How to Grow Your Business (Exponentially!) in 9 Steps
You probably think it all the time: I need to grow my business.
But what does it actually mean to scale a business successfully?
It’s not just about making more money, bringing on more clients, hiring more people, or selling more products. I see so many entrepreneurs, influencers, business owners, and brands, with this incredible message, skill, product, or service, reaching for success at the cost of their marriage, relationship, the lives of their children, their health, and even their ability to grow. They have a vision and a dream but lack the guidance, experience, resources, and time necessary to grow their business in a way that touches more lives while still allowing them the freedom to pursue their dreams. I teach my clients, students, and mastermind members to scale their influence, their income, and their time freedom (what I call the IIT factor) using my Nine Phase Scaling Up Method.
I had this big dream...
A few years ago, I was working as a marketing consultant and I was coaching clients one-on-one. I thought I was building my dream, only to find out that with each client I took on, I was getting further and further from my dream. I wanted to scale my business to a place where I had wealth established, I was continuing to grow, and had time to do the things I love with the people I love. I pictured a life with less stress, more peace, and being totally on fire with the work I was doing.
But the work I was doing was actually moving me away from the ideal business model. I was working one-on-one and I was maxing out how many people I could take on. I was trading time for money, which meant in order for me to be earning, I had to be physically working, and the only way for me to earn more was to hustle more and give up more of my time.
A scalable business model opens the door for ways to expand your business or your brand. It's about looking at your current business, where it stands today, and identifying the areas that are a hindrance to your growth. Are you trying to do everything yourself? Do you only have one stream of income, a service-based business model, or only a couple of products? Are you wondering how you can create a roadmap to grow beyond those roadblocks?
The proven process that I’m about to share with you doesn’t work overnight. Growing your business in a sustainable way is something that happens over time, and is based on your goals, values, and your vision (but you can certainly see wins early and often along the way!). And remember, you can do this at any stage in your business!
I’m going to walk you through every step of my nine phase methodology so you can get a better understanding of what it means to “scale up” and how you can apply this methodology to grow your business. I’m going to help you determine where you are, where you want to go, and then I’ll show you how to create a strategy to get there!
Phase One: Self-Audit and Visualize
It's not just about pulling receipts and looking at numbers. In order to scale your business, we have to not only audit your business, but you as a person. What do you value? What’s important in your life? Think about your family, faith, health, wealth, finances, and your overall happiness and feeling of fulfillment.
What does the day-to-day of your business look like? What does it look like when your feet hit the ground in the morning? What does your ideal day look like? How much time do you have available to spend with your family? How much time do you take off? How much money are you making and when? What kinds of vacations do you take? Which charitable organizations are you involved in and how do you give back? How do you spend your down time?
If you are not building a business that supports the things that truly mean something to you, you will be forever living in a place of disappointment because your expectations don’t align with your reality. Time is not going to get you there. It’s what you actually do that will get you there. An audit allows you to evaluate if your actions align with your goals. I created my Future Forecast Formula to help you with this exact step (and it’s completely free!).
Phase Two: Create the Blueprint and Strategy
How often do you feel like you're just winging it? Or you feel like you’re using hope as a strategy? Use that hope to get laser focused on creating the blueprint for growing your business! Focus on where you want to see the numbers start to change. The idea is that we are going to map out the process and take the guesswork out. Let’s create some clarity so you know that the work you’re putting in is actually getting you where you want to go.
Phase Three: Audience
Phase Three is where we focus on your audience and your message to that audience. I have heard this advice so often: figure out exactly who your ideal client is, find out what they want, and then provide that product or service. Simple as that, right?!
The reality is that you have to nail down your ideal client and target audience so that you can better understand your brand voice and messaging. You want to create content that speaks to them and their specific needs. You want them to read your content and think, “Wow, that would really solve my problem.” The way you speak to them about your products or services, your phrasing, every word you use is what will set you apart. To do this, I want you to survey your audience and get a pulse on what they are struggling with. Seriously: actually ask them what they need help with or want to hear. Collect solid data to help drive your future messaging. You will then use that messaging to create ads, draft sales page content, craft emails, and go live on social media.
Phase Four: Lead Attraction and Generation
Just because your ideal client is out there and you know who they are and how you can solve their problem, doesn't mean they're just magically going to flock to you to you. So how do you start to attract them? In this phase we are going to work to build out lead magnets that are going to make it easier for you to impact more lives, while building multiple passive (key word here!) income streams.
How can you attract those leads and then how do you support them when you do? This piece of the puzzle is fun! This is where we start creating opt-ins. Are you creating video opt-ins? Are you doing Facebook Lives and promoting them? How are you going to get into the hands, the eyes, and the ears of your ideal client? Where do they hang out? What do they love? What do they need? What are they searching for? What are the terms that they're using to search for those things and how can you turn those into opt-ins that are speaking directly to them?
How can you create an opt-in that's a solution to their pain point and is a free way to get in front of them so that you can start to nurture that relationship?
So often we hear,”the market's so saturated.” And then we start to think, “someone is already doing this, they're more famous than me, why should I even bother?”
