00: Some of the areas where I see people get overwhelmed is marketing.
• 16:18
  SPEAKER_00: They feel like they need to do all of these things to be marketing their business.
• 16:21
  SPEAKER_00: But actually, just like having too many offers, having too many different marketing things you're trying to do at the same time can dilute your efforts.
• 16:29
  SPEAKER_00: If you've heard me talk about the five-part marketing process, it kind of covers the entire customer journey.
• 16:35
  SPEAKER_00: Attract, engage, nurture, invite, delight.
• 16:38
  SPEAKER_00: From the time somebody first hears about you all the way to somebody becoming a happily paying client and getting results from your product, program, or service.
• 16:46
  SPEAKER_00: It can be simple each step of the way.
• 16:48
  SPEAKER_00: You don't need a thousand things in each category.
• 16:51
  SPEAKER_00: For example, in my attract strategy, I have doubled down on podcast interviews.
• 16:57
  SPEAKER_00: You might have heard me on one over the last few months of this all been coming out.
• 17:02
  SPEAKER_00: I just was on Smart Passive Income.
• 17:04
  SPEAKER_00: I was on System Saved Me.
• 17:06
  SPEAKER_00: I have been on a lot of really great podcasts recently.
• 17:09
  SPEAKER_00: And that is my core attract strategy.
• 17:11
  SPEAKER_00: That is the one I'm putting all my effort in.
• 17:14
  SPEAKER_00: I'm not trying to do a million other attract strategies.
• 17:17
  SPEAKER_00: That is about focus.
• 17:19
  SPEAKER_00: We've got a system that works.
• 17:21
  SPEAKER_00: We're able to double down on it and we're able to get maximum results out of it.
• 17:26
  SPEAKER_00: Then engage.
• 17:27
  SPEAKER_00: I don't have a million different things going on.
• 17:29
  SPEAKER_00: In fact, if you have followed me over the years, you have seen me refine down and refine down the free offers that I'm putting out there.
• 17:37
  SPEAKER_00: And we know which ones work now.
• 17:39
  SPEAKER_00: So we double down on them.
• 17:40
  SPEAKER_00: We get the most out of them that we can.
• 17:42
  SPEAKER_00: Same thing with nurture.
• 17:44
  SPEAKER_00: My podcast is my core nurture strategy.
• 17:46
  SPEAKER_00: If I shut down all of my social media and all I had was my podcast and my email, I know I'd be just fine.
• 17:54
  SPEAKER_00: I don't need to be on every single social media platform.
• 17:57
  SPEAKER_00: I don't need to be trying to do the latest social media things in order to nurture my community and then invite them to become paying clients.
• 18:07
  SPEAKER_00: Invite is where sales comes in.
• 18:09
  SPEAKER_00: It does not need to be complicated.
• 18:11
  SPEAKER_00: You don't need the 37-step funnel.
• 18:13
  SPEAKER_00: Seriously, we have stripped back our sales processes so that they are mostly people listen on the podcast and then they hear about the CEO collective, they hear about the CEO retreat, and they come to a sales page and decide whether or not they want to buy.
• 18:31
  SPEAKER_00: We send out emails to a sales page.
• 18:34
  SPEAKER_00: They have an option to book a call with me if they want to learn more or have specific questions.
• 18:40
  SPEAKER_00: That is how simple it can be.
• 18:42
  SPEAKER_00: You don't need a crazy sales funnel.
• 18:44
  SPEAKER_00: You could literally send out an email to book a conversation.
• 18:48
  SPEAKER_00: When we start stripping things back and keep it really, really simple, gosh, it makes everything so much easier.
• 18:55
  SPEAKER_00: I think we have just made it so complicated unnecessarily because it sounds cool and the technology is available, and all of those things can be great.
• 19:06
  SPEAKER_00: But also it starts to really make it more about look how fancy this whole system is, and not what is the easiest, simplest way for me to connect with another human who I can help.
• 19:20
  SPEAKER_00: So I want you to think about how we can keep it simple.
• 19:22
  SPEAKER_00: How can we focus on one offer at a time and really maximize it?
• 19:27
  SPEAKER_00: How can we think about each of these parts of our business as an asset?
• 19:33
  SPEAKER_00: Each offer that I've created is an asset.
