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Instead of going through a bunch of things you could find in Google, I’m going to give you my real personal opinion on the 5 things you need to scale your business successfully that people miss the most often – and desperately need! Yes, there are many technical and strategic steps to scaling your business, but these are the 5 that generally people fail to mention but that you absolutely need to address if you want to grow.
Here I’ll include enough information on each to help you find answers and take action on them today. They include: knowing yourself, delegating, self-care, facing uncertainty, and a basic belief that everyone shares a common motivation behind their actions.
Here’s a glance at this episode…
The Transcript is listed below if you would prefer to read this yourself instead of watching the video!
Hey, I’m Sandra B, your Sidekick COO. I help overworked overwhelmed multi-hatted entrepreneurs like you become CEOs of your very own sustainably scalable, and powerfully profitable business through proven business tips, practical processes, and a touch of tough love. Heavy on the love. Don’t forget to like, and subscribe. Let’s go!
What are the 5 things that you need in order to scale your business successfully?
Okay. This is a 100% Googleable question. You can actually Google this question and find out pretty much all the information that you could possibly wanna know. And they’re gonna talk a lot about building pauses into your business, taking time to assess, taking time to actually look at key metrics, actually knowing what your key metrics are. They’re gonna talk about goal setting, they’re gonna talk about productivity tips, they’re gonna talk about delegating and all of those lovely, lovely things. They’re gonna talk about processes and procedures and all of those. So I’m not gonna get into all of that detail here. I’m sure we’re gonna talk about it on other videos, but for now, to me, the top five things that you really need in order to be sustainably scalable in your business.
Number one – Know yourself.
So this is, to me, the biggest advantage that you could have in business is knowing yourself. If you look at the top of business owners in any industry, you’re likely going to find somebody that knows themself fairly well. At least in how they work and what they need in that capacity. They might not know themselves super well in the outside world. And they might be a little conceded in things like that. But I digress. What I mean by knowing yourself is like really knowing how you work and when you are the most productive and what zaps your energy and knowing how to replenish that energy, that is really what you need to do.
I think you should go a step further and really know yourself in the real world as well. But definitely.
So really figuring out those bits about yourself and being honest with yourself, that’s going to help make sure that you don’t get yourself stuck so that you’re not getting in your own way. So that is number one for me when thinking of how to scale your business successfully.
Number two – How to delegate and ask for help.
So delegating and asking for help is very difficult for many of us, especially delegating. Even when we know we have to ask for help and even when we bring on support, it can be really hard to figure out what are those things I should be giving to those people. What is it that they can even help with? How much do I need to follow up with them? How much instruction do I need to give them? Those things, and we’ll definitely cover these questions in other videos, but being able to delegate, knowing how to delegate, knowing how and when to ask for help and being willing to do that. That is definitely, definitely going to help you move forward.
There really is no such thing as self-made. I know self-made is meant to mean if you’re rich or if you have a lot of money you’ve made that money yourself, you didn’t inherit it. That’s what self-made means. But what it’s used as in the online space at least is that I was self-made. I did this myself. I built this company on my own, and that is never, ever, ever true. You always have help throughout your entire life. There are definitely times when you’re alone and sometimes people are more alone than others, for sure. But I guarantee you that nobody builds a successful practice completely in a silo all by themselves. So making sure that you ask for help and you delegate as much as possible, that’s really gonna move you forward and scale your business successfully.
Number 3 – How to take care of yourself
Knowing how to take care of yourself. So that goes hand in hand with knowing yourself and knowing your energy levels and knowing what zaps your energy and what replaces your energy. And then actually taking the time to take care of yourself. All of the top entrepreneurs, all of the top tip books, you know how to be a ‘top of business’ owner, all of the podcasts that you listen to, like all of it is going to say every single one of them will say, self-care.
Take care of yourself. They might see it in different ways. They might talk about getting up and going to bed at the same time every night, they might talk about building habits. They might talk about having a morning routine and an evening routine. They’ll talk about meditation. They’ll talk about having fun, going out and doing things you enjoy. That’s all code to take care of yourself. Okay? So that is number three.
