Jade Boyd: This week, I’m bringing you an episode that I recently recorded with Amy Traugh from the Motivated CEO podcast. And Amy had me on her show to talk all about scaling a service based business. And in this episode, in this conversation, we break down the four stages to scaling a service based business and how to really break yourself out of that trap of trading time for money as a service provider and to remove yourself as the bottleneck in your service business, because as you know, so many service providers get stuck in the trap of every new client takes more of your time, right?

But in order to scale your business, you have to separate the amount of time you’re putting into your business from the money that you’re able to make. So in this episode, we talk about how to uncap your earning potential. And how to create a thriving business that allows you to work a part time schedule or your ideal schedule.

And this conversation is just packed with a lot of the strategies and systems that I teach my clients as a business coach and Amy shares her wisdom in scaling her own business as well. After this episode, Amy was so sweet. And she sent me a copy of her book, The CEO Method, which I’ll also link in the show notes, but I am super excited to dive into that book. I have a long list of books on my shelf to dive into, so I haven’t read it yet, but I am really excited after learning more from Amy to dive into all of the information resources that she has.

So I will link her podcast and her book in the show notes so that you can go find her and get connected with her world too. She has so many helpful episodes on scaling your business over on her podcast as well.

So without further ado, let’s dive into this conversation with Amy on how to scale your service based business.

Amy Traugh: Welcome back in to the motivated CEO podcast. We are talking today about scaling. This is a topic that comes up frequently with entrepreneurs. They’re constantly questioning their readiness to scale. And then there’s often some misconceptions. Behind the scaling process, today’s guest, Jade Boyd is going to walk us through the four stages of scaling and really help shine light on this topic that let’s face it, a lot of us are struggling with or have struggled with.

So before we dive in, Jade, welcome into the podcast.

Jade Boyd: Thanks so much for having me. I’m really excited for this conversation. Scaling is one of my favorite things to talk about.

Amy Traugh: Absolutely. And so important for business owners, but before we dive in, tell us all the things, who you are, what you do, who you serve.

Jade Boyd: Yeah. So my name is Jade Boyd. I live here in Iowa city, Iowa. I’m a Midwest gal born and raised. I started my business after getting my MBA in marketing, and so I’ve always been interested in business and when I graduated, I was kind of looking at all of these different corporate careers and feeling a little bit like my soul was about to get sucked out.

And so I made the very difficult decision after I graduated to start my own business instead of going the traditional corporate career route. And I started out in brand photography, working with business owners and building a photography business very quickly realized that I was so much more passionate about the systems and marketing and strategy and backend side of managing a business rather than the photography side of managing a business. So very slowly pivoted into business coaching, took on a lot of different projects from marketing strategy to, project management to building entrepreneur systems and SOPs, and ultimately bundled my knowledge in business into my group coaching program, The Business Edit, which is how I help service providers typically who are two plus years into business and have established themselves, they know what they’re doing, but are at that point where they really do need to scale. They are at the tipping point where they can’t trade any more time for money. And so the program helps them pivot away from, you know, the hustle culture and grow, grow, grow to really creating a business that’s aligned, that works around the life that they want to live.

So that’s what I’m doing today. And I’m really loving it.

Amy Traugh: Oh, I love that so much. And you were speaking my love language, systems and strategy. And I feel like that is the missing piece for so many entrepreneurs. We’re really overcomplicating this whole process. So it takes strategy. It takes those systems to support you.

So preach it, sister. I love it. But let’s dive in and unpack this whole scaling process. Let’s start out, how does someone know as an entrepreneur when they’re ready to scale? Because I feel like so many times we’re like, I’m not ready yet. I’m not ready yet. When in reality, we should be scaling.

Jade Boyd: Yeah. First of all, let’s define what scaling actually is, because I think everyone listening to that term has something come to mind, whether they think that a certain model is like the way to scale, or there’s a certain revenue bench point or something like that.

