Growing vs. Scaling

Welcome to Captivate and Close. I'm Kinsey Machos, business consultant and marketing strategist. And I'm going to show you how to attract and enroll high-paying clients using my breakthrough online marketing strategies, all without having to rely on complicated funnels, disingenuous clickbait, or spammy sales tactics. These are the messaging marketing and selling secrets that virtually no one is talking about. So let's dive in. Hey, you, welcome back. So happy to be plugged into your ears today, wherever you're listening, whenever you're listening, I am coming in to talk about growing versus scaling. This is a really fun topic for me, because I get to really drop into my MBA my business see type self, I definitely don't get to leverage that level of expertise enough. But it's actually been really fun. Because as our clients have been growing into new heights, I get to exercise that more. And we're so excited to start to bring these offers to more people so that I can be operating in my highest zone of genius. My brilliance is insane. And I don't say that from a place of bragging, I just am so proud and confident in my knowledge in my experience, in the the tools that we have to serve our clients. And one of the things that I've had a huge realization around is that when we're all operating under a zone of genius, like there's this synergy that occurs with you and your clientele, and it's really, really incredible. And so it's important to continue to check in with yourself and making sure that you are only working with your best clients like the people that are a good match for you, and that you are able to access your highest zone of genius more often. Okay, so going back to this idea of growing versus scaling, this is an interesting topic, because it's not necessarily something that's super sexy, however, it is important to really understand and I'm going to encourage you to really drop the hat of maybe the marketer or the sales or the coach or you know, the service provider and start to drop into a CEO. And a lot of the content that's going to be coming out is going to be geared towards that realm, if you will have really challenging you to see your business as a business, it's really, really important to adopt these practices and this mindset around a true business owner. Because this is something that I see in the industry all the time people are just come in, they're like, Well, I just want to help people and then they get in on the like content hamster wheel, and then they get like swallowed up by social media algorithm, all the crap. And none of that is really that important, when you start to zoom out and really look at the responsibility of a business owner, and the fundamentals of owning a business. And until you take that serious, it'll feel really hard to grow or scale. And so this is coming from that context of really educating you so that you have the tools to be able to operate as a sustainable and profitable business. And that doesn't really come natural for most people. I mean, it wouldn't be for me, and it still isn't even for me, even though I have extensive training in business. You know, I have my master's in business administration, I spent over a decade in the corporate industry. And I've since you know, really been doing this on my own. For the last four years, I have that extensive experience, but I still feel challenged by it. You know, it's one thing to know something, and to have the knowledge around it. It's another thing to exercise it every day and master it. And so if you're feeling challenged by it, know that it's normal, but you cannot give up and this is ultimately the thing that is going to make or break you. And so I don't mean to say that out of fear or, you know, scarcity, but it's the truth and sometimes the truth hurts. So, all that being said, one of the things that I see very common in the industry is growing and scaling and scale is being The word scale is being overused. And you also see growth and scale, being interchanged with one another, but they're actually very different. And knowing the difference can help you save a lot of pain, and confusion, and really keep you on that straight and narrow, I'm going to be dropping another episode that is talking specifically around the four signs that you are ready to scale. And that gives you more context through that lens. But knowing the difference between growth and scale, will help you really understand like, where to focus your time. And when you start to make that pivot, you know what you need to prepare for. And I think that what's cool is as you educate yourself as a business owner, and you start to develop that skill, when you start seeing things, and you are like being marketed to write, so it's like scaling your business is like now you actually know how to interpret things and can equip yourself with the right tools to know exactly what you're being sold to, or, you know, what you need is really helps you just create a full spectrum of knowledge and skill sets so that you can make better decisions, which is important. Well, one of the most important things right is making better decisions. So as it relates to growing and scaling, what we want to talk about is the difference between the two. Now, one of the things that I did was I pulled up a definition because I think, again, just kind of level setting with a standard definition is super helpful. So I have one definition here that actually came from indeed. And the question is what is business growth, and they define business growth is expanding a business to generate additional profits. So when you think about growth, right, it's the increase of revenue of profits. In regards to up word mobility,

