The 7 Biggest Traps Coaches & Consultants Fall Into Trying To Scale
Lessons learnt in 2020
2020 has been a year of challenges but also a year of spectacular success. Looking back on its lessons we’ve identified 7 of the biggest traps.
If you’re a coach or consultant struggling to scale your business to your first million in revenue or someone who is well past that point but cannot seem to create real leverage to scale both revenue and profit, it’s possible you’ve fallen into one of these 7 traps.
1. Too Busy
Being stuck in the day to day is a huge problem. As the CEO of the business you’re responsible for the direction your business is taking. It’s your role to come up with the strategy and muster the troops to get your ideas executed.
If you’re stuck in the delivery of your product every day…
If you’re the one executing without support…
If you’re always the only one putting out fires…
You don’t really have the time or the bandwidth to actually think, do you?
You know you’ve fallen into this trap when your to-do list never gets any shorter and you feel like you’re being pulled in a million different directions – a sign of wearing too many hats in your business, which brings us to…
2. Being Reactive Rather Than Proactive
Most coaches and consultants respond to what is immediately in front of them. They fight fires rather than prevent them. They are spinning their wheels flitting from one task to another as a result of being stuck in the day to day.
This is the notorious 6-figure hamster wheel. And guess what? Working harder is not the answer.
What works is rising above the noise and giving yourself breathing space to think – to formulate a plan.
This seems basic but many never get off that hamster wheel. They burn out first!
If you’re not clear about your priorities in your role as the CEO of your business – then you’re not really in the driver’s seat are you? Your business continues to drive you.
3. Confusing Scaling with Growing
This is when coaches and consultants try to “scale” prematurely.
The trap is failing to recognise that Scaling is NOT the same as Growing.
When your business is growing you’re increasing your revenue but chances are you are also increasing time, money and effort into generating that additional revenue. So really, your profits may not be increasing. In some aggressive growth scenarios you may even choose to operate at a loss in the short term to generate the additional revenue like when you’re putting more resources into building a membership site or a marketing funnel or when you’re hiring a new staff member.
When you scale, on the other hand, you’re adding revenue at a faster rate than expenses. For example if you’re generating an additional $50k in revenue but you’ve only spent $5k in marketing automation to get more efficient at marketing, reach a wider audience and convert at a higher rate, then the business gains are outpacing its expenses, allowing it to not only grow but also to scale.
A subset of this trap is also failing to recognise that scaling your ad campaigns does NOT necessarily mean you’re scaling your business.
I’m sure you’ve seen this before: an up and coming coach or consultant has that eureka moment! Their campaigns are (finally) working. So now they “Scale”!
But before long,
Leads become more expensive…
The campaigns start to burn out…
They throw more money at it because that’s what every other ‘guru’ tells them they have to do to compete.
They work harder spinning more angles for the ads, more videos, more content…
The ads work until they don’t.
The cycle continues…
This is attempting to scale ad campaigns. It’s NOT the same as scaling your business.
What happens to the delivery?
What about client support? And other operational functions required for the business?
Costs are still increasing in other areas that continue to eat into profit.
The solution you’ll hear a lot is this – “Just raise your prices” – but if it were that easy, everyone would have a profitable business!
If you’re going straight to ‘scaling’ as soon as one of your offers work, you’re missing important elements of growth that build a strong foundation for your business.
When you ‘scale’ to drive growth you are prematurely advancing one aspect of your business out of synch with the rest of the operations and you will miss the opportunity to create real leverage.
When you scale before your business is optimised with systems you run the risk of imploding and have to scale back first.
4. Making It All About You
Making it all about YOUR process – what’s working for you.
Making it all about YOUR story.
Making it all about what YOU do.
NOT about your client’s pain and what they want. What they NEED.
No one cares about your amazing 44-module program worth a staggering $118,000 in value. Every time I see one of these bold claims about value, it always begs the question, “Says who?”
What about the real value?
Will it help them replace their corporate income in 90 days?
Will it help them gain the self-confidence that years of abuse has stripped away?
Will it help them feel great in their body so that they have more and better sex with their partner?
Will it help them get the love of their life back?
Make it about THEM. Make it about the solution THEY want.
Your clients want their problems solved.
Get clear on the outcomes you provide. Stand by your results or you’ll be brushed aside as your niche gets more and more competitive as coaches and consultants continue…
5. Operating in the Commodity Zone
When you’re the same as everyone else – another health coach, life coach, business coach, social media manager, web developer, financial consultant, accountant, personal trainer…
You will forever be competing on price.