We all have these, built in conceptions of what it looks like to scale, but in reality, it can look very different for every business owner. And so I want every business owner who’s listening to know that there is a custom strategy for you to scale in a way that does not look like you creating a business that takes you out of the day to day and crushes your soul again, so to speak, where you’re starting to only be in a management role, managing people and not doing the thing that you actually love. So there is a strategy for every business owner. But when I think about scaling, I think about it in two dimensions. One, the time that you’re putting into your business and two, the profit that you’re getting out of your business.

And for, CEOs, for business owners, that really comes down to how much you’re paying yourself. And so scaling is just a way to grow your business so that you’re not putting any more time in. In fact, most business owners want to put less time into their business. If they got into that point where they really are hustling and need to do things differently.

But they also want to make more money because at some point you cannot trade any more time for money, you’re going to be capped in your ability to provide one on one services and you’re going to have to look at doing something different. And so I look at scaling in terms of increasing that gap between what you’re putting into your business and what you’re getting out of it.

And I have this chart, I can give it to you for the show notes because it’s just a really helpful visual for me to see. It’s just a chart that’s showing what you’re putting into your business and getting out of it. And when you’re growing, you have to put something more into your business, whether that’s more money or more time in order to get anything more out of it.

And so that gap between what you’re putting in and what you’re getting out, it might increase a little bit, but it’s still really small. But when you’re scaling, you can keep your inputs the exact same, or maybe even decrease them. But that line of what you’re getting out of your business, grows exponentially and that is the goal of scaling.

Amy Traugh: Oh, that is beautiful. Thank you so much for clarifying that. Because I think there’s a lot of misconceptions out there about it that we think that, okay, well scaling just means I’m going to have to take on more and more and more. And I don’t have the capacity. Whereas what you’re saying, it’s almost the opposite.

Scaling allows us to grow our business but still free ourselves up. So yes, we will definitely link that graphic in the show notes. So talk us through the four stages of scaling for entrepreneurs.

Jade Boyd: Yeah. So like I mentioned, I specifically help service providers. And so this is especially relevant for service providers who are listening to this still applicable for product based business owners too.

But the examples and stuff I’m going to give definitely more relevant for service providers who are trading time. for money. So the first phase, you’re just identifying your niche. So like I said, I work with business owners who are about two plus years into business who already have established themselves in their industry.

They already know how to do photography. They already know how to do design. They already know how to manage podcasts, whatever that service might be. They figured out what it is that they like to do and what they want to build their business into. Right? I always say that productivity starts with clarity because it’s very hard to scale a business if you’re trying to do 30 different services for 30 different clients, it’s not going to scale well because it’s very unclear. It’s a lot of different systems to set up. It’s a lot of different strategies to set up and you’ll be working harder and putting in more in order to scale that type of business.

So the first step really is to get clear on what you want to do. And I was just meeting, with a friend who is in the very initial stages of starting a business yesterday. And we met for coffee and we were just chatting about how hard those first couple of years in business are because, it is so hard to systemize or strategize anything because really your only focus as a business owner is getting good at what you’re doing and figuring out what you actually like to do.

Because so many people start businesses thinking, I love photography. I love design. Of course, I want to make money off of that. And then you get into it and realize that when you build the business around it, you actually kind of hate it. And so the first stage really is to niche down.

And a lot of people will ask me, well, like how niche is niche enough? Do I have to be a bookkeeper for like online business owners, seven plus who are only in life coaching? Does it have to be that specific? And my answer is no, you have to niche enough to know what your signature offering is. And to say, I am a blank. I am a family photographer. I am a podcast manager, whatever that fill in the blank would be, and that is the first stage to scaling because you have to know what you’re going to scale before you start scaling it.

