Why Hustling Harder Won’t Scale Your Business

Dustin: [00:00:00] what I decided to do is basically explore the idea that what if I had an identity shift and what if I'm actually a 10 million CEO is this label I've given it, right? So like.
In other words, I'm the CEO of a 10 million company. What would need to be true in order for that to happen? That starts to open up some really important questions about things like what's my role? Where do I need to build team? What systems am I missing, right? Because like a 10 million CEO would only be doing certain roles.
Welcome back to the seven figure leap. I'm really excited today to do a solo episode and a deep dive on a topic that is near and dear to my heart. It's something I've not only been helping a lot of people with, it's something I've been wrestling with in a huge way so far this year in my own business here at seven figure leap.
And that's the, Topic of scaling, so I want to riff a little bit on some of my major takeaways from a recent interview that I did with Ryan dice [00:01:00] here on the podcast. And then I want to talk about what I'm actually doing in my business and just give you a peek behind the curtain of the changes that are taking place, the plans that are on my whiteboard for seven figure leap and what the vision is for the next version of this business and really have this podcast.
Fits right in the middle of it. So if you didn't have an opportunity to listen to the interview with Ryan, highly, highly recommend you go back and do that. I've received just like enormous feedback from people about how helpful and insightful this interview was. actually felt like I did a really good job of.
pausing where we needed to pause and dig in a little deeper than maybe Ryan was anticipating. And he actually reached out to me afterward and thanked me for asking him some fresh questions and some things that people don't usually
focus on. And I think the reason I got so much value out of it and the interview is so impactful is because I was asking like legitimate questions that I've been wrestling with myself in this journey of scale.
So the first thing that I want to highlight are the things not to do when you are facing scale. And, guess I should open with saying scale means, Hey, [00:02:00] you're, taking your business quote unquote, to the next level, for us here, that
typically is like from six figures to seven, this whole seven figure leap journey, some major changes that happened there, and then.
From, 7 to 8 or, 1 to 10, 000, 000. There's kind of these different checkpoints along the journey where what got you there won't get you to the next level. So. What should you not do when you start to feel like you're exceeding your personal capacity as a solopreneur? Okay, number one, do not try to be more productive.
So I think that that's a trap I've fallen into many times. It's like, well, if I get, you know, one more planner, one more journal, if I can, dial in my morning routine. Then I will become more productive and therefore I can get more done and my business will grow. that is true up to a point, but you absolutely hit a ceiling.
And as I unpack my own journey here, you're going to hear exactly when I hit that ceiling, personally. the reason this is a problem is what Ryan Dice refers to as the founder's curse or the founder's [00:03:00] paradox. And that is the more valuable you as the founder are to your business, the less valuable your business is in reality, So you've got to get out of this mindset and this trap that if you can only do a little bit more than you can get through this plateau or through this, Scaling, challenge. So don't be more productive. The second thing you should not do is try to go crazy and just like systemize everything and think if I just had playbooks and SOPs and checklist and KPIs, then, if you have team members, like everyone will then become more efficient, there will be redundancy because there will be all these like Google docs with, with all this information.
And, you know, eventually there are some items like that, that should be However, starting and trying to systematize everything will be a complete disaster. And it's actually just a complete waste of time because that's not how you actually start this process of breaking through and scaling. Number three is firing yourself.
and I love how Ryan dice shared, don't fire yourself on a bad day. This idea that like, well, I'm the [00:04:00] problem, this is my company. I clearly am pure visionary. And I like, operations you know, they suck. And like, it's a me problem. Therefore I'll just like fire myself and I'll bring in a new CEO or probably the more common path is I'll like be a CEO and I'll just go do the things I'm good at and I'll just bring in like a, basically a partner, right.
A COO or an implementer integrator, someone who can just like do all the stuff that I don't want to do. And then. We'll have scale. Unfortunately, that doesn't
work either because this is a founder led company. Now I'm going to talk about some of the help I've been getting and it starts to move in that direction, but you really can't be like, okay, well, on Monday, I'm going to have this integrator here.
And all of a sudden my business will scale because I have this other person that's going to do the dirty stuff that I don't like to do. So don't try to get more productive. Don't try to systematize everything and don't fire yourself or try to hire in someone to do all this stuff that you don't want to do.