• 19:35
  SPEAKER_00: And I don't want to create it once and then leave it sit there.
• 19:38
  SPEAKER_00: I want to create it and then I want to invite people into it continuously.
• 19:42
  SPEAKER_00: I want to continuously be bringing more clients in and continuously be helping people get the results they're looking for.
• 19:48
  SPEAKER_00: Each piece of marketing that I create, I want to be an asset, something we can use again and again and again.
• 19:54
  SPEAKER_00: The sales systems we create, we don't recreate the wheel all the time.
• 19:58
  SPEAKER_00: We use them again and again and again.
• 20:00
  SPEAKER_00: So start thinking a little bit more strategically and a little simply about how things can go.
• 20:06
  SPEAKER_00: You don't need it to be so complicated.
• 20:09
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 20:10
  SPEAKER_00: My final key point here when it comes to being more strategic and more sustainable and growing your business is to slow down.
• 20:19
  SPEAKER_00: Slow down.
• 20:20
  SPEAKER_00: Just slow down.
• 20:22
  SPEAKER_00: I think this is something that we're constantly talking about, especially since we started doing the CEO retreats, where I was really getting into people's annual plans and then their quarterly plans and then watching how they were approaching week by week by week.
• 20:37
  SPEAKER_00: We instinctively overestimate how much we can get done in a week or a month, and then underestimate what we could accomplish in a year or two years or three years if we were just slow and steady.
• 20:49
  SPEAKER_00: What tends to happen is I see people who get so fired up and so excited, and they try to front load everything all into I'm gonna get this 90-day plan done in the next three weeks, or I'm gonna get a whole year plan done in 90 days, and they're not pacing themselves.
• 21:06
  SPEAKER_00: They're not pacing themselves or pacing their team.
• 21:10
  SPEAKER_00: And what you want to remember is it takes time.
• 21:14
  SPEAKER_00: When you finally create that signature offer, it will still take time for you to perfect the delivery of that offer.
• 21:23
  SPEAKER_00: When you finally create that offer and you're seeing the results coming in from your clients, there will still be things you can do to make it even better.
• 21:31
  SPEAKER_00: There will still be things you need to do in order to make sure you can take on more clients in that offer without degrading the level of service that you're providing.
• 21:41
  SPEAKER_00: It will take time.
• 21:42
  SPEAKER_00: And when we try to rush things, it usually means things are gonna start to break.
• 21:47
  SPEAKER_00: So if you try to rapidly sell multiple people into an offer that isn't quite ready for that volume yet, you're gonna end up with people who are upset about a poor customer experience and who aren't gonna get the results they want.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_00: And worst comes to worst, they go out and say, this was a terrible investment.
• 22:04
  SPEAKER_00: So we want to take time.
• 22:06
  SPEAKER_00: We want to take the time to really be thoughtful and deliberate about how we're taking care of our clients and making sure that when we are ramping up how many people we're serving, that we can do it in a way that doesn't degrade their experience and that still allows them to get the results they're looking for.
• 22:25
  SPEAKER_00: That takes time to figure out.
• 22:27
  SPEAKER_00: It takes feedback.
• 22:29
  SPEAKER_00: It takes several rounds of going through clients.
• 22:32
  SPEAKER_00: It's gonna take time.
• 22:34
  SPEAKER_00: Same thing with getting your systems in place behind the scenes in your business.
• 22:39
  SPEAKER_00: Every time we hit a new level of growth in my business, we're constantly looking at, okay, what systems do we need to re-evaluate?
• 22:48
  SPEAKER_00: It takes time to build those systems out, and it takes time to train other people on those systems.
• 22:54
  SPEAKER_00: I think one of the biggest mistakes I see with entrepreneurs when they're bringing people into their team is they expect to hire somebody, and then that person is instantly up to speed with everything going on in the business.
• 23:06
  SPEAKER_00: And that is not the case.
• 23:08
  SPEAKER_00: It will take time to build out the system to a point where somebody can sit down with that system and really understand what you're doing with it.
• 23:17
  SPEAKER_00: It will take time to make sure that system is ultimately getting the results you're looking for, whether it is a marketing system or a sales system or a customer service system, whatever the system is.
• 23:27
  SPEAKER_00: It takes time to develop these, to refine these.
