How can creators like us, who are new to building online businesses, who have high-value skillsets, how do we scale our monthly recurring revenue (MRR) to get us the freedom we desire? That is the question, and this newsletter will give you the answers.
My name is Boysie Gordon, and welcome to Boysie Talks Business.
Episode 3! Recorded in ONE TAKE!
The last episode was lengthy (24 mins), so I plan to give you all the same value in half of the time (mission failed: I gave more value in the same amount of time). We talked about building in public as a key to uncovering hidden revenue, and I gave away my 3-step strategy to crafting a newsletter in under 4 hours.
In this episode, I want to give you a basic template for scaling a business.
Here are the only three things you’ll need to do it!
I. Rock Solid Business Foundation
II. Balanced Sales System
III. Client Results
But before I dive into those things individually, there is something that needs to be understood first.
Phase 0 —When Do I Scale?
Scaling isn’t a perfect science, and it puts a lot of pressure on your business.
If done wrong, it will throw everything out of whack!
Trust me, I know from experience.
When I scaled my first company, it was only the third month of business. I was a salesman and was always taught: close, close, close, win, win, win.
So, that’s what I did, and I assumed that was all there was to know.
But, I was very wrong!
My current selling point is $67k to $400k MRR in 90 days, but it was really $0 to $400k MRR in 120 days!
For listeners: Sorry, I keep saying MMR out of habit! I was a gamer back in the day: MMR= Match Matching Rating! It was the gaming algorithm that decided how good your competition would be using your skill rating. I was a beast, so my MMR was always traumatizing me!
Way too fast for a first-time business owner to maintain without help.
To put it into feasible terms, it was scaling 25 orders to 150+ orders per month.
A 600% increase in work!
I was missing the strategy necessary to scale effectively.
But we’ll talk about that later.
For now, I’ll share when I’d choose to scale if I had a do-over.
Mind you, I did scale again (with sustainability) from $150k to $450k MRR over 6 months. That’s 50 orders to 150+ orders per month.
The best time to scale is going to be once you have clarity AND confidence in your business strategy.
When I first started, I hadn’t figured that out yet.
If you can answer ‘yes’ to these questions, you are ready to scale:
Is your business model sustainable?
Is your business infrastructure scalable?
Do you truly understand your target market?
Do you have the finances to scale without jeopardizing your business?
Have you implemented a customer feedback loop into your product/service improvement process?
My answer was no to all of these the first time around, and scaling left holes in my business!
Fortunately, I learned my lesson and plugged the holes to scale successfully the second time, but it was an unnecessary pain.
I don’t want you to go through that…
Here are the 3 things you’ll need to scale when you are ready!
I. Rock Solid Business Foundation
This is the part that I had to learn the hard way!
When I first scaled, I began panic hiring to help maintain the volume. This forced my hand, and I ended up hiring and training on an unsustainable system. Shortcuts were made to keep pace, and that caused a horrible imbalance within my company.
Employees were too specialized and couldn’t properly adapt as time went on.
Customers complained.
Business was lost.
Morale was shot.
Mistakes made in the 3 months after scaling cost the company around…
$75,000 out of pocket.
Yes, a whole corvette worth of mistakes.
Employees had to either be retrained or replaced—not a fun situation to be in!
As a creator, you may not have to deal with employees, but the messaging is still the same.
Here’s how I recalibrated my business foundation:
Mapped out the entire process—Analyze situation
LEAN’d it out and trimmed the fat—Identify problems
Reorganized roles and responsibilities—Execute the plan
Created standard operating procedures (SOPs)—Create sustainability
Went to our clients to receive feedback on updates—Add a feedback loop
It took 3 months to fix everything because I had to learn it on my own.
Had I looked for guidance, it would have been a lot faster.
Honestly, I probably wouldn’t have needed to recover.
II. Balanced Sales System
While this wasn’t a major issue, I could have definitely done better.
Again, I came from a very fast-paced sales world, so organization was an afterthought, if a thought at all. My process involved jotting names down on sticky notes or phone numbers in drafted emails.
Don’t be like me. Do it better.
I was all about cold-calling, and it worked for me. I was gifted with a silver tongue, but as I stated in my last episode, I wasted so much hidden revenue.
AND
My sales process wasn’t replicable for others who weren’t as good as me over the phone, no matter how much training I did.
Here’s how I’d do it now:
The first thing I’d do is the same thing as what I did.
I’d leverage outbound sales systems.
Now, the twist is that I’d use a CRM or chart to stay organized in my outreach. That way I can identify cold leads, warm leads, and hot leads without using my memory to find the sticky note or drafted email.
With an organized outbound strategy,
I am confident I could have doubled my results.
The second thing is something I did not do until the second time around.
I’d leverage inbound sales systems.
This would involve ads, testimonials, referrals, and social media.
I always thought my industry (logistics) wasn’t marketable because I never saw ads, but that’s far from the truth.
The truth is that my industry was old school and never leveraged modern-day strategies. I’m sure this will change as time goes on.
Now, I’d better identify my target market and invest in advertisements in the places they frequent. This would for sure be a worthy investment since my competition isn’t doing this frequently.
It is an easy differentiator, and it makes scaling the sales process that much easier.
III. Client Results
This last thing ties everything together and is arguably the most important!
External perception of your business is the only perception that matters.
The NBA seems like an awesome organization on TV! Go to an NBA game, and you realize you paid $100+ for a high-level basketball game. No graphics, no commentary, no HD replays.
In my tenure as CEO, I worked with plenty of Fortune 500 companies.
On TV and in the public eye, they seem so huge and organized…
But as a vendor, you realize quickly that they are just as disorganized and chaotic as everyday small businesses. I had companies whose job it was to tell me what to do or ask me what they should tell me to do…
I can’t make this stuff up!
This is proof that client results will supercharge every part of your business!
External perception will make your business look big
You and/or your team will have high morale
You know you are fulfilling your promise
You will feel confident asking for more
Your sales pitch will have conviction
You will have more inbound sales
You can charge more per client
You have endless content
The list goes on…
Confidence is a big key to success in business and the best way to gain that is by getting clients the result you promised!
If you can achieve all three of these things, then you will scale without issue!
Need help getting there?
Schedule a FREE strategy call with me if you’d like some guidance: mybluepath.com
Thanks for reading!
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EP. 3 Did You Know That To Scale Your Business You Only Need 3 Things?