You know, immediately, so that's kind of a recap of the best advice, I think, the best takeaways that I [00:05:00] got with my interaction with Ryan Dice. So now kind of slow the pace here and talk about my own journey. I think this could be really useful for you if you're doing six figures, or if you're even like approaching six figures, or maybe you're now in this period of doing multiple six figures and you have this vision towards seven figures or even beyond that.
And when you start to reach it, certain things are going to happen, or I can just tell you what's happened to me. So I've successfully ran this business, for almost two years now, rebranded about six months ago to seven figure leap. I've had a cohort based podcast profits accelerator.
So basically groups of 12 to 15 entrepreneurs quarterly, it served me really well. And then from that, we've got the seven figure leap mastermind, which is kind program and mastermind experience that helps people in this zone. So not only have I been experienced in this, but I've got, almost two dozen people that I'm in close proximity with who are kind of.
On different, stages of the same journey. So it's been really interesting to kind of see what we're encountering and then how we're dealing with it. So for me, I started on [00:06:00] January 1st, 2024 thinking, cool, I'm running four more cohorts. we're going to continue to grow the mastermind and I'll probably gonna like develop some front end products and kind of be a pretty chill year.
trap I was putting myself into is thinking I could just stay static, It's a beautiful thing to think, Hey, I've done all this work. I got to this point. Why don't we just stay here? The problem is you can't just stay here. and I started to experience what that felt like.
So, I thought that naively that I'll just stay in one spot. I'll be cool. I don't need to like scale. I a one man show. I've got some virtual assistants. This is cool.
however, has happened for me and what I've seen happen for other people is that's actually a false belief.
You actually cannot stay static. you really can't. And so like your health is either growing or dying, your relationships, your marriage growing or dying. Right. Seems true of your business were not made to be static. We're not made to sit in a status quo. Now you can have periods where you kind of pause and catch your breath but you've got to [00:07:00] be pursuing something or giving it up.
and especially that's going to be true for entrepreneurs because by virtue of the fact you're an entrepreneur, you're a creative person you create through your business. And so even if financially, you'd be totally cool with your current status, You've got to grow or die. And so what ends up happening many times with entrepreneurs is they get complacent and they say, I'm good.
I want to stay right here. And then they start to self sabotage and then they kind of like say, Oh, here's a different business idea. I'm just going to like, let this one sit here and quote unquote, be passive. Meanwhile, it starts to die a slow death because we're creative. We need to create so you can choose to create a new business, create, chaos, you can create a lot of things, or you can be purposeful and say, this is really valuable and good.
I want to continue this journey of scaling this business. so where I started to feel this was by late January. So again, January 1st, I'm good to go. I got my game plan. I'm just going to kind of do what I've been doing. by late January, several things [00:08:00] happened. Very quickly one for the first time ever, I started to feel a little burnt out.
I started to like be resentful. Uh, you got another zoom call, right? Cause I'm delivering every minute of my accelerator program at this time. And I do all the sales and I do all the marketing, Cause I'm a one man show that started to not feel fun for the first time ever. Like I, love these calls.
I love the people. And that was all still true. I was kind of like, man, this is getting repetitious. I started to not feel creative in delivering my flagship program. So that was happening. I was also then experiencing a lot of new insights. So I spoke at traffic and conversion summit. I was blessed to speak at podfest.
And in that I started to notice these founder led companies who did scale. And so a lot of them that I really. Admire, you know, I'm thinking of like Nathan Barry with ConvertKit, Ryan Dice, who I had the pleasure of interviewing
Chandler Bolt from self publishing, who I had the pleasure of interviewing here as well.
, and there's many, many others I can, I could name off, but there's these companies that they still have the soul of the [00:09:00] founder yet. They've scaled to 10, 15, 30 million story brand. It'd be another just great example with Donald Miller. I was like, well, maybe that is something I would want. You know, I was like, kind of felt allergic to building a team, but I'm like, these guys are having a lot of fun.
They're getting to live in their zone of genius. You know, they've obviously got the financial rewards of building a bigger business, and they have the option at some point in the future to sell it. Like, right now it's a one man show. There is
no saleable asset. So maybe I don't ever want to sell. I don't have any desire right now, but the option to sell is great because what it forces you to do is build a sustainable business and one that continued to grow.