Number Four – It is okay to be wrong!
And it is okay to not know, but that’s not an excuse to not move forward. A lot of the time, the business owners that I talk to, if they don’t know something, they let it stop them. They’re like, well, I really want to get into Facebook ads, but I don’t know how, or I really want to offer this new service, but I don’t know how. Or I really want to do an agency model but when I tried to do it before I got it wrong, so I don’t want to do it now, getting something wrong.
That doesn’t matter. Not knowing how to do something that doesn’t matter. You can always correct errors as they happen. You can always pivot. You can always find a way. And if you don’t know how to do something, Google exists.
You can probably find it. If Google fails you, there’s probably somebody else out there. If you start asking around and networking, there’s probably somebody else out there that knows how to do it. And if that fails you can probably figure it out yourself but, I guarantee you, that if there is something that you want to do, something that you would like to implement in your business, or you’d like to move forward in your business, there is somebody out there that’s already put a podcast out, who’s written a book about it, who has 18 articles about it, who has a YouTube video about it, or a YouTube channel about it, or speaks at conferences or whatnot.
The information is out there. It might take some time to find it, but don’t let those things stop you. Don’t take not knowing as an excuse for not moving forward. Don’t accept it.
Number 5 – Choose to believe and know that everyone wants to be happy!
I think the last thing, the last thing that will really, really help you scale your business, and your life honestly, is just accept or choose to believe whatever wording you need to come up with in order to make this palatable, but just choose to believe and know that everyone wants to be happy. And all they are doing is the best that they can with the tools and the skills and the information they have in order to get that happiness. Most people out there, the vast majority of people out there are not out to screw you.
The vast majority of people out there are not in it for a quick buck or trying to take advantage of you or just in it for themselves. Most people want to work. Most people want to make a difference. Most people want help. So when something happens that makes you feel like maybe this isn’t true that maybe everybody is evil and everybody’s out to get you, just know that that is something that you’re telling yourself that is not true.
It’s much easier to accept and forgive and move on when you believe and you know that people are inherently good for the most part. Yes, there are some bad actors. Yeah, there are some jerks out there, but for the most part, people are not out to get you.
So just take everything in stride and come at things with curiosity, instead of like judgment or anything like that, you’ll be able to move forward a lot better and a lot smoother. If you just remind yourself when something bad happens, that most likely that wasn’t on purpose, most likely they’re not trying to take advantage of you or anything like that. They are just trying to be happy. They’re just doing what they think they need to do in order to achieve the happiness that they so desire. Just like you were doing what you think you need to do in order to achieve the desired happiness that you want.
Those are the five things that I think you really need to have in your back pocket in order to scale your business successfully.
Of course, there are so many more practical tips about processes and procedures and assessing your business and things like that. And we will get into all of that in future videos but for now, really think about those five things that I gave you, and take them to heart.
Make sure to like and subscribe so that you don’t miss the next session and while you’re at it, why not share this video with an entrepreneur that you think needs to hear it and if you’ve got a struggle in your business, tell me about it in the comments below.
Together we thrive! Take care.
Sandra Booker, Founder of Changemaker Inc. (home to Sidekick COO and The VA Studio) and creator of Scale Society and The Advisory Board, is a mentor, Fractional COO and growth strategist. She specializes in helping overworked, overwhelmed, multi-hatted entrepreneurs become the CEOs of sustainably scalable, and powerfully profitable businesses.
After helping local businesses thrive, and receiving accolades in her community (like the 40 Under 40 award) Sandra turned her attention to the world of online service providers, and her clients include familiar names like Chanti Zak, Tarzan Kay, and Laura Belgray.
In her (efficiently used) spare time, she teaches others how to build and grow their own 6-figure virtual assistant practices and is on a mission to create a million jobs by helping her clients and students scale their businesses.
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