The Fierce Business Babe Podcast Ep 261: Are You Ready To Scale?
Today I am going to be sharing some signs to look out for to know when it is the right time and exactly how to start to really prepare yourself and your business to scale and shift into that next level, along with exactly how to start to shift into that next level of your business and so much more!
ARE YOU READY TO SCALE?
By: Melissa Lin
Today's episode is all about how to know you’re ready to scale your business. Something that I heard about and actually shared about this on my Instagram stories earlier this week, was that there are things that you can do to move the needle forward in your business, depending on where you're at. I was sharing about, you know, the things that you can do if you're at the 5K/month level or 10K/month level, 20K/month level to start to really move the needle forwards in your business, depending on what stage or season you are in your business. I had so many of you reach out to me after doing that mini story, that mini training on my stories and really start asking more questions about it, Like, “What are some of the things to look out for Melissa. Like, what do you recommend?” or “What can you share from your past experience?” or “How do you know it's time to move on to the next level?” and something that I share a lot is the things that dont you to 5K/months, for example, those are not the things that are going to necessarily get you to 10K/months. And those are not the things that were going to get you to 20K or 30K months and beyond. So, today I really wanted to dive into some of the signs and some of the things to look out for to know that you're ready to really scale and take things to the next level in your business.
So I'm going to share some examples for when I plateaued my business and when I really needed to start to shift into scaling to move into the next level, some signs to look out for, and how to start to prepare yourself and your business for your next level. Something that I absolutely love supporting my clients with is helping them get to where they want to go in their businesses, helping them move things forward to helping them create their freedom and their lives, where it's freedom of time, freedom of money. And on top of that, I also love helping them prep and be ready for the next level.
So for example, My clients inside of my Six-Figure Fierce Business Mastermind, which is my 6-month container that is a mix of 1:1 and group, I support my clients and help them scale consistently from 10K/month in their businesses to little over six figures each year. Also, inside of this program, I prepare them for the next level. So yes, I support my clients and help him get to the 10K month level inside of this program. And I want them to be ready on the back end to handle the next level, which would look like 20k or 30k months.
The reason why is, if you start to get to the 20K/30k months, but your system from the back end can't handle it, it becomes so difficult to try and upgrade those systems while things are happening in the business. I would rather you and my clients have things prepped on the back end so that if I were to hand you 30 clients tomorrow, your business could handle it, right? That's what you want to be prepped for, you want to be prepared for the next level. Our business is always prepped for the next level.
So, for example, on the back end, our systems can already handle multiple seven figures. We've already put all the work in so that we are ready for that. We don't want somebody to break our systems. So, I love helping you prep for that next level, which is what we're going to start to talk a little bit about today along with some of the signs on when it's ready to start to scale and really prep for that next level. You should definitely start to think about prepping now for it. I definitely recommend it.
Signs to Look For
I have had a few times and a few moments in my business where I knew like, okay, this is the moment where it's time to really step up, it's time to really step out of my comfort zone and move to the next level, it's time for me to scale. I want to share some of those moments with you because sometimes we don't always know what to look for. We don't always know what those moments can look like or what they're supposed to look like or what some examples kind of are. Because up until that moment, or moments, that I had my business, I personally didn't really know what to expect or when it was going to be that time to make that big shift or make that big decision to move into the next level.
So, one of the very first big moments where I realized it was happening was right before I actually made my very first hire in my business, which was back in 2018. I knew this was a big moment in my business because up until that point of my very first hire, I was wearing so many hats. I was spending so much of my time doing tasks in my business and specifically admin tasks, and I was spending hours and hours in Canva every week and hours and hours creating content and hours and hours just doing everything because I was wearing all of the hats. So, I knew that in order for me to scale and move to the next level, I needed to make a change. So I was at the point where I was already bringing in consistent cash flow and it was time to really step up. So for me, that change was bringing on new team members. That change was starting to really delegate and really outsource so that I could spend more of my time focusing on some of those things that were actually going to help move the needle forward and help me actually scale.
So I truly would not have been able to move my business into the multiple six-figure level without starting to make some of those big decisions and some of those big hires in my business as well. So this is one of those signs that I would definitely look out for. I do want to preface and say that the signs that I had in my business may not look exactly like the signs in your business, right? There's no cookie-cutter for how this is supposed to look like, or how it's going to look like. However, this may help when you are going through some of these things, and think back to “Oh, yeah, I remember Melissa chatting about that same moment in her business or starting to feel some of these similar feelings of where Melissa was in her business at that time.”, that sort of thing.