Even without your. working, uh, another a hundred hours or whatever to produce. So I started having examples. I started to feel a little personal strife. and then I had this really pivotal discussion and I was at podfest. It was like the last day I had a 15 minute coffee chat scheduled with Peter from the partnerships direct, Peter Unger from this partnerships department at self publishing.
Our 15 minute conversation turned into, I think, two and a half hours of just really getting to [00:10:00] know each other, like families or faith life. I told him all about my business and he said, man, Dustin, this is amazing. you should pat yourself on the back. You've really created something unique, amazing.
You obviously have raving fans and you're creating real transformation. He's like, we would love to partner with you. I just have one question for you. How many leads can we send you before all this breaks? And that was like a gut punch. I'm like, Oh geez. Like I was so excited about the partnership, but the reality is like zero.
Like I'm full. was delivering a program. I'd already sold out my next cohort. You know, the next one wasn't gonna be till the fall. So I'm like, I actually don't have any capacity, you know? And that means. Like I couldn't grow my revenue in the current model and it was out of my personal capacity. And so I was like, man, it's a great question.
And so then I started to more deeply explore some other business models and delivery models and things like that. And so that was like just a real eyeopening moment for me and kind of the whole month of January. The other thing that happened was I was. Hosting my seven very late mastermind members in [00:11:00] person in Orlando at podfest.
So like right around this, like days of that conversation, I'm hosting a mastermind dinner and they're talking, we're talking about each other's unique ability. I did a whole, previous episode on that. that gave me a ton of clarity in that the thing I'm actually best at is giving clarity and connection to my clients.
it's not a lot of the stuff I actually do, which is like live teaching, live coaching. there's many people that are as or better than me at that. started to think like, well, how could I live in my zone of genius? Kind of do the 80, 20 mantra, the 10 X leap, the things required to continue to grow, and do it in a different model.
so I started looking at different models and there's a lot of different ways to do this. So you can scale a coaching program with other coaches, right? You can do certification where you're empowering other people with your methodologies. you could do. more of a, non live sort of thing, more like a a more scalable, like masterclass sort of thing.
There's lots of different models. And so I had to really wrestle with what do I want to build? Number one, after kind of getting hit upside the head with the possibilities and the fact that I really [00:12:00] do have to grow here, otherwise I know I'm going to burn the same to the ground and I'm going to self sabotage and I'm going to go start something new and I don't want to do that with that realization.
Number one, for me, step one was getting clear on what I want. that's one of the hardest things to do in life. And so how do you get clear on what you actually want? So in this case, the other thing I left out is Q1, 2024. So kind of in the middle of all this, we've had a record months of revenue, hit 250 K in a quarter.
So now I'm like legitimately on a seven, I got a seven figure run rate, we haven't had a full year, but we're on that pace. So effectively I have a seven figure business for the first time. And I am in this industry and I am now by myself with some VAs, whereas I've grown to seven figure businesses in the past, but with.
Teams and partnerships and stuff like that. So this is a new reality for me. So where do you go from here? So what I decided to do is basically explore the idea that what if I had an identity shift and what if I'm actually a 10 million CEO is this label I've given it, right? So like.
In other words, I'm [00:13:00] the CEO of a 10 million company. What would need to be true in order for that to happen? That starts to open up some really important questions about things like what's my role? Where do I need to build team? What systems am I missing, right? Because like a 10 million CEO would only be doing certain roles.
And one of the really important things for you and me to accept is that every time your business grows in value, your role needs to become less, not more, You need to do less things. So in other words, if you 10 X your business, you need to be doing 10 percent of the stuff you were doing. In the one X version,
you're going to be doing, that doesn't mean you're not working hard, but you're going to be literally in your zone of genius much more of the time, because that's where you produce outsized value.
And then you have the resources to bring in others to do the other stuff that needs to be done in the business. So getting clear on what you want. So for me, I'm in no hurry to have an eight figure business, But what I am wanting to do is start now building the skeleton and the infrastructure and the plan where I could [00:14:00] be a 10 million.
Business, and I could be the CEO of that business. that's unlocked so much for me. So that's number one was like, what do I want? And again, I'm not like fully committed that like by this year at this date, like that's what I'm going to be. It's really not that important to me, but what is important to me is to start building now the business that would support that ultimate vision.