• 23:31
  SPEAKER_00: And when we try to rush it, again, it leads to things breaking and it leads to unnecessary stress.
• 23:38
  SPEAKER_00: Speaking of systems, you know, it takes time to refine systems.
• 23:43
  SPEAKER_00: It takes time to refine your strategy too.
• 23:45
  SPEAKER_00: And I think this is something that when people are earlier on in their business, they're so excited and they sometimes get frustrated that there is a little bit of trial and error involved.
• 23:56
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm not gonna say ever that there is not trial and error involved in your business.
• 24:00
  SPEAKER_00: There's always gonna be a level of trial and error.
• 24:03
  SPEAKER_00: You won't always know what strategy is gonna be the best fit for you until you try a couple on.
• 24:09
  SPEAKER_00: But once you start to find what works for you, once you're more clear about your strengths, once you're more clear about how your brand stands out, once you're more clear about who your dream clients are, and again, this takes time to understand who your dream clients are.
• 24:24
  SPEAKER_00: It takes actually working with lots of them to get that data, to get that information, then we can start to refine your strategy.
• 24:31
  SPEAKER_00: And refining your strategy is an ongoing process.
• 24:35
  SPEAKER_00: I'm still refining our strategy.
• 24:37
  SPEAKER_00: Behind the scenes, we are constantly refining our strategy and thinking about how do we serve at our highest level?
• 24:44
  SPEAKER_00: How do we make the biggest impact?
• 24:46
  SPEAKER_00: What really works for us and what doesn't work for us, and how can we make sure we're staying in that sweet spot.
• 24:52
  SPEAKER_00: That is an ongoing process.
• 24:55
  SPEAKER_00: It also is an ongoing process to bring on support.
• 24:59
  SPEAKER_00: And there's a lot of different levels of support you're gonna need as you scale.
• 25:03
  SPEAKER_00: There's support you need in your team.
• 25:05
  SPEAKER_00: So it takes time to hire and train a team.
• 25:09
  SPEAKER_00: I think this is probably one of the biggest disconnects I see between entrepreneurs and other small business owners.
• 25:16
  SPEAKER_00: Entrepreneurs tend to assume that everybody runs at the pace that we run, and that is not true.
• 25:22
  SPEAKER_00: We tend to hire too fast and then wait way too long to let go of people who aren't a fit.
• 25:28
  SPEAKER_00: We tend to hire people and not have a process for them to be onboarded into our business and to fully understand the role that we want them to take ownership of.
• 25:37
  SPEAKER_00: We tend to not think about the culture we're creating.
• 25:40
  SPEAKER_00: It's kind of an accidental thing.
• 25:42
  SPEAKER_00: And these are all things we need to be more intentional about.
• 25:45
  SPEAKER_00: We can't just be thinking about the person you're hiring now.
• 25:49
  SPEAKER_00: We have to be able to hold what is the big picture of what this business is ultimately going to look like and what is the culture I'm trying to build.
• 25:55
  SPEAKER_00: How do I want everybody to be working together?
• 25:58
  SPEAKER_00: How do we make sure we're not panic hiring and causing more of a mess behind the scenes?
• 26:04
  SPEAKER_00: So it does take time to hire and to train support.
• 26:07
  SPEAKER_00: It takes time to bring people into your business.
• 26:10
  SPEAKER_00: And we have to be patient with that.
• 26:12
  SPEAKER_00: In fact, as you're doing some of these things, we also have to remember that our role will change.
• 26:19
  SPEAKER_00: Our role as a CEO will change as we are growing our business.
• 26:23
  SPEAKER_00: And this is probably the biggest lesson I have learned over the last five years of growth, especially going from me being the primary driver in a lot of different areas of my business to now having a team that is implementing a lot of things for me.
• 26:37
  SPEAKER_00: I did a whole episode on your role as CEO.
• 26:40
  SPEAKER_00: And my role as CEO has changed.
• 26:42
  SPEAKER_00: I have had to rewrite my job description every time I bring new people onto the team because otherwise I become the bottleneck and we slow down again too much.
• 26:51
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm constantly having to reevaluate my role and make sure that I'm not getting in everybody's way.