then if we look at scale, and the definition of scale, it's defined as the ability to reduce a company's production costs and increase profitability when it produces more of a given product. So replace product with, you know, programs, services, whatever. But notice that the difference here is that we're not just growing, right, we're not just increasing profitability, but we're also reducing production costs. Meanwhile, we are overall increasing that result. So growth is just I think of it is even just if you were to look at a chart, it's just like, everything's going up, volume is up, right, that includes your resources. Now, again, if it's just you, I want you to just kind of think, bigger picture. But imagine you're wearing the hat as a marketer, the hat of the seller, the hat of the delivery, right, you're delivering the program, you're selling the program, you're marketing the program, you're also operations, you're wearing all the hats, and when you think about growing, you're basically increasing your productivity, or you're increasing your resources and all of those units. Again, if it's just you, right, but you're growing, naturally, you're going to see an increase of activity and all of those things, that means that as you grow, you're also increasing your input, I like to think of it as input versus output think this is probably project management coming out. But when you think of something going in, right, it creates something that comes out. And growth, we're increasing input and also increasing output. Now with scale, the idea here is that we're increasing output, right? We're increasing results, we're increasing profitability, and revenue, or we're increasing revenue, but also increasing profitability, which means other elements are going down, right production costs, which means for you, right, perhaps it's time is going down resources, you're not having to market as much you're not having to sell as much you're not having to fulfill as much. And so this is a really important distinction. Because when you think of scaling a business, when you're in your earlier phases, it's really, really difficult because you don't even have a foundation that is viable yet to sustain. And this is why it's really hard to make that leap when you're just getting started. And that's why we don't want to buy into this idea of scale just yet. I think it's important to grow as much as you You can, until you start to really see where your opportunities for scale are, I don't want to go too much into sort of the ways in which you are ready to scale because that will come in another episode. But where we find the burnout occurs is that when you are in growth mode, and you start to hit a ceiling, again, if you imagine yourself as the business, because I know many of you are like, well, this doesn't apply to me yet. I'm too early on, I'm not ready for this. But that is the exact mindset that will keep you where you are. And so I'm asking you to just think bigger about your business and think bigger about yourself as a CEO. So even if it's just you imagine that you are wearing all these hats, you're wearing all these costumes, as these different business units. And when you hit that threshold, right of not been able to do the things you need to do to not just grow the business, but then take it to the next level, then we're gonna find ourselves at a ceiling. And when you start to also think about yourself wearing these different hats, what that enables you to do is also start to think about what do I desire to start delegating first? And also, where are the gaps. So there's so much opportunity, when we think about growth in scale, it's going to look and feel different for everybody. Now, I want to give some like super tangible examples of what it might look like to grow versus scale. Right. And when you think about even a door knocker, right, somebody that is going door to door, and I think this is super outdated, but I think it just gives such a good visual, when you think about somebody going door to door sales, right? We get people here all the time, it's ridiculous. And it's you know, a company that's selling their pest control services. And they know that in order to convert a certain amount of sales, they have to have it's hit a certain amount of doors. And so in order to grow that volume, what does that mean, they have to go to more doors, they're increasing their input, and also right to increase their output. So now they have to work more to get more doors, right? But when you think about something that skills, right, same effort, but larger output, right, what would it look like to bring a neighborhood together and you talk about you, you talk about your services in your company, in a room full of people. So now, not only have we not increased the effort, we've actually decreased that for because we're not going door to door. Now we get to talk to more people at once, and grow the company. And when you think about decreased expenses, or decreased ever right? That door to door salesman isn't now spending hours on hours, going door to door, right, we've just decreased our expense and effort and on his account. Now the same applies to a an email, right, it takes the same effort to send one email, that it would to send 20 emails when you think about, you know, an email marketing platform. And so when you think about reaching more people, but not increasing the amount of effort, that's what it looks like to scale, anything, there's components, or micro components of this, in all of our businesses that we should really start looking at before we think of scale is a big thing. And when it comes to your offers in your services, this is another really big component, right? If you are doing all the work, the marketing and the sales and the operations, and you're starting to fill out capacity, like we had discussed earlier, right, you're gonna start to notice where you're having repeat behavior or repeat actions and really think about streamlining, right? This is what we do with you and launch like a queen. It's like, where do we need to streamline so that you can work less like we don't want to increase your input, right? But now we're starting to see the business grow and scale. And so when you think about these two things, right, it's so important, because you'll now start to pay attention to where am I starting to really increase my input and either I'm not seeing an increase on the other side or right, I am maybe even plateauing. And this is really common when companies are when women are kind of at that threshold where they literally have grown at their own capacity. Now, from my own personal experience, you know, I was very limited on time. And when you think about even the nature of scalability, it is, yes, we're working to decrease the expenses, and, you know, increase production without having to increase anything else, really. But overall, what nobody told me was that actually getting to that level of scale does require extra money and extra time, like you can just wake up and decide like I'm ready to scale and put in less time and watch your business grow. And I know it