The answer is simple: because they didn't do it like you. They didn't use the same system you did. They didn’t nurture their audience the same way you did, and their target audience might not be the same as your target audience. Your story is not their story. It’s not just about selling your product or service, this is about creating a tribe.
Phase Five: Identify and Build Your Signature Method
You want to be able to tell your client that you have a proven method that will address their pain points and will allow them to come out on the other side, completely transformed. Your signature method is when we establish your high ticket offer and we create cash flow in your business - now. Ready for this step? Grab my Signature Method freebie here and I’ll walk you through it!
Phase Six: Niche Down
We’re going to find the niche that needs your methodology. This is when we become highly strategic and gain clarity.
Once we’ve niched down, we can bring your ideas to life and create a product suite that aligns with your values, your goals, and the impact you want to make.
We need to determine the nitty-gritty details of your actual products and services in this phase. How are you creating them, how are you pricing them, who are you offering them to, and what is your overall plan? Once you have a product suite built out, you’re going to bring in passive income, higher income, better income, and most importantly you’re going to have a bigger impact with bigger results for your clients.
Phase Seven: Grow and Optimize Your Strategy
I love the word “optimize” because it can be applied to all things: business, health, marriage, and parenting. I want you to be the best, most optimized version of you, and as a result, I want to make sure we get your website and assets set-up to naturally and passively help grow your business.
When was the last time your website, or assets like your videos and social media posts, worked for you? Utilizing these strategies can be a game changer for your business. Look at your website and determine if the layout is effective. Are you utilizing all of the prime real estate on your website? Are you utilizing an opt-in option to generate leads and establish a tribe? You want the most optimized business possible so that you can start living your dream.
Phase Eight: Automation and Outsourcing
This is all about uncapping potential. This is where we're creating systems so you can work smarter, not harder, and start to build the team that's going to support your mission. Maybe it's not from day one. Maybe this is a one, two, three or four year rollout. We're looking at the roadmap based on your goals, your vision, your ambitions, where you want to go, how much time you want to put in, and how you want to build this thing. We're figuring out who you need and when, what you need to systemize, and what tools you need in your back pocket to be able to automate things so that you're not going in there and doing the same things over and over. You're starting to make your business rock solid which means there’s less risk in your business for you and more opportunity for growth.
Phase Eight is scary because you start to delegate some of your work, but it’s where you’re really going to see compounded growth. I will never forget when a mentor friend of mine asked, “So, how long are you planning on staying small?” I was so focused on hustling that I had convinced myself that I had to do it all. I believed I had to figure it out all on my own because I didn’t have the money to invest back into myself or my business. At least that’s what I told myself.
What he said stung, because he was right. I was telling myself that I was in early business, I couldn’t afford it, I just have to hustle, grind and do it myself. I truly believed that I could do it all myself. My mindset was preventing me from growing my business because I was closed off to the idea that I needed people who were more skilled than I was to help me grow my business. The truth is that you have to invest in your business in order to grow it.
It’s hard, but you have to believe in yourself and invest in yourself and your business. You are the only thing standing in the way of your business growing.
Phase Nine: Power Up Your Purpose
Do you want to know what it actually feels like to have more influence, more income, and more freedom? Those three things are what I call the IIT factor. When you close your eyes and you picture life one year, three years, and five years from now, do you picture something so beautiful it gives you goosebumps? When you power your purpose, you turn those dreams into reality.
At this point, you’ve reached new levels of your business: you’re a leader. You react differently when you face struggle because you’ve gone through this process and have built an epic business. You’re not immune to struggle or rejection, hardships or setbacks; those will always be there. But what if you looked at them through a different lens? What if you rose to the challenge instead of being defeated by it? What if, when faced with an obstacle, you looked at it as something that you could surmount? You have been there before, you know how to do it, and you have the system, the team, the business, the optimization, and the vision in place to get you where you want to go.
This is not just about building your business, upping your income, having a greater impact, getting more followers, having more people purchase from you, or even having more freedom of time to be with the people you love or do the things you love. This is about you having one shot at life and ensuring that you are optimizing you in that life.The dream in your heart doesn't have to end as just a dream - it can become your reality. It can become the legacy that you've built for your life, for your family, and for generations that follow.
I am obsessed with this methodology.
The people that come out on the other side feel empowered. They realize that the cost of investing in themselves doesn't even compare to the cost of them choosing to not try and keep doing things the way they're doing them; scrambling, hustling, lack of vision, lack of clarity, no offerings or product suite that's going to take them to the next level. Instead of thinking that they just have to put in more time and take on more clients to fix the problem, they start to realize that they are ready to step up and do what they were called to do.
It’s going to be hard, but you can do it.
This is why I’ve started my mastermind. I want it to be made up of people who might not know their next steps, but they know if they’re given this methodology, if they are given guidance from an entrepreneur who believes in them, they can do anything. I want to create a ripple effect. I want to empower people who have a message and a mission, and help them get it out into the world with bigger impact and greater influence.
The next five years are determined by the choices you are making today. What are you willing to accept as your truth in the narrative that you're writing on your life? You are capable. You are so blessed to have the opportunities that you have in front of you.
Let's make some dreams happen!