• 26:56
  SPEAKER_00: I'm staying in my zone of genius, they're staying in their zone of genius, and then we're all on the same page about the objectives that we have and where we're going.
• 27:05
  SPEAKER_00: You also need to have other types of support.
• 27:07
  SPEAKER_00: And I think this is something we don't talk about enough behind the scenes because we only hear about well, I need to hire an assistant, I need to hire a graphic designer, I need to hire a copywriter.
• 27:17
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, all those things.
• 27:18
  SPEAKER_00: Great.
• 27:19
  SPEAKER_00: And we need to have other types of support for you.
• 27:23
  SPEAKER_00: We need to have CEO level support.
• 27:26
  SPEAKER_00: When you are the highest level visionary in your business, you're the one setting the course, you're the one setting the strategy, you're the one figuring out where you want to take this business.
• 27:38
  SPEAKER_00: The pressure does start to build.
• 27:40
  SPEAKER_00: And it helps to have your own kind of board of advisors.
• 27:45
  SPEAKER_00: It helps to have people in your corner who you can go to and hash things out, think through where you're going, think through the options ahead.
• 27:55
  SPEAKER_00: Sometimes I see people who kind of get in their own way here because they try to do this with their team and then their team gets confused because they don't know what the priorities are.
• 28:04
  SPEAKER_00: So this is where having your own, I call them my board of advisors.
• 28:08
  SPEAKER_00: These are my own coaches.
• 28:10
  SPEAKER_00: These are the experts that I hire.
• 28:12
  SPEAKER_00: So the financial expert that I have on my team who I can go to and ask questions about, like, hey, I think I want to do this.
• 28:19
  SPEAKER_00: What would it take to make that happen?
• 28:22
  SPEAKER_00: The legal experts that you need to reach out to, like, what do I need to protect here?
• 28:26
  SPEAKER_00: What would it look like if we did X, Y, or Z?
• 28:29
  SPEAKER_00: We need to have some other experts in our back pocket that we can reach out to.
• 28:34
  SPEAKER_00: Because again, you don't have to be the expert in everything, but you do need to have a working knowledge and you need to have experts you can talk to.
• 28:41
  SPEAKER_00: When you're feeling unsure or when you're trying to work something out, having your own coach, your own strategist, having these specific, you know, legal finance experts, having people who can be an extra set of eyes on your business.
• 28:56
  SPEAKER_00: This is always still valuable.
• 28:58
  SPEAKER_00: So there will never be a point where I don't have some experts I'm reaching out to and consulting with, not because I don't trust myself, but because I like having that extra set of eyes on my business.
• 29:09
  SPEAKER_00: And the final area that I think we all need support, especially as women entrepreneurs, is we need what I call your personal success team.
• 29:19
  SPEAKER_00: This could be your home success team, making sure that your like life is running as smoothly as possible.
• 29:26
  SPEAKER_00: This could be your emotional success team.
• 29:30
  SPEAKER_00: I know that throughout this past year, if it wasn't for the fact that I have my therapist on my calendar every two weeks to check in with me, if it wasn't for the fact that I have a doctor who is helping me manage my chronic health conditions and is proactively working with me on that, if it wasn't for the fact that I have my chiropractor and my massage therapist, like I have these people on my team.
• 29:58
  SPEAKER_00: And their whole job is to make sure that I am able to show up and give my business 100% and give my family 100%.
• 30:08
  SPEAKER_00: This is so important because these are the things that we start to neglect as we start to grow.
• 30:13
  SPEAKER_00: I know that when I get into these kind of busy periods, these busy seasons, instantly the first thing to go is my self-care.
• 30:21
  SPEAKER_00: Instantly the first thing to go is like going on a walk in the morning or um making sure I'm not just drinking coffee all day long.
• 30:27
  SPEAKER_00: I will even sit down if I'm really in like head-down mode.
• 30:32
  SPEAKER_00: This is my type three Enneagram.
• 30:34
  SPEAKER_00: I will go all day and not eat a thing until I get home.
• 30:36
  SPEAKER_00: And then I realize, oh, I haven't had anything but coffee all day.
• 30:39
  SPEAKER_00: No wonder I'm starving.
• 30:41
  SPEAKER_00: I need the success team to help me to make sure that I can actually show up 100%.
