Grow with less, but better
There’s a point in every business owner’s journey where you realise you’re doing way too much.
And for a period, it felt great.
But activity can be a seductive liar.
Usually, this comes from an overload of all kinds of ideas and information from the internet and books.
The late Gary Halbert called this “carbonised crap” in your mind. Because what happens is you get so many inputs of information and trainings that your brain gets completely filled with junk that you think you have to do… And soon, your skull is full, and all that information starts to ‘carbonise’, or go hard like a diamond under pressure. Eventually, you walk around in your business, doing a million things at once, speaking a million miles an hour and smiling like a Cheshire Cat with a noticeable gleam in your eye. But the gleam isn’t happiness, it’s the light reflecting off of all the carbonised crap that goes into your head.
You find yourself in a trap. Where you’re ‘doing’ constantly.
And yes, you can still grow like that.
After the allure of busyness fades, you begin to feel like there’s no end in sight.
The alternative path to growth - doing less, better.
One pattern I noticed very quickly in my own businesses and with every client, was the more successful the business was, the more time off the person had. A month back, I met a guy Rob who coaches accountants. He’s built a multi-million dollar business at over seventy percent profit. And last year he worked a mere 321 days all year.
Sheesh.
Anyway, I’m going to share with you three ways you can start to do ‘less’ this month, and still grow. But before I do, realise that there is a big identity shift that has to happen to do this.
True story:
I worked with a successful physiotherapist for a while. She grew her business from zilch. Pretty soon she was making decent money. But she was starting to feel burned out. I pointed out how much easier it might be if she had some help. But she was adamant that she would never have a big team, et cetera.
The identity she started the business with was ‘practitioner’, not leader.
Frankly?
I understand that. I’ve had decent teams before, and I prefer to keep it lean as well.
Anyway, she eventually made some hires, first for admin, then another couple practitioners.
Soon?
She hit record numbers and record profit, and took a big holiday to Africa.
But the ‘big deal’ in that shift - and you’ll know this if you’ve been there - ain’t the technicalities of the hire - it’s the willingness to let go, and become the leader who trains and leads a powerful team on the mission. It’s a whole different identity, not just a different set of actions.
We have an identity upgrade to work on, if we want to change how the business feels as we grow.
That said, there are three things you can focus on for the next month if you want this ‘easier’ kind of growth.
No.1 - Simplify and streamline
Cut unnecessary crap and extra complexity.
The number of meetings you have, offers you’re running, or the number of marketing platforms you’re trying to uphold as a new business.
Couple weeks back I sat down with a client and mapped out a big campaign with three offers.
At the end of the day we were out for a walk, and as we were talking we realised we could delete the offer in the middle. This probably saved 50 hours of staff time, plus a whole bunch of complexity with marketing and sales.
The end solution was much cleaner.
But to get there, we had to cut through the limiting belief that you need ‘more’ to grow.
No.2 - Leverage systems and people
This is about having the right people in your business so that your business works for you.
If you’re earlier in the journey, and there ain’t anyone else on your team, then it’s about systems.
And that’s really a complex way of saying that you need a rhythm, with simple steps to follow, in order to do stuff.
A great one to look at is marketing, for example.
Marketing works really well with a monthly rhythm when you’re new. Each month, at a certain time, you can run a campaign. Maybe it’s a webinar, or product announcement, or email.
Well now that you know that, you can set up the steps for the campaign.
And it’s much easier to prepare and execute.
Most early businesses struggle to get a rhythm going, because they have too much stuff going on. Then when the team comes in, the chaos is amplified through more people.
No.3 - Focus on your composure, not just your revenue
How you choose to show up in your business is part of your identity shift.
When your business is set up well, it’s still going to take a bunch of work…
But you’ll be able to show up with some amount of ease and it ain’t going to feel like a grind.
Part of that thought is deciding to sit down to work with a level of grace and authority.
You aren’t a cog in your own wheel that’s about to grind itself into dust.
You’re a leader and a composer of an intentional business that brings value to the world.
Every business will have periods of intense output and work.
As well as periods that are more stable and predictable.
But neither of those are correlated with how you feel in the work that you do. You can grow through these by drinking the hustle culture cool-aid. Or, you can grow through these in a way that’s a little more relaxed and even fun, while you do less, better.
Focus on these three for a month or two and you may be surprised at what can happen.
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