sounds kind of like obvious, but it's actually not as obvious as you would think. And I think this was a A huge lesson learned that I had is that it is expensive to scale, especially if you want to go faster. But when I was working full time, and wanted to really get my business at a level where I felt comfortable leaving corporate, which by the way, I left way before that, because I realized that I reached my own capacity for time, I knew I couldn't grow the business anymore, without spending a little bit more time on it, but I was working all day. And so that's something to I think we need to consider is like, you're never going to feel ready for that next level, I hear all the time of like, well, I'm not quite ready to hire, or I'm not quite ready to, you know, delegate or invest in this or that, but you will never feel ready. It's just the truth. It's the same thing of, you know, planning for your first or your next baby, or feeling like you're ready to leave your job. Most women that I talked to, that have a corporate background and have now a successful business, they were actually pushed out of corporate intentionally. And they say to this day, if I would have never been fired, or pushed out, I would have never left because I never felt quote unquote, ready. But same thing when I was growing is like there, I just there was a kind of that straw that I was like, Dude, I cannot go on, and I'm at a cap. And but I knew right investing, I wasn't scaling the business at large, if you will, again, this is sort of an example of where these micro components of scale are when you start to you know, streamline your input and output. But I had a VA, I've always had a VA, whether it was a couple of hours a week or more than that. But I knew there was things that I could do, but I didn't have the time. And so I paid a va a couple of hours a week to help me do that. And so that's a level of scale, when you think about, you know, like really making sure that you're doing the things that need to be done to grow. But you can't do it, you're out capacity. And this is one of the biggest mistakes I think women make is they wait too long to hire because of the responsibility that comes with that. But it's actually the most simple and easiest way to start moving more into scalability is hiring a part time EA or VA, and really think about all the hats that you're wearing the operations hat, the fulfillment hat, the marketing hat, the sales hat, which one of those do you like, literally despise the most or which one feels the most energy depleting? And, you know, for me, for example, I will wear the marketing hat for a very long time, because that's my zone of genius. And also I love it, it gives me life. And so that's gonna be the very last thing I delegate now, do I delegate components of it? Absolutely right, my podcast team edits and produces my podcast, but I just show up and record, I have, you know, people that helped me repurpose my content, I have a videographer. And that helps me produce video content, right. So I have support structures underneath that. But ultimately, I'm not up leveling, I'm not like moving my marketing, to I'm not moving the marketing responsibilities to anyone else other than myself. Fulfillment was is something that now we have a client success manager, and she's responsible for making sure our clients succeed. So our program metrics are being met and really has a dial on what's working and what's not working. Do I love that? Yes, I do. I love obviously serving our clients. But at the end of the day, I don't have the capacity to do the marketing and the fulfillment at the level of detail that it needs to be done. And so that was something that I recently delegated. But up until that point, when you think of just like ad hoc tasks and operations, right, contractual, like building contracts, emails, you know, Canva, design, Tech Tech was, oh, my gosh, Tech was absolutely one of the first things that I delegated. These are all things that people can help you do. And so when you think about all the hats that you're wearing, which is the one that you don't like you're not good at, and you hate the most. And you can find a really great EA or VA to help you do that. And it doesn't mean you have to pay them a full time salary and take on, you know, an employee EA, it means that you can hire a contractor now, can I guarantee that that person is going to work out? No. And I think this is something that people get in the habit of believing is like, what if I hire the wrong person? Well, you likely will. And that my friend is the name of the game. And you learn from those lessons and you keep going but ultimately, even if you run if you desire to run a lean machine, and you really want to stay premium and you don't have a desire to grow super big, although I would challenge that thought and you but that's besides the point. If you want to keep a really lean machine, you still have to learn how to be a leader and lead a team. And so this is per hubs where you're being called. Now, one of the things that I would love for you to do is start to look at like, what is your capacity? Like? Could you keep growing at the rate, could we just increase? Most women, most of you may just be at the level where you just need to increase the input to increase output. A lot of you aren't even doing, quote unquote, enough meaning like you think you're you're kind of at, you're stuck, because it's not working, but you just haven't put in the number of reps yet. And so most of you might be at this season where it's like, just got to increase that input to increase the output. And you don't really have to worry too much about that yet. But if you are not able to increase the input the effort, because you have time issues, then that's going to mean that you're going to, like likely, if you desire to grow, perhaps you're getting help, perhaps you're starting to delegate things. And for anybody that starts to believe, like, well, I'm too early on, I'm telling you, the first couple weeks that I was a quote, unquote, official LLC, I had a VA, I never bought into sort of this beginner type of mentality, because I saw the vision of where I was going, and what I wanted to do. And, and really sat into that and aligned the decisions with that, knowing also that I had a lifestyle to preserve, right, so I really make sure that I'm protecting my time and my energy. And any time, we're sort of feeling like