Amy Traugh: Oh my goodness. Thank you so much for that. Because yes, clarity is key. If you don’t know what you want, how are you ever going to be able to take the steps to get there? And I think process of niching has kind of gotten a bad rap over the years, you know, people are afraid of like pigeonholing themselves into one thing well, if I niche down too much, it’s like oh, you’re just saying that, hey, i’m the expert in this, you know, that’s all it is and you can always evolve that niche as your business evolves and that’s okay. But that’s why the clarity piece is so absolutely crucial. So yes Shout it from the rooftops. I agree. 100 percent clarity is just such an undervalued part of the process. So don’t be afraid to niche. What’s stage two?

Jade Boyd: Yes. So once you know what you want to be known as that field that you’re going to stake your claim and say, I am the expert in this, the second stage for service providers is to really productize and systemize your service. And so to stop doing, like podcast management, for example, stop doing something different for every single client and systemize your service so that you are the expert and you’re telling your clients, this is how I manage podcasts.

You have that signature framework. You have that signature process. It becomes very rinse and repeat, and you’re able to work less. A little bit because things are more systemized and streamlined and automated, hopefully, but also make more money because again, you’re doing the same thing over and over again and getting really, really good at it.

And so there is that dimension to scaling. Like I said, it’s, it’s what you’re putting in versus what you’re getting out. And so some people will refer to this stage as scaling and it’s only stage two. There’s so much further that we can go, but to some extent you are making more money if we’re working less at this stage, right?

You’re getting really, really streamlined and automated and providing more value to your clients, because we think that we’re doing our clients a favor by saying yes to everything that they want, but that’s not what our clients need. Our clients need us to be the expert and tell them what the best way to do things is, and the more established you are, the more practice you have, the more confident that you’ll be actually telling your clients what they need and not giving them anything that they want, which can be a really hard transformation for service providers to go to, especially because we all care so much about our clients, right? We want them to have a great experience. We want them to be really happy with the services that we’re providing and the results that they’re getting, but at the end of the day, sometimes what they need more than a yes man is a tough love person who can really tell them. I have experience. I’ve done this a million times. Trust me. This is the best way for us to move forward. This is the best way to do your newborn session. This is the best way to do your bookkeeping and doing something different at the end of the day is only going to make things more sporadic for you as a service provider, but also give your clients mixed results, right?

So the second stage is to systemize, streamline, get organized, and also raise those prices because you’re getting really good at it.

Amy Traugh: Exactly. Oh, the systems and structure of your business. That’s what gives you the freedom. That’s what gives you the freedom that you have always desired that we’re always on this quest to do.

It’s not about doing more. It’s exactly, as you said, it’s about really refining your craft and then staying within your zone of genius, because at first, you’re right, we’re people pleasers by nature. We want to help everyone, we want to be nice to people, we want people to like us. And we’re trying to figure it out. But as you go, you are the expert. You are the go to and that’s what builds your confidence because now you’ve been doing this over and over and over. It’s that practice that’s really building that confidence. I’m loving all of this. So what is step three?

Jade Boyd: Yeah. So step three is really the magical stage. And this is the stage that I focus on most in my group coaching program. And this is changing the structure of your business to a structure that will scale to that exponential income that I was talking about. So in stage two, you really are, to some extent, still trading time for money. You’re trading less time for more money, but you’re still trading time for money.

And so even if you are really established, your processes are completely streamlined. Everything’s automated. Everything is just flowing seamlessly. There’s still going to be a cap on the amount of income because we all only have so much time to give to our businesses. And if you are only serving clients in that capacity, then at some extent, you’re going to say like, you know what, I have the capacity to serve 50 clients in a year.

And this is my revenue cap. That’s as much as I can make. So in stage three is when you’re getting to the point where you have to do something different if you want to grow your income and grow the amount that you’re paying yourself without working 90 plus hours a week, right? So I say that there’s four main ways to scale a business.

So in stage three, you’re picking what is my strategy to scale? What is the business model or like structure change that I’m going to implement to scale. And ultimately, you can choose multiple methods. You don’t only have to choose one of the four, but I always recommend starting with one and really implementing it to the best of your ability and optimizing it.

