How to Scale Your Business in 3 Steps (without working more hours)
For service-based business owners, there comes a point where you’re bringing in consistent revenue… but you want to level things up.
You’re ready to scale your business and grow your revenue further, but you don’t want to triple your rates to the point that most of your audience can’t afford to work with you, and you don’t want to work more hours than you already are.
At that point, it can feel like you’re in a bind.
But I’m here to tell you, it’s totally possible to scale your business without breaking yourself by working a gazillion hours a week.
In this post, I’m going to walk you through the 3 step process that I use with my clients to scale your business with a new offer, without working more hours per week or putting a huge dent in your revenue as you build it.
What does it mean to scale your business?
First things first: what is scaling?
Scaling is when you’ve already figured out how to make money with the thing that you are selling, and now you want to leverage what you've already built to grow even more.
This can look different depending on what your business model is and what you want your business to grow into. For the purposes of this post, I’ll mostly be focusing on people who are service-based business owners, typically doing some type of one-to-one service offering.
You might start thinking about scaling your business when you feel like you’re fully booked and can’t take any more clients on, but you still want to figure out how to keep growing.
(Or you’re relatively close to booked out and you could probably push and get another few clients if you really wanted to, but you actually just don't want to work more hours so you're not pushing for them)
This is one of my favorite things to talk about, because a lot of us really grew up with this notion that we always have to be trading our time for our money. To a degree that is true, but we don't have to do it in the how-much-do-you-make-per-hour way that we have been conditioned to for the remainder of our lives.
How to scale your business with a new offer
A lot of times, when we talk about scaling for service based businesses, we often talk about creating some source of passive income.
There’s lots of different ways to do that, like courses, memberships, paid workshops, etc.
One of the big issues we run into, though, is when you already feel busy in your business with clients who’ve already paid you. So how do you make this shift?
You might start thinking “How do I create this new offer, then sell it, and deliver on it, when I’m already busy? How do I do that without having to burn my whole current business to the ground??”
If you’re already putting in 40 hours a week, you might start feeling like you have to put in 50 hours a week to launch this thing.
The good news is that you don’t!
It’s entirely possible to get to that next level without working more, or destroying what you’ve already created, if you follow these 3 steps.
This is the process I take my clients through when they’re looking to take their existing business to the next level.
Scaling Step 1: Stabilize Your Current Business
The very first thing we have to do, the thing that gets overlooked far too often, is that we need to stabilize what is already happening in our business.
Usually with scaling, people jump right ahead to that next offer that they are going to create, whatever it is, and they haven't fully looked at stabilizing what is already going on in their business.
Doing this sets you up so that you don't have to stress out so much about losing any current revenue when you do start working on your new offer.
hAvE CliEnTs wItH oLD rAtEs? tImE tO RaIsE ThEm.
It's also important to know that the people I work with don't want to just make more money overnight by tripling their rates and making it so that a lot more people can no longer afford them. So that's not what I'm going to suggest here.
But this is a good time to really look at your rates and your packages.
Often, we have clients who were grandfathered in at a lower rate, and they've been with you for a while, and they're paying significantly less than the more recent clients you've brought on board.
And now you need to consider, Is it time for me to raise their rates? This doesn't mean you necessarily have to bring them all the way up to whatever your new client pricing is, but is there room to bring them a bit closer?
Let's say you have three clients who have been at this much lower rate for a very long time, and you reach out to them about this. And maybe you get two who say, “Okay, yeah, I'll keep working with you at the new rate.” And then one says no.
You don’t have to feel bad about that, because now you're making more money off of those other two, and maybe you know somebody else you can refer them to at a lower price point, or who is a better fit for their business. And now you have freed up time from that other person to either take on a new client at your higher rates or use towards scaling your business.
>>Check out this blog post about How to Set Your Prices & Not Freak Out
So now you have more revenue coming in, you can use some of it to offload some work through a VA or other support person, even if it's just super super part time.
gET sOmE StUfF oFf YoUr PlAtE
Let’s say you're currently working 40 hours a week; 10 of that is admin and marketing, and 30 of that is client work.
So if you're going to create a course to scale your business, you have to figure out how to get some things off of your plate so you have time to build and launch the course. To do that, we have to look at your systems, and see what we can get off your plate.
I really want to emphasize: The people I work with tend to run pretty lean in their business. It's only them and a VA, or them and a VA and a copywriter, or a social media manager. They're not people who have a ton of people working with them, and that is very intentional.
