Speaker 1: 0:02

Hello and welcome to the Maximize your Day podcast, a place for entrepreneurs who are building their business in pursuit of freedom and flexibility to do the things they love. I'm your host, jessica Rosario. I'm a New Yorker turned Floridian, who knows a thing or two on how to effectively manage your time while juggling multiple priorities. I'm an ex-corporate leader who walked away from my nine to five-ish to launch and grow my business. In this podcast, I share insights on mindset, business productivity, habits and strategies to help you take control of your to-do list and maximize your day, which will help you feel more confident and less overwhelmed and getting more done in less time. I'm so excited you're here, go ahead, listen in. I am so excited you're here, go ahead, listen in. Hey you guys, welcome back to the show.

Speaker 1: 0:57

In today's episode, I am excited to chat a little bit on growing versus scaling, growing versus scaling, and so one of the things that I've noticed is I attend a lot of networking events. I'm surrounded by entrepreneurs and other people who are building a business or building a side hustle, and the word scaling is thrown around very frequently, and so, as I begin to dig deeper to truly understand where they are in their business, what area. Is it that they're looking to scale? How can we go ahead and improve in certain areas, or how can I support them or provide them tips? It always comes back to the fact that they're actually not prepared to scale. Not prepared to scale. And so when a company is not prepared to scale, the focus is to truly develop a clear growth strategy in order to get them to that next level. And so I wanted to chat a little bit with you guys on why having a right growth strategy is crucial for building a business, and so I broke this down into about five steps. But before I share the five steps, I wanted to make a quick note on the five stages of a business cycle.

Speaker 1: 2:15

The five stages of a business cycle is something that I constantly refer to in order to truly explain to a coaching client where they are in their business, and so that they have kind of like a roadmap of where they want to go. And so the first stage of a business cycle is seed and development. And that seed and development this is where you're starting to validate your offer. You have an idea. You're not 100% sure on how to execute it. You do know that there is a need, right and you know there's a need because you've seen the need, you've heard it. Perhaps you are your own first client in going through this process which is usually how a lot of businesses are created is because we find a problem and we start to develop a solution for that problem, and so that becomes our seed and development stage.

Speaker 1: 3:07

The second stage of a business cycle is the startup, and so the startup phase. This is where you now have a product. You're constantly refining that product. It's kind of like a continuous improvement phase where you're testing, getting customer feedback, retesting, relaunching or whatever the case may be. It is more an opportunity for you to identify what areas of your offer you need to refine. You may not necessarily be making consistent income, but you've made some income, and so those two are part of the early stages of a business cycle. So when we start to look at the later stage of the five business cycles, we start to identify areas of growth and establishment. That's the third stage of a business cycle, and so at this point you're generating a consistent income. You have regular customers, new customers. You're not just working with one customer who continues to renew, but at this point you have a. You're starting to prove your offer. You're starting to prove your business model and you're starting to attract an income a little bit more consistent not a hundred percent, but definitely a little bit more consistent. But now you start to grow and establish some systems and processes behind these offers, because now you're generating a little bit more of a consistent income, and so that gives you the room to be able to work on your business.

Speaker 1: 4:42

The fourth stage of a business cycle is expansion. So this is where you truly begin to start scaling. This is where you know you have a proven process, you know it's effective, you know it's been successful. And so how do I go from one to many? Well, how do I go from one to one to one to many? And so now, at this point, you begin to scale and you begin to explore other markets. And at this point you've worked with multiple clients, you know what they're looking for and you begin to refine your offer. And so, as you begin to explore other markets, you start to experience new challenges, and these new challenges lead you to an expansion in your product offering.

Speaker 1: 5:25

And so, lastly, is the maturity stage of a business. So those are the five cycles. The last one is the maturity stage of the business. And so, in the maturity stage of the business, you're not looking at perhaps preparing to sell your business, or you're looking to bring on a partner, or you're looking to exit the business in some way, shape or form, you're looking to retire it, right. And so what does that look like for you? This is the maturity and exit stage, and I can tell you, most business owners that step into business ownership are looking to grow and scale their business and eventually exit out, and that's why an exit strategy is highly important for clients who are already scaling their business, and so I wanted to define what those five business cycles are before I share with you guys a few tips on how to develop an effective growth strategy for your business.