Instead, when you focus on what your market truly needs you can start steering your business in the right direction.
Who could you work with where your skills, experience and expertise provides the highest value? – The bigger the problem solved – the bigger the outcome.
How would you make this a no-brainer for them to work with you? – The lower the risk, clients will happily invest more.
Clients are demanding more. Are you ready and appropriately positioned to be part of the movement that can provide them with what they need – to solve their problems; to elevate your industry?
Choose your FOCUS.
What is ONE very painful problem you can solve?
For ONE very specific type of client?
Utilising your ONE very specialised signature solution to that problem?
So instead of “We are the best business coach, we have great results, happy clients, we are a top-selling author with xyz books, podcasts etc….”
You can now say “We’re partnering with 10 [specifically niched] business owners who want to double their revenues / client base in the next 12 months without [things they don’t want]. Is that something that interests you?”
6. Not Marketing and Selling Consistently
A subset of “Too Busy …”, this trap can sound a lot like “I’m too busy to do marketing” or worse, the denial, “I don’t need to do marketing. I have too many clients”
That thinking keeps you stuck working with non ideal clients and in most cases, the least profitable clients.
It also keeps you holding onto problem clients you really need to fire.
If you really want control in your business, control your lead generation.
Control the type and frequency of leads asking to do business with you.
There’s a magical shift that happens when you are attracting more ideal clients than you can adequately serve.
You get to set your prices.
You decide who you WANT to work with.
You get to choose who you will NOT work with.
Very few people know that for the first 5 months in my coaching / consulting business, 6 years ago now, I was still technically on “gardening leave” from my investment bank employer. What this meant was that I could not be seen advertising or promoting any new venture.
No Facebook page much less any ads.
No website with my face on it.
Instead I set myself a daily target of reaching out to 5 ideal prospects a day with the aim to have at least 1 conversation. Bear in mind, I did not have a structured sales process or any specific script at the time.
However, this simple daily habit of connecting helped me get my first client within 2 weeks and went on to help me replace my (very healthy multiple six figure) corporate income within 18 months.
Build that habit. Market and sell every single day. It will serve you well.
7. I Can ‘Do’ It All Myself
Your business has grown. You’ve hustled and worked hard. Well done!
But you seem to be busier than ever. This brings us back to #1 – Remember the “I’m too busy to grow” trap?
The worst part of that trap is there’s another far more insidious layer as you sink deeper into it which is this underlying trap of thinking that you can do it all by yourself.
And as smart, capable people, we rationalise it…
“I don’t want to spend the money now.”
“I need to make more sales first.”
“I will lose control if I bring on a team.”
“I don’t want to manage people”
“No one will be able to do it as well as I can”.
And of course it all sounds so plausible. So sensible, right?
Until you’re exhausted and burnt out.
I know because I’ve been there. And I see so many of my clients in the same position, rising up as solo entrepreneurs having single-handedly doubled, tripled or even 5X’d their business only to struggle to get out of this trap.
When you’re caught in its vortex you can’t fight your way out. The more you struggle – the harder you work and double down on effort – the deeper you end up sinking.
I believe it was Einstein who said…
“We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them”
So if you want to step out of this trap, you have to stop doing what you are currently doing.
I know that can be easier said than done.
Most of us are on autopilot – trapped by our own habits.
But this doesn’t have to be your reality.
You have the ability to create a different outcome.
To do this you have to break the habit of doing what you’re doing right now.
You have to break the habit of being who you are.
You have to become someone else.
You have to become that person who already has the outcome you want.
And that’s the secret of breaking through these traps to scale your business.
Before you delegate or outsource.
Before you hire the marketing support you need.
You have to become that CEO or managing director who is capable of leading a team and scaling such a business.
There’s a Natural Order and Sequence to Scaling…
And it starts with becoming who you need to be. It’s Foundational, but sadly missed by so many gurus who focus solely on scaling your marketing, or worse, scaling ad campaigns.
You can get the best strategy.
You can have the best team around you.
But if you haven’t worked on the inner game, you’re going to have a much harder time reaching your goals.
Your personality creates your personal reality. Your personality is made up of how you act, how you think and how you feel. — Joe Dispenza
When you clean up your inner game.
When you embody that person who already has the results you want, your actions flow with ease to enable you to build the infrastructure your business needs to grow, optimise and then scale.