And I say, ultimate, when I get there, I'm sure it will shift again. and there's milestones along the way. 10 million CEO became like the new identity in theory. that brings me into step two, which is probably the most, ethereal part of this, and that's like identity work. So that's actually like, not just saying, Oh, cool.
I want a 10 million business. Well, I don't, I've never ran a 10 million business. , I've talked to some cool people now, which is part of this, talking to people who have done that and more. so I've got a mentor who's got a 50 million business, you know, Chandler. I think around 15, Ryan he was like 17 different
companies, that in that range, Donald Miller, you know, I think 20 million company.
And so I'm in proximity. It's not like I have [00:15:00] like coffee with these guys on a regular basis, but I have their books. I'm in their groups. I'm certified by them in different ways. I'm getting to access them on the podcast. so that's part of the identity work is starting to. Look for, identify people who do have that identity and who are doing it well, people you admire who have similar values and then having proximity to them and, as much as you can.
So that's part one, part two of identity work for me was literally hiring an identity coach. Now, I'm not sure she would have called herself that. but if you listen to the very first episode of this podcast, it's really, really interesting. Now, it's only several months ago. It was like in January, When I'm having these, these epiphany moments is when we recorded that first episode of seven figure leap.
And so I'm talking about a very important woman in this journey for me and it's Cassie Shea. So Cassie, has coached me in many ways and it's been a very reciprocal relationship. I first met her cause she was an accelerator graduate. So she was part of my flagship program about a year ago.
And then she got really clear on what What she does well, and that's [00:16:00] really helping people identify their unique abilities and set standards for themselves and step into a future self and these new identities and work through the values that brings up. And, you know, the kind of that, that deeper mindset work, which translates directly into like business organization.
So anyway, so I've been working with Cassie specifically, we have this whole like worksheet we worked through. And in a really deep planning session, it's like, what are all the things Dustin's doing? In other words, who am I being? And then when I am a 10 million CEO, who would I have to be to make that true?
And if I am a 10 million CEO, what are the things I do in the business? So what you find is there's several things that I do that I would still do. There's many more things that I currently do that I wouldn't do. Right. And because again, we're stripping away a lot of this stuff.
And right now I wear basically all the hats in the business. And that wouldn't be true at a 10 million, um, operating level. So I've done a lot of this, like deeper
identity work. I would advise you to do the same. If this is a journey [00:17:00] you want to go on. , a lot of that happens in the way that I serve.
A lot of that happens in both the podcast province accelerator. People get tons of clarity, really get clear on what they want. Starts to step into these new identities there. And then of course, that's an ongoing process that we, we do in the seven figure leap mastermind. And so Cassie is a member of both of those.
And so she has received that from the community. And then for several of us, she has. Reflected that back and helped us personally with it. So that's been just like amazing because now I have really great clarity on what I'm building and what my actual clear vision is for my role in this future version of the business.
So number one, get clear on what you want. Number two, do the identity work necessary to be able to actually understand your role in what you want. Hope that makes sense. There's a slight distinction there. So what you want for your business and then what would your role look like in order to empower that, that version of the business, number three, I have four steps here.
Number [00:18:00] three is to map out. The major systems of your business. Okay. So I said, don't, what not to do is like systemize everything like crazy and do SOPs now, like the first thing you need to do. Is basically do a deep dive and a, map, a process map of your business, right? And you're basically, you're almost surely going to find three things and you may have some more depending on your business, but you have some sort of, if you have some kind of, if you're doing six figures, plus you have a repeated marketing system.
You have a marketing process. Number two is you have a sales process. That means a conversion. how do people go from knowing you from the marketing you do to actually giving you money and becoming a client that's sales, And then you have a fulfillment role in your business. So like, how do you deliver value to your clients?
Right. And then there's other things that. You know, about customer service, if you run a community management, there may be other processes, but you almost for sure have some kind of process. And it may be just in your head and it may be very loosely defined, but if you're making that kind of money with your [00:19:00] business, you have marketing sales and fulfillment.
So those are really the three growth engines that you should start with just mapping them out. Right. I've literally done all this in my head. I do not
recommend this, but I, to date I have had no project management system. I have no CRM. I have predominantly done all the, sales, for my business.