Again, streamlining it, being great at it before you move on to adding another one. I always say focus on one thing at a time and, you know, it’s better to give your all to something and do it really well, rather than to try to do all four and feel like you’re failing at all four of them. So I’ll list them in like the easiest and quickest to hardest to implement.

So the first strategy is to move from one on one services to some sort of group offer. So for me, like I mentioned, I moved from doing one on one coaching where I’m meeting with everybody for a full hour and giving them all individual attention to moving to a group coaching offer, where we’re all more on group calls and we have a group Slack channel and a lot of the trainings are prerecorded. I’m not like showing up live and training everybody one on one and repeating myself a million times a month. Right? So moving from one on one services to group services, there our creative ways to do this in many fields. So coaching, I think is an easy one because we’re all familiar with like the group coaching model, but there’s definitely ways to do this in other industries too.

And so if somebody is listening to this and thinking like, I can’t do a group service for my service, it just doesn’t work. I want you to stop and consider what could it look like because you might not see anybody else doing it, but it doesn’t mean it’s not possible for you to do it. And there’s many different ways besides group coaching to move into a group offer.

So, like speaking even is a really out of the box example where you’re showing up once delivering one hour of your time, but some speakers get paid thousands and thousands of dollars for that one hour of their time, right? When they can’t necessarily bill that for a one on one relationship, but if you can speak and if you can make the circuit and be known in that area, then you have a high potential to scale by doing a group service.

And that’s a very non traditional example of what it could look like to scale through group services.

Amy Traugh: Yeah. Oh, I love it.

Jade Boyd: Should we keep going?

Amy Traugh: Yeah. Tell us the other two.

Jade Boyd: Okay. So that’s number one. And again, that’s like the quickest and easiest to do because you do have a lot of control over formatting and marketing that service, right?

And switching the model in which you’re delivering your services. The second one is to productize your education. So as a service provider, again, if you went through step two. You’ve systemized, you’ve streamlined, you’ve automated, and you have this killer framework or process that you take your clients through to get results.

And there’s many ways that you can productize that to help, insert your ideal client, more people that you serve, get those results without having to serve them one on one. So productizing education can look like creating a digital course. It can look like, writing a book. It’s another. Out of the norm example, a more, time intensive example, but there’s many ways to productize what you know, to give to people who are more of beginners or DIY people that doesn’t involve you taking any extra time to serve them one on one, but also still helps them get results. So that’s stage two, which is a little bit more time intensive to implement because, I mean, it’s great once it’s created and you’re selling it, right? But it does take a lot of time to package that and to launch it. So that’s the second one.

The third one is to build a team, which I think most business owners, at least most business owners I work with, are most hesitant to move towards because there’s a lot of fear around letting go of control and hiring team members, especially when it comes to letting go of control of your client work and letting them step in and interact with your clients.

There’s so much fear and nervousness around hiring a team, but I like to say that there’s two different team building strategies. One, you could definitely build a team with the mindset of, I want to stay in my zone of genius as much as possible. So if you’re a graphic designer, for example, I want to only do graphic design and I’m going to hire a team to take as much of the admin work, as much as the marketing, as much as the like overhead non design work, whatever that might look like in your business off my plate.

And so you can definitely hire a really powerhouse team. While staying in your zone of genius. And then again, that comes down to your strategy to scale and building a business that you like, and not necessarily saying that scaling is stepping into your CEO role and hiring this ginormous team and scaling to seven figures and beyond, no, you can scale to whatever your goal is and build the team that you want to run.

And so the first strategy is outsourcing what you don’t like doing, which is a lot easier than the second strategy, which is outsourcing some of what you do like doing and bringing people into your business that can work with your clients so that you are able to increase your capacity to take on more either one on one or group clients or whatever that might look like for you.

Growing your income, but not necessarily growing the amount of time that you’re putting into your business. And so, two different strategies, you could do a little bit of a mix of both, potentially, but the third strategy is to build your team. And then the last one, which takes the longest to implement and is probably the hardest to implement, is to switch to more of a medium model.