Speaker 1: 6:24

So number one is direction and goals. A growth strategy really provides clear objectives. You have a roadmap, you know exactly where you are, from point A to point B to point C, and so when you don't have this type of clarity and this type of direction, your scaling efforts are going to lack, because you have no purpose, you have no direction, and so this is why it's so important to have a growth strategy before we start tossing around the word scaling. We cannot scale without an effective growth strategy. Number two is resource allocation, and so understanding how to grow really helps you in how to effectively allocate your resources.

Speaker 1: 7:13

For example, I recently launched a membership last year and in the Maximize your Day membership, I wanted to keep my costs low right, and as I started to put out the membership and try to figure out what this was going to look like and go from one to one to one to many and and continue to grow this market, I realized that some of the platforms, some of the spaces that I started to use in the beginning of the membership, were no longer serving my membership at the capacity that I wanted it to grow, and so, at this point, I decided to make an investment on another platform where the engagement was going to be higher, where we were going to find much more community. The collaboration was going to be amazing and, honestly, gamification was not part of this decision making, but I have to tell you that the gamification that it actually brings this platform has been so incredible to see the leaderboard and to see who's competing towards the new benefits once they reach a new level, and so that's been so much fun, but I could not have been able to do that had I not truly sat down and taken some time to truly understand the direction and goals of what I wanted for my membership, and so that's why resource allocation is so great. And number two of a growth strategy. Number three is market fit and demand. So a good growth strategy really helps you ensure that your product fits the market demand. People are looking for what you're selling, and so scaling your business before validating if people actually want what you have to offer will yield no returns or limited returns, and so this doesn't mean that what you have to offer, people just don't want to buy it. It could be a shift in audience. It could be your messaging might be off. It could be the fact that you're attracting the wrong audience into the product that you believe they need, and even though it's the right product, you have the wrong audience, and so how to shift? That is critical when it comes to developing a growth strategy. Number four is wrong audience, and so how to shift. That is critical when it comes to developing a growth strategy. Number four is risk management, and risk management really helps you develop a solid growth strategy.

Speaker 1: 9:42

At this point, you are identifying what are some potential risks. What are some plans that I need to develop in order to ensure that my churn on my membership doesn't start to go in the wrong direction, that people don't just join for the first month and they drop off in the second month? What does that look like for me? How do I continue to assess the risk in order to ensure that my scaling efforts as I continue to grow the membership are truly robust and they can stand against any market, regardless of what the market dictates? And so number five is a sustainable growth strategy. And so, by establishing your growth strategy, you really help to create that sustainable path to help you scale your business, because having an effective growth strategy is what leads you to scaling.

Speaker 1: 10:37

And so, while there's no right or wrong way to gauge what this truly looks like for different businesses, you kind of have an idea of is your market growing?

Speaker 1: 10:49

Is your market not growing? Am I speaking to the right audience? Am I not speaking to the right audience? Am I allocating the resources for this product or for my business in such a way that I'm attracting quality leads and, of course, converting at a higher level? This doesn't matter if you have a thousand clients or if you have 10 clients. That's why there's no way to truly gauge what this looks like for a specific business. I mean, there's so many case studies out there that you can research. If you're in the janitorial industry, if you're in the coaching industry, doesn't matter where you're in. There's ways to that. You can define that, especially if you look at some of the reports with Duns and Bradstreet. There's a lot of ways that you are able to identify that, and so truly understanding what that growth strategy is going to look like is critical for the success of your business, and so I'd love to get your thoughts on.

Speaker 1: 11:55

What do you think about this episode?

Speaker 1: 11:56

What do you think about where you are in your business?

Speaker 1: 11:59

Are you growing your business?

Speaker 1: 12:01

Are you scaling your business? And so having a truly strategic approach is really what helps lay that groundwork for you in order to successfully scale your business. So don't forget, I'd love to hear your feedback. Feel free to take a screenshot, tag me on social media, leave us a review, subscribe, but I definitely would love to hear what it is that resonated with you in your business, and let's talk about where you are and inside of the five stages of the business cycle, where do you see yourself and let's have a dialogue.

Speaker 1: 12:38

I look forward to connecting with you at our next episode and I'll talk to you guys soon. As always, thank you so much for listening in. Don't forget to subscribe to the show to be notified the second a new episode is released and share with your friends who believe could benefit from listening. Or, even better, just post a screenshot of the episode in your stories and tag me on Instagram or Facebook. I would love to hear your feedback, answer questions, and I'm always open to your topic suggestions, so you never know if your topic will be next. So then, until next time, go ahead, maximize your day and own it.