My goal isn't to make you have to be the boss of a whole bunch of people. But outsourcing here and there to get a few things off your plate can go a long way.
>>Check out this blog post for more about getting started with outsourcing
Now that you’ve gotten some things off your plate without losing revenue, you can use this newfound time to strategize what your new offer will be and make a plan to create it in the time that you have available to you without working more.
Scaling Step 2: Strategize Your New Offer
Before we dive into action creating your new thing, we’ll spend some time strategizing so that when you do start, you know that you’re going about it in the way that works best for you.
First, we figure out what offer type you’re going to create in order to scale your business (it might not be a course!) – the focus here is on creating the right offer for you, not just whatever some “guru” says you should create.
Then we figure out a plan for you to actually create and deliver that new offer.
fIgUrE oUt ThE rIgHt OfFeR tYpE fOr YoU
When you get to the strategize portion, the thing that I like to do with my clients is to really assess:
What do they want their weeks to look like?
How do they enjoy working with others?
Who are they trying to reach with this new offer?
What is the goal they want to accomplish with this new offer?
We go through all of these things so that we can find the right offer for you and your people.
It's not just the same old, same old, Oh, obviously you should make a course. I’m not in the business of one-size-fits-all solutions.
Now, I've helped people who've made courses. But that is not always the best way to do it, even though it's the way that’s talked about the most.
Here’s an example of two social media managers who went about this completely differently:
I once had a client who is an amazing social media manager and strategist, and she was thinking of creating a course, but she was kind of dreading making it. When we talked, we figured out that instead, she could do a simple low-priced one-off service for emerging entrepreneurs to help them with their social media strategy and content.
It would work on a rolling 90 day period, so when she would get a new client for that service, she knew she would have consistent revenue from them for the next 90 days, but it wasn't going to take up much more of her time, and she was going to get to work in a way that was fun and easy for her (1:1) and was super valuable for the clients, and also allowed her to help those newer entrepreneurs who really needed the help but couldn't afford her done-for-you services.
So she felt really good about the offer, and in turn, it meant that she didn't have to waste a ton of time creating and then launching a course.
And another time I had another client who was also a social media manager. And with this client, we came up with the idea to create a course with a membership site. So we are going about it in a different way. And this is the thing she's really excited to create. And she will be able to serve her people well in this way.
So we have to strategize not only a new offer, but what is the right new offer for you, and your goals.
>>Check out this blog post about The 5 Offer Types (& How to Decide Which One to Create Next)
mAkE a PlAn Of aCtIoN tHaT wOrKs FoR yOu
Once we figure out your offer type, we plan how you’ll actually create it.
What are your weeks going to look like?
What do you need to create first, next, last?
When are you going to do it?
When are you going to launch this thing?
It’s important to make sure you’re creating a plan that actually works with how you like to work and how many hours you have free in a week.
Don’t just pile on a bunch of new work and tell yourself to get it done as fast as possible.
>>Check out this blog post for more about creating your ideal workweek.
Scaling Step 3: Sell To Your People
Once we’ve figured out the right offer type for you, and made a plan that works for your life, then we figure out the best way to get this in front of the perfect people!
Your sales and marketing plan for your new offer might be different from how you normally do sales and marketing.
If you do something totally outside your comfort zone, it can feel challenging and scary to market and sell.
If you're used to hopping on a discovery call to close a sale, but now you have a $29 a month membership, you're probably not going to be doing sales calls for that. Snow we think about:
What do you have to put into place?
How long is your launch going to be?
Where are you going to post about it?
What are you going to say about it?
Are you going to do any direct outreach to people?
Are you going to put up a waitlist?
The possibilities are endless.
But there has to be some kind of plan in place for you to have this offer out there in the world and available so that people can take advantage of it.
Sometimes this is easier than you think. Honestly, I've done it a lot of times where I've just emailed my list and said, “Hey, I'm doing this thing. Here's all the details. Are you in?” or I've done it on Instagram Stories.
I try to keep things as simple as possible for myself. There are all different ways to do it, but you do need to plan your launch and selling strategy.
If you’re a service based business owner who is ready to scale your business without working more hours, these 3 pillars should help you get there.
You don’t have to work more hours to make more money. It’s absolutely possible to grow your business without breaking yourself in the process.
You just need to take the time to make sure you’re taking action and making a plan that works for you.