• 30:45
  SPEAKER_00: And that is how I make sure I burnout proof my business, is I am prioritizing myself by asking people to help me.
• 30:53
  SPEAKER_00: And I think that's something we need to normalize.
• 30:56
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, my final thing here with slowing down is to know that growth is not linear.
• 31:03
  SPEAKER_00: As we grow our business, we might have years where, yeah, especially in the early days, like doubling your business when you're at 50K to 100K, totally doable.
• 31:12
  SPEAKER_00: That happens.
• 31:13
  SPEAKER_00: Doubling your business even from 100K to 200K, like there might be periods where you go through explosive growth in your business where you really are doubling it.
• 31:21
  SPEAKER_00: And there will be periods where that level of growth means it needs to slow down, like you have that level of growth, and then you need to hold it.
• 31:31
  SPEAKER_00: You need to normalize being at that level a little bit.
• 31:33
  SPEAKER_00: You need to catch up in the infrastructure before you go after more growth.
• 31:38
  SPEAKER_00: And that's okay.
• 31:39
  SPEAKER_00: That is totally okay.
• 31:41
  SPEAKER_00: I have had plateaus in my growth where some years we grew a little bit slower than others.
• 31:46
  SPEAKER_00: Sometimes that was intentional, like years where I had babies or years where I was shifting from one brand to another, and it felt like a foundation year, I needed to just maintain the level of revenue I was at.
• 32:00
  SPEAKER_00: And some years I've had the infrastructure in place and I was able to go after more growth.
• 32:05
  SPEAKER_00: Know that this is not a linear thing.
• 32:08
  SPEAKER_00: And it is okay if you have a growth spurt, just like when you watch kids, I'm watching my 10-year-olds now go through these crazy growth spurts.
• 32:16
  SPEAKER_00: They're gonna go through a growth spurt and then they'll plateau for a little bit, and then they'll have another growth spurt and then they'll plateau for a little bit.
• 32:22
  SPEAKER_00: That is okay.
• 32:24
  SPEAKER_00: Growth is not linear, and we need to normalize having these kind of like busy seasons and a little bit slower seasons.
• 32:32
  SPEAKER_00: The busy seasons are where we can go after growth, and the slower seasons are where we can be really strategic about making sure the infrastructure is keeping up with that growth.
• 32:42
  SPEAKER_00: It doesn't have to be all or nothing.
• 32:44
  SPEAKER_00: It doesn't have to be grow, grow, grow at all costs.
• 32:47
  SPEAKER_00: You're the CEO.
• 32:48
  SPEAKER_00: You can decide at any point if you want to pull back a little bit so that you can catch your breath and make sure that the infrastructure is in place.
• 32:56
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 32:56
  SPEAKER_00: I hope this series was really helpful for you.
• 33:00
  SPEAKER_00: I hope it got you thinking about growth in your business a little more critically, got you thinking about how we can be a little more strategic with this whole thing.
• 33:11
  SPEAKER_00: If you have been listening to this series and you've really loved it, I want to encourage you to go start the process with me to learn more about where you need support in scaling your business.
• 33:26
  SPEAKER_00: And if working with my team and myself inside of the collective could be the next step for you.
• 33:31
  SPEAKER_00: If you go to the CEO Collective.com/slash scale, I have an assessment for you to walk through.
• 33:38
  SPEAKER_00: There are seven key questions that I will be asking to help you find clarity around where you need support next.
• 33:46
  SPEAKER_00: We really want to be available to support you.
• 33:48
  SPEAKER_00: So if you finish that assessment and it makes sense, we will invite you to jump on a quick call with us to make sure that the CEO collective is the right next step to helping you sustainably scale your business.
• 34:03
  SPEAKER_00: Thanks so much for listening to this series.
• 34:04
  SPEAKER_00: I can't wait to hear all of your insights and ahas.
• 34:08
  SPEAKER_00: For the full show notes, head over to rachelcook.com slash show.
• 34:11
  SPEAKER_00: And if you don't want to miss any future episodes, make sure you are subscribed to the show, Apple Podcasts, Spotify Stitcher, or wherever else you listen to podcasts.
• 34:20
  SPEAKER_00: Thanks so much for listening to this week's episode of Promote Yourself to CEO.
• 34:24
  SPEAKER_00: We'll talk soon.