we're busting out of the seams in the company, right? It's time to look at okay, do we need a position to fulfill this? Or is it a process, right, that we need to build around it so we can create more automation? Or perhaps, you know, there's a tool to support that. But these are old ways, right? That you grow and scale. And I think there's micro components of both of them. But ultimately, either way, you're going to keep bumping up against a threshold and new threshold new ceilings, which is so good, right? Which is so good. We have clients that now are saying like, Oh my gosh, how do you do it all? I'm now maxed. Right? And now we start looking at like, Okay, where do we need to streamline where do we need to delegate and what's next, sometimes it also means starting to pivot from one to one, coaching to one to many, right? If you are filling your calendar with private coaching calls, and you're only taking private coaches, or you have a program or service that was supposed to be, quote, unquote, scalable, but it's still taking so much of your time, there's a lot of opportunity there to streamline without without sacrificing the clients experience. And that's what we do with you inside of launching cwieme. But regardless, it's a really good time to assess where you're at, right, and in the following episode, you'll learn more about the four signs that you're actually ready to scale, meaning take your business to that next level by not necessarily increasing the input, right, but starting to grow without increasing expenses, increasing production, etc. Because the truth is, you guys, you, there's going to be a certain point where doing more of what you already are doing isn't going to work, because you have a limited amount of hours and a limited amount of energy every single day. And so if we keep bumping up against that you will burn out. And that's not where I want you. And of course, we're always going to have seasons of burnout, because that's ultimately it's like, oh, this is a sign that I need to make a change somewhere in my life or my business. But the worst thing you could do is not really lean into that and pay attention to it in a way that it's telling you, right? The business is busting out somewhere. And even if you're the only person of the business, it still applies, right? You're busting out of the seams. And so it's time to take a look, where do we need people or a process or a tool, right? Or we need to really think about where your niche is. Now, this is another sort of side note, when you think about scaling, one of the things that really hit hard for me, when I started to really take think about taking my company and the next level was I read in this book that I'm reading a 10x is easier than 2x, which I would strongly strongly recommend is that a 10x thinker is going to get more niched and solve a more specific problem, a more nuanced problem. And so as you scale right, and now, I'll talk about this more in depth in the next episode, but you're going to start really carving out a more niche space in your industry. And that's what we want to help you do and launch I clean is like, where is your biggest opportunity, because if you're trying to serve too many people, too many types of avatars, and you're trying to solve too many different problems that again, will require you to continue to increase output or sorry, increased input, like increase your effort, it's going to be an unscalable model, because you can't have streamline services if you're trying to meet the needs of all these different people. So something for you to sit with. So I hope this was helpful. I hope that growing versus scaling gave you some context as to like again, where you're What I what the differences and how this applies to you even at the micro level, and what you might need to do in order to start really, really growing without feeling like you are burning out. And it's really good opportunity to just take inventory on yourself and be honest, right? It's like, what am I most afraid of? I think that's the ultimate question we have to ask ourselves. And if you are really delaying a decision that needs to be made, whether that means you know, hiring somebody or pivoting, or you know, really taking your strategy to the next level, right, it's time, it's time to put your big girl panties on and make a decision. And again, that decision will scare you. And that's okay, it's meant to, because that next level, you aren't familiar with that version of you yet. And so it's going to feel very uncomfortable. But that's where you go. That is how we grow to that next level, becoming somebody we haven't been yet to be able to do things we haven't done yet. And it's the most beautiful, incredible journey. This is everything that we do here. When we think about growing and scaling. This is an assessment we help you do and launch like a queen and making sure that you're focused on the right things that you're starting to really think about where are your opportunities for scale and growth, right, some of you may just need to increase a little bit and really start up leveling your message and your brand and your marketing, right, but then really starting to as you grow faster, because you will when you come in and launch like a queen, then we start dialing in the opportunities for streamline and scale. So we will include the link in the show notes for you to apply. We only take a handful of clients every month because it's a very high touch experience. We bring our creative team, our operations team in really wrapped around you in order to help you grow to that next level. But click the link to apply. Learn more. But I hope this really sat with you. And I'm excited for the next episode, which is going to go deeper into scalability and signs that you are ready to go to that next level. Alright, until next time.

Hey, you, thank you so much for listening. It's an honor to be able to pour into the hearts and minds of like-minded entrepreneurs all over the world. But my most favorite part is being able to connect with you in real life. If you love what you heard here, head over to the community where thousands of female CEOs, just like you are changing the world one human at a time. We go deeper into the topics you discuss here. And giveaway tangible roadmaps help you crush your revenue goals to join this high-caliber free community head over to kinseymachos.com/community. I’ll see you there