So again, you’ve already established yourself as the expert. You have so much knowledge. You’re this niche expert in your industry, and you can definitely help people through platforms like YouTube or podcasting or blogging. And there’s ways to monetize those channels too. It doesn’t necessarily have to be through a service.

And I say that takes the most time to implement, because that is kind of a long term game, right? Like you have to be creating consistent content and building a large audience for a long amount of time in order to make any significant revenue stream off of things like YouTube advertising or podcast sponsorships, stuff like that, you usually don’t get paid to do that until you have some sort of audience established and that can take time, but that’s definitely an option, especially for entrepreneurs who love teaching, who love talking, who are really good at like guiding conversations and creating great content and love doing it. That would be a really great strategy for a service provider who wants to make more money without necessarily having to trade more time for one on one services.

So those are the four different strategies. And like I said, there’s a million other strategies, they’re much less common, like, could you build a software platform in scale? Yes. Like you could totally do that, but these are just the four main ones that I find most relevant and most possible for service providers.

Amy Traugh: Yeah, definitely. So many awesome points that you made and I love how you said you start with one. Because this whole process can feel very overwhelming. Start with one and it all goes back to clarity. It all goes back to knowing exactly what you’re really good at and what your zone of genius is so that you can effectively and efficiently do these things.

So that you can delegate if you’re to the point where you’re ready to and like you said, it does take a lot of overcoming fear and then it’s test, guess, revise, because a lot of entrepreneurs assume that, okay, I’m going to hire this big team and then my problems are all going to go away. Well, no, there’s the onboarding process, there’s the communication piece, like, it requires work. It’s not an instant gratification type thing. And I think that’s important that we, we shed some light on it, but getting creative, getting curious, that was something else you said too, that, okay. Just because you’re not seeing it out there. Why not be the trailblazer?

How else can you go about doing this? Just because you don’t see anyone else doing it, you could be sitting on an awesome opportunity that you know, you just aren’t seeing because it’s not out there yet. So be the trailblazer, be the one to go first, test, guess, revise, see how it goes. That’s our business. It’s an experiment, right? We’re seeing what works. We’re leveraging the data to drive our decisions and we’re scaling in a way that feels good to us, a way that works, a way that’s sustainable, because at the end of the day, like you said, we don’t want to resent our businesses. And that happens a lot because we’re trying to do all of the things all of the time, which is exhausting.

It’s absolutely exhausting.

Jade Boyd: Yeah. Yeah. For sure. And it is just an experimentation process. And I think that people think about scaling and it’s like, oh, I’m just going to switch my strategy and next month things are going to change overnight because I’m going to be doing something different.

And no, no, no, that is not the case. My group coaching program is 12 months for a reason because it does take some time to experiment. And again, it’s almost like you’re starting your business from scratch. So with the clients that I work with, it can be really frustrating because again, when you start your business, you’re the newbie, you’re still figuring everything out, but then you become the expert, you’re really good at it.

And things are like rocking. It’s comfortable. You know what you’re doing. You are stepping into that expert role. And then you move to scale and you’re like, whoa, whoa, whoa. I feel like the newbie again, this is all fresh and it’s difficult again. And that’s kind of a hard stage to be in. And it, especially when you’re used to things flowing smoothly and running your business in a certain way to make a pivot in this stage three, where you are doing something completely different. And oftentimes feel like you’re starting a business from square one. It can be a really frustrating season. And I know that myself too, from moving from one on one coaching to group coaching. Even though it’s the same process, it’s the same like framework. It’s the same coaching method. It oftentimes feels like you’re starting from scratch because you’re like, wow, enrolling one on one clients. I knew how to do that, but enrolling group clients is different. So now I’m learning again. And it does take getting uncomfortable and being willing to experiment and being willing to feel uncomfortable for a significant amount of time before you feel like the expert again.

And it’s a process and something that all of my clients struggle with in different ways, but it’s so rewarding at the end of the day when it actually works right and you are making more money and you’re not feeling like you are trading your life away for your business.

