The Truth About Starting and Scaling Your Business Episode 305

The Truth About Starting and Scaling Your Business 

I am so glad you are here. We are wrapping up the “Your Work Matters” series this week. Two weeks ago, we heard Lisa’s story about the season she is in with her work. This week, we are going to get the flipside with Ryan Deiss.

Ryan shares with us how to help start your business and help scale your business. I think you will love this post whether you are the CEO of your company or just dreaming of starting your own business,

Ryan Deiss is a serial entrepreneur, author, and investor. He is the Founder and CEO of The Scalable Company, DigitalMarketer.com, and a Founding Partner at Scalable Equity. 

Ryan shares insights from his new book, Get Scalable: The Operating System Your Business Needs to Boost Sales, Increase Profits, and Run Without You, about breaking free from grit and constantly giving more effort to building a business that thrives without your constant input.

Alright, let’s get started. 

Three Myths of Starting Your Business 

1. You need money to get started. 

Ryan says you need customers to start your business and customers don’t cost anything. He says to sell to 10 people, and once they buy from you, see if they are generally happy that they did business with you to the point where they’ll let you use their name when talking to other people. That’s how you start a business.

2. You need a product to get started. 

Ryan explains that people need to go out there and talk to others to figure out what they need ahead of time, but then be open to them saying it’s something different. When people think of market research, they think it’s just going around and asking everybody in the market what they want. The reality is people don’t know what they want, and if they did, they would already get it, or somebody else would have already given it to them. So it’s best to do the hard work of finding out what they want and then offer it to them. If you offer them something, you’ll either get a yes or a no. 

3. You need a brand. 

Ryan shares that in every business he’s started, it was words that he put inside of PowerPoint and took a screenshot because, at the end of the day, people aren’t buying logos. 

First Steps for Scaling Your Business 

I asked Ryan to give one key tip – a first step to scaling your business. He provided two “not-to-do” and one “to-do.” Ready?

1. Don’t try to document or create checklists, policies, and procedures for everything your business does. 

Ryan says he knows there are a lot of books out there that tell you to do this, but it’s something that just sounds like it should work, but it doesn’t. Nobody ever looks at them, and you’ll end up with a bunch of binders that no one ever uses. 

2. Don’t hire an operator to come and run your business for you. 

Some books say to hire an operator to help you run your business, but Ryan explains there are a few things that could be improved with this. The first is that in the early days of your business, you’re probably not able to afford someone who’s actually an operator. Also, if you don’t have an operating system in place and you hire somebody who knows what to do, they will try to install their own. But if it’s not based on what you know. So, eventually, it’s going to become this kind of gross monstrosity that isn’t actually going to work. 

Now, let’s get into the one “to-do.” 

1. Business Process Mapping

It sounds more complicated than what it is – but this is how you do it. You start by asking, “How do customers or clients happen?” It’s a very simple question: how do they know the business exists? Are you doing Facebook ads or Instagram ads? Or purely referrals based? Are you going out and doing trade shows or flea markets in person? There’s some way where people become aware that you exist. So, put that on a sticky note. Then, the end process is that they give you money or sign a contract and put that on another sticky note. Then, fill out the in-between with the process from start to finish. 

Secondly, you’ll do this with the fulfillment process after the sale is made. Ask yourself, then what? In one sticky note, you’ll put the sale is made, and you’ll go until they give you a testimonial or a referral. Fill out the in-between with the process from start to finish. Once you’ve done that, you have a visual map, a picture of the entire customer journey and how you create value.

Listen or Watch now:

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Favorite quotes: 

“You can start a company. It can fail. That doesn’t make you a failure. You can just do another one.”

(6:42 Audio)

“Don’t worry about your logo or all this other stuff, just go sell somebody something.”

(6:59 Audio)

“The beautiful thing about business is you have the opportunity to self-sabotage at multiple points along the way.”

(7:35 Audio)

“Adopt the position of service and above all else, stop defining your business based on the products you sell or how you sell them. Define your business based on the people you serve.”

(9:34 Audio)

 “You don’t need a bunch of money to get started. You don’t really even need a product to get started, and you don’t need a brand to get started.”

(12:09 Audio)

“We don’t start with our goals. We don’t start by documenting everything. We start by visualizing the value creation process, then you can do all the other stuff.”

(25:36 Audio) 

Coaching this week:

When to Make Your First Hire After Starting Your Business (31:49) 

This is an important question for someone building a side business or working as a solopreneur and building what will one day be a big business for them. You’re either going to have a lot of time or money. If you have a lot of time but not a lot of money, learn how to do everything yourself. It will benefit you in the long run. But if you have a lot of money but not enough time, that’s when you want to hire. 

The first hires are going to be strengthening up your weaknesses. They will be doing things you’re not that good at or don’t like doing them; if you don’t like doing them, you’re not going to do a good job. Hire for your weaknesses.  

Links to great things we discussed: 

• Ryan Deiss Website
• Digital Marketer
• Ryan Deiss Instagram
• Get Scalable: The Operating System Your Business Needs to Boost Sales, Increase Profits, and Run Without You
• Taylor Swift
• 30 Rock
• Seinfeld
• BritBox
• Full Focus Planner
• The Conqueror App
• Silo
• Alli on YouTube
• The Coach School
• Remaining You While Raising Them

Order your copy of Remaining You While Raising Them here.

Hope you loved this episode!  Be sure to subscribe in iTunes and slap some stars on a review! 🙂

xo,

Alli