Spending Too Much Time
So, one of the signs to look out for to know whether you are ready to make some changes and start to shift into a next-level is if you're spending most of your time doing tasks right now that aren't necessarily things that are moving the needle forward for you. So, hours in Canva, for example, those hours in Canva are not necessarily going to move the needle forward for you today and it's something that can definitely be outsourced and delegated if you're at that point where you’re ready to start to hire team members. So if you have enough cash flow coming in where you can invest in a team member, I would definitely recommend doing so.
Income Plateau
Now, I want to share another example where I was definitely stuck for a little bit and it took me a few months to see the sign and even realize it was time to make some changes so that I could really scale into the next level of my business. It was 2019, thinking back to it. I had actually plateaued and I brought in the same income from my business for a few months and not that there's anything wrong with that, right? However, I had set some goals that I was working towards and I kind of got complacent and wasn’t really challenging myself and wasn't really doing the things I needed to move the needle forward. So another big sign to look out for is if you’re plateauing an income level that isn't necessarily where you want to be anymore. Then we may want to look into what's happening at that moment? What's happening in your business? What are some of the gaps between now and where you want to be? And let's start to make some tweaks, let’s start to make some pivots, some changes.
This is definitely a sign that could be telling you it's time to scale and it's time to make some of those decisions or events or changes in your business to help you move into that next level. So, as I mentioned, during those few months, I was definitely not challenging myself. I was complacent doing the same things over and over and I wasn't really thinking big enough. I wasn't doing those things that were scaring me, right? I was staying in my comfort zone when I needed to step out of it.
So we have covered two things so far. Two of the points are the signs that are big sellers on whether you're ready to scale things to the next level. The first was spending too much time in your business and not enough time on things that are actually moving the needle forward, and the second was plateauing at an income level. So definitely things to be looking out for and just having in the back of your head in the future.
Holding Yourself Back
So the next sign is something I've gone through myself, and if you're launching a program, let's say a group program, for example, and you see yourself enrolling the same number of people every single launch, that could be another tell for you as well. So for example, the first few times that I launched one of my group programs, a few years ago, every time I launched, I was stuck at about 8-9 enrollments. Some of those reasons were both mindset and systems in my business. My goal was usually 12 or 15, but every single time I was bringing in 8 or 9. What happened, looking back, was that my systems could not support more than 8 or 9 and the support that I had in my business could also not support more than eight or nine. So, what ended up happening was I just wasn't available to bring in more than that.
So, if you’re launching something or maybe if you've launched something a few times, and you're bringing in a number of people, or lets say, for example, five people per round, but you wanted to be 10 or 15 per round or 20 per round, then I want you to think about that and start to ask yourself, “Okay. What is actually holding me back at this moment from bringing in more? Is it something actually holding me back? Is it my mindset? Is it the support in my business or the systems in my business? What does that look like?”. And it's most likely a sign that it's time to make a change or tweak, even on how your program runs or an upgrade to some of your systems or bringing in more support so that you can support that number of clients in your programs or in your offer that you're launching.
So if you are starting to feel any of these things, If you are feeling like things are starting to Plateau, if you're feeling like you're moving into a space of complacency or you're just telling yourself, you know, not to go bigger or if you're not challenging yourself or maybe your client roster is full and you're not sure what you need to do to move things forward or unsure If you can handle more clients, it's very likely that It's time to make some tweaks in your business. Which yes, you're allowed to do. You're allowed to make tweaks on how your programs run or how much support is in your programs or different things like that, so that you are able to scale and move it to the next level. This is something I actually love doing, this is what we do inside of My higher-level programs. We look at your programs, where they're at now and how scalable they actually are. If I were to hand you 30 clients for whatever you're launching right now, how easy would that onboarding process be, the offboarding, the support of your clients? If it's going to make you pull your hair out and you have no idea what to do, then that program is not yet scalable. And it's okay. We can definitely get it there with a few tweaks.
We've touched on so many things already. We’ve touched on some of the signs, some of the things to look out for to know that you're ready to really scale and take things to the next level. I've shared some examples for when I was stuck and when I plateaued, when I really needed to start to shift a little bit more into scaling and moving into the next level, some things for you to look out for and how to start to prepare yourself for your next level as well for your business and for you and so much more. Thank you for hanging out with me today. I'm always going to be your biggest cheerleader. So you taking the time out of your day to hang with me truly means the world to me. I’ll see you next time.
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