And I grew a seven figure business that way, So very possible, but there's no way it's a million dollars CEO is doing all that stuff. what I needed to do is say, okay, how do people hear about me? for me, there's a guesting, obviously, and some of the other things that we teach and then what's that process look like to go from knowing me to liking me, trusting me, and then ultimately the sales, like how do sales occur?
Is that on a call? do they apply to get on the call? Is it a webinar? Is it through emails? And you see how these processes that you could say, this is where I get leads. This is how I. convert the leads, And then this is how I actually collect the sale, to finally convert them into a client.
So there's that, and that's kind of a fluid process. you could have [00:20:00] one flow chart really that's for marketing to sale. And then at the moment of sale, a very different process starts and that's fulfillment. So, you know, do they. Book one on one coaching calls with you. Do they get into a community?
Do they, onboard themselves? Is there an onboarding call? Like there's this whole idea of like what happens after they become a client so you can start delivering the value that you promised? so for me, that was, two live calls a week, mastermind oriented. We've got a community. And there was a kickoff
call.
a variety of things in fulfilling and then that fulfillment process, ends at some point, right? So at some point they got the value and then you want to have part of that process, hopefully be collecting testimonials, asking for referrals, maybe have the next level program that you want to invite them into.
These are all just processes, You could literally take post it notes and kind of think about the major parts of these individual processes. And then you've got something really to work with because now it's like, Oh, sales, someone could own sales, right? I have a process and maybe there's people I could bring in a person I could [00:21:00] bring in who could actually optimize this process, make it way better than what I've been able to do on my own because they're a sales expert.
And I'm not, but I do have a process that has been working. so, you know, in marketing and fulfillment, so you can start thinking through much more clearly about the who's that could come into your business and on a fractional basis, at
least in my case, fulfill some of these roles. That you've done today, but that, you know, you can't and shouldn't be doing moving forward.
So that's number three is mapping out the major systems of your business, basically a process map of these major pieces of how you deliver value. Number four, the last one is really implementing the big rocks. So I record this right now, I'm in this process. So, I've got a very clear vision for where I'm going.
I've got. People that I'm already training to help me in the fulfillment. So very, I'm blessed in that I have this amazing alumni network. So people that have graduated my accelerator who are amazing lead mastermind leaders, coaches, consultants. And so I'm able to. Invest in [00:22:00] them to help me.
and they're already enrolled in my vision because, many cases they're like in my mastermind. So, they really understand what I do and why I do it. And so there's no, an immediate culture fit. In other words, you may not have that resource. I'm blessed to have that, but otherwise you can go find it.
Or I can refer people to you, out of my network, but implementing the big rocks and that would mean like. I've made a real commitment to making my entire business community focused. And so I re platformed everything this year, in the process of all this stuff to circle.
And so I've got a really amazing circle community for the alum for the accelerator, active members, the alumni of that program for the seven figure elite mastermind members. They're all in a cohesive environment where they have community and that's amazing. But I. I'm not a community builder in the sense of like the platform.
So I hired Jordan Godby. He's like the circle guy. He's one of the leading experts in the world on community. He graduated my accelerator and he's in my mastermind. So I'm like, Hey. I got, I got my who there. And then, of course I already mentioned Cassie she's in my world and she helps [00:23:00] me with this ongoing identity work and kind of like high level operations vision for how to like roll out some of these systems.
So that's, an ongoing resource. And then Cassie referred me to someone named Natalie who for this three months period is functioning as my fractional COO. So I'm not committing to, I'm not firing myself and saying, come take over my
business. What I am doing is enlisting someone who's very systems oriented and very fulfillment driven and very, anti quick start.
Whereas I'm a very much a quick start and they're like, yeah, let's, let's get it done. She's very patient and she's very much like, let's build it out. so she's extracting a lot of this. Information that's only in my brain and we're building the systems, right? I have a project management system.
Now I'm about to, daylight, a new CRM that works for me and for my culture. so she's using these process maps to help build the systems. And then the next thing we're going to do is build an org chart and we're going to start looking at the who's that can plug into different roles on a fractional basis, perhaps an
executive assistant, a [00:24:00] project manager.