Amy Traugh: Right. It’s the messy middle. It’s the messy middle that every single entrepreneur goes through. Yet so many don’t talk about because like you said you have to start doing things a little differently, you have to be willing to stretch yourself and get uncomfortable and that doesn’t feel good because our brains are wired for comfort. We want safety. We want comfort. We don’t want to do things that we’re not great at so it becomes scary So, what do we do? We play small. We play small, we end up burnt out, stressed out, overwhelmed. But by taking these strategies, it really allows you to regain that control of your business.

So I would love to hear stage four of scaling.

Jade Boyd: Yes. So stage four is when you’re building out your offer suite. So I love to say again, focus on one thing when you’re scaling, because you can scale to a significant amount of income. A business owner I had on my podcast recently scaled to multiple seven figures with one offer. And so if you’re thinking this offer isn’t going to work, like know that you don’t need a million offers in order to scale your business.

But when you do get to the point of building out your offer suite, you’ve already scaled that one strategy or system or offer, and then you’re ready to add in a second one and serve people at different levels. So it’s, like I said, it’s really hard to scale your business when you’re trying to do 30 different things for 30 different people, but when you do get to the point where your business is scaled, you’re meeting your goals, but you’re at that point where you have the capacity to serve more people and the desire to serve more people. You can kind of look at the structure in your business and look at how you can build offers that lead into one another.

So if you scaled your signature service as, let’s say group coaching. I just keep going back to it because I’m most familiar with it.

Amy Traugh: Yeah.

Jade Boyd: But if your signature service is a group coaching offer, what is a lower ticket offer or a digital course potentially that could lead into your signature offer that could serve more people at a lower level, help you scale in a different strategy, but still be really consistent with your overall strategy to scale, really consistent with the niche and the brand that you’re building. And again, not just having a different offer for a different audience, but leading into and building what you’re already focused on.

And then beyond that, maybe you have an offer that is beyond that that is a really signature high ticket intensive where you do a full week and it’s like this $10,000 offer, but it’s this really transformational experience for somebody who’s already gone through your group coaching program and is ready for the next level.

What would that look like? And so building out your offer suite in a way that you’re able to serve that same client, but at different stages of their journey so that you’re working with people long term because in every area of business, I believe in doing less but better. And it’s so much more strategic to keep serving the same clients over and over again and not let them leave your business being like, okay, I already worked with her, but there’s no other opportunity for her to help me further than that, right?

That’s what we don’t want to happen.

Or come to your business being like, I really want what she has to offer, but I’m just not ready. And there’s no way for me to work with her until I’m at like XYZ stage. And that’s going to be years from now. So being able to structure your business in a way where you are able to work with the same clients over and over and over again, and grow with them as their life and business changes too.

Amy Traugh: Yeah, we forget about the retention piece. It is so valuable to look at that overall lifetime value of the customer, to look at different opportunities. How can we continue to serve them? Even once they’re done with the current offer, there’s different ways. You just have to allow yourself the space to brainstorm what it looks like for you and your business.

Jade, this was amazing. So many incredible takeaways. How can people get into your world, learn more about you, tell us about the podcast, all the things.

Jade Boyd: Yeah. So the best place to get more information on doing less but better in business is definitely my podcast. My podcast, it’s called The Business Minimalist and we do weekly episodes and there’s almost a hundred at this point, which is crazy.

So there’s a huge bank of content there. And then if you were to start in one place, I would recommend my free master class called Double Your Profit While Working Less. And it’s a short 45 minute masterclass on how to set really intentional goals for your business when you’re looking at scaling and figuring out which of those four strategies is going to work best for you based on what you’re good at, what you like doing, but also just the season of business that you’re in.

So those are the two places that I would recommend going first.

Amy Traugh: Amazing. So go check it out, grab the freebies and listen to Jade’s podcast. Jade, so much for taking time to pour into our listeners today.

Jade Boyd: Thank you so much for having me. This is great.