I have, coaches and mastermind leaders that can help with fulfillment. maybe there's a customer service person. And again, this is not to blow everything and have a bunch of overhead. This is very fractional roles, but they are very important roles. And they're all things I currently do myself that I need to have other people do, and I'm not doing it all at once.
So we're going to like. Fill out the org chart and say, Hey, for the 10 million version of this, this is what you want to have. And then we'll say right now we're at a million. If we want to go from a million to three, like who's the first key hire, who's the next key hire. some of those I've already been working on.
And some of those will emerge. But to me, that's like where the rubber meets the road is implementation. So I hope this has been helpful. I just wanted to kind of recap. My takeaways from Ryan's interview, it really got me clear and it just really affirmed what I've been doing and I'm doing it the right way.
And of course, he has a whole company that helps people with this as well. I was kind of already on my, path here, but I'm very much paralleling the process that they recommend, which is awesome. So I wanted to highlight my takeaways from my [00:25:00] interview with Ryan on scaling. And then just tell you what I've encountered in this journey and what I've seen other mastermind members encounter and other clients and then really give you those four steps of what I've been doing.
So getting clear on what you want, doing the identity work necessary to understand your role in that bigger vision. Mapping out the major systems of your business and then implementing those big rock projects that start to bring those systems to life. So I hope this has been really helpful for you. I went lot longer, a lot deeper here than I anticipated when I got behind the mic, but as you can probably tell, this is something I'm very passionate about and I'm living it.
And I just love to. do things and then share with you what I'm experiencing, what I'm learning. the lessons I'm learning, resources I'm tapping into so that they can be of use to you as well. So if you would like to have these problems and you don't yet, you're like, Hey, I'm pretty cool.
I'm doing like a hundred thousand dollars. this is fun. I want to grow to seven figures and you have no idea. How to get these problems in your life of scale. we can help with that. And that's really what the [00:26:00] podcast province accelerator is all about. We help you add a hundred thousand dollars minimum
in new business through marketing, specifically through podcast guesting.
So we work with you over 90 days. We create a marketing machine, a podcast flywheel that lets you tell your story and get clients and leads from it or leads and clients from it to grow your business. And so if you're in that mode of growth and you're wanting to add another six figures of revenue, that's what we do in the accelerator.
we also give people a lot of clarity connection. It goes a lot deeper, but on the surface, that's the promise. If you're doing the multiple six figures and you're like approaching seven figures, you're just getting past it. In your life. Man, like I am experiencing these issues right now. That's what we do in the seven figure leap mastermind.
We help people on the seven figure leap journey to deal with these new issues. And ultimately I envision having kind of the next level of this once I've conquered these problems and I've solved them for myself and numerous seven figure league clients, I envision us kind of going up to the next level and say, Hey, [00:27:00] there's new problems now.
Like, they say new levels, new devils, right? Like, as you solve business problems, you get better problems to solve. So there's a lot of things that go beyond this, Financial, issues and taxes and, some of the stuff you start to deal with at this level, there's, the next level of, you know, what does it mean to get to eight figures?
And so eventually that might be a resource that we employ, but for right now, we help people with the podcast profits accelerator, and then we help people with the seven figure leak mastermind, to get people from six to seven figures. In a fun way, in a way that aligns with your values in a way that you feel excited about and that you have, most importantly, a community around you to support you and doing it the right way.
So let us know if you have any questions. you can always reach us at sevenfigureleap. com if you want to book a call with our team and just unpack where you're at and what resources we feel would be best to assist you, whether that's us or people in my network, because I have an amazing, Over a hundred alumni that I can tap into, that are all just amazing, gifted people that I, as you can hear, I hire them myself because I believe in [00:28:00] them.
then yeah, I go to sevenferryleap. com slash call and that'll book you directly on, our team's calendar and we can have an open conversation about how we can best serve you. So I hope this episode has been super useful. I would love your feedback. , the other thing I would just ask of you, if you've enjoyed this.
Deep dive, a 30 minute consultation on scaling is please leave us a review. so if you listen on iTunes or Spotify, if you're on your phone, just like literally open up the app, hit the five stars, it's that simple. takes you 10 seconds. It makes a huge difference to the show and it really lets other people find this, great resource.
So thanks for all your support so far, and I'll see you on the next one.