Don't do THIS if you want to Scale your Business fast | Blair Singer

Well, don't do these things. If you want to scale your business, this is the eighth and final step on the path to grow your business. To grow your business and to scale it to a place where you now have a scalable business that will run without you. I'm Blair Singer. Good to see you again. Hope you're having a great week. Hopefully that 2022 is treating you really well. So I'm going to. What I'm going to do is I'm covering the last and eighth step. I'm going to tell you exactly what not to do and what to do. Obvious. In order to scale your business. Remember, this is the entrepreneur's dream. This is the entrepreneur's dream, which is to. Which is to be able to build something, create a legacy for yourself, and to basically get your business to work for you, not to work for it. Now, let's just really review. Quickly, review where we've come before. We started just like Klim and Kilimanjaro, we had those steps. We started with the. With a mission. What is it we want? We did an honest assessment to find out where we're at and where we need to go. Okay, then what we did is we created a plan, a pert chart, a roadmap to show you how you're going to get there, to design how you get there. We use the BI triangle as the Robert Kiyosaki's business and investor triangle as a template for that. And then we started moving into selling, and we moved into becoming a great teacher and a leader and forming your teams and all the other steps. And as we start scaling the mountain, okay, and we're gonna. And we talked about resistance. We talked about that. Now I'm gonna talk about scaling. We talk. Joe DeMaria, who. Who's one of my good friends and part of our team, we discussed this. But I'm gonna give you my take on the scaling piece. Right. So listen closely, take some notes, and if it stings a little bit, that's a good thing, because that. The stinging is what happens sometimes when you have to rip off the band aid to expose a wound and to allow it to heal. Okay? So again, hopefully, it won't be too bad. So first of all, let's define what is scaling, what is scaling when it comes to business? A scale. We know a scale is like tipping a scale, but what is scaling a business? Scaling me is actually by definite, almost by definition, is being able to set the stage for growth in your business. It's not growth. It's not growth. It's being. It's. Scaling means that you've set. You scaled your business, meaning you've set it up to be able to handle any growth that it takes on. So what's that mean? That means it's not the sales, it's the structure, it's the infrastructure, it's the plan, it's the partnerships. It's. It's the. It's the technology, it's the pieces inside so that the more things you add to. So as you add growth, it doesn't hamper the growth of. It doesn't kill your business, and it doesn't kill you. Okay, so scale is not growth. I'll repeat this a couple times. Scale is not growth. This was a big misconception that I had that if I just grow, the rest will take care of itself. There's no problem that sales doesn't fix. And that's totally not true when it comes to growth. Okay, so, and Joe and I talk about it. Let me go through the basics of this thing. Okay? Okay. Again, it's setting the stage for growth so that as you add things, whether you add sales, whether you add people, whether you add locations, it can handle it. This is a plan. Scaling is something you do in advance. It's something you design. Okay, so a couple of the steps. Number one, what about scaling one? Oh, and by the way, before I do that, this is the reason Joe made a very interesting comment. This is why in his observation, successful businesses can maybe get good. A good small little business can get itself to about a million dollar US dollars in income, maybe 1.2, 1.5, and then it just can't get any higher than that. It just freezes there. You may change the way you do business. You may change all kinds of things. You may change, even change your business, but it's still $1.2 million. And that's where it freezes, because it cannot scale. It cannot scale. It's the. It was designed to grow. It was not designed to scale. Okay, so scale is not growth. That's right. Thank you. Elizabeth Fresh. Elizabeth Fresh. Wow. Long time no hear from. Good to hear from you. Hope you're doing great. So again, as she emphasized by weight, Elizabeth, a great consultant, a great trainer in and of her own. Right. Okay, so how do we break the barrier? I'll tell you some things not to do. Yeah, Big, big hugs to you too. Okay. All right, Number one, business. You got to look at your business as an engine. An engine. An engine. In other words, what is the engine that you built Designed to do. Think about this for a second. What is the engine designed to do? Now, when you look at scaling a business, you gotta look at two things. You and the business. Okay? Cause you're the creator. So what is. What's the life you want this engine to give you? Give to you, and what do you want the business to do itself? Because they may be two different things. Example, you may want you build a business to give you a lifestyle, to give you freedom, to give you wealth or whatever it is. That's one thing. May also build a business to create longevity, make a difference in the world that's bigger and beyond you. Both are valid and both can run together. But you got to be careful, because the design of the engine, you can't. Because what happens is somewhere down the road, you take a look at your life and you're taking a look at what's going on, and you're saying, this is not the life that I want to have right now. And if you project a couple years in the future, this is not going where I want it to go. Yeah, there may be money coming in, but this is not what I envisioned. And you cannot blame the business, is what Joe was saying. You cannot blame the business. It's the way you designed it that is creating that outcome. And if you're good and you're conscientious and you're energetic and you're creative, which I know you are, you wouldn't be watching this. That engine will yield exactly what you designed it to do. Okay. Exactly what you designed it to do. So first of all, you got to look at as an engine and what it's designed to do. Because one day you don't want to wake up and go, this is not what I wanted. Okay, Speaking from somebody who knows about a little about this, I'll give you some examples. Number two, therefore, if we know that, then the thing to do right now, and it's never too late to do this. Never too late. You could be doing it the beginning before you're starting, which is wise. Or in your. In the middle of it or 25 years down the road, doesn't matter. You gotta stop, zoom out, and take a look at a timeline. What's the timeline? Well, time. I look 25 years into the future, what do you want again? Your life to be. And what do you want that business to be doing? Okay, what are the two things? And again, hopefully they marry each other. Ideally, I'm just going to say they should marry each other. Some people don't feel that way. But that's how I do things. Because my heart, my passion and my business are all wrapped together. And I like it that way. I want it that way. Okay, so what are they designed to do 25 years from now based on that? Look at it then. What would it look like 10 years from now? What would it have to look like then? What would it look like five years, two years? Because if you're, if you're focused on what that looks like at the end, I mean, you've heard these things before, but I want you to look at it a little differently right now. Okay? Be clear on what that is. Hope you look at it 25 years, great. But if you don't have a plan in there, then you're hoping it's going to get that way. That doesn't necessarily mean you designed it that way. Okay, so again, what do you want it to be 25, 10, 5, 2. Two years from now? And now. And with that focus in mind, everything you do in building your business is, is designed around, building around that vision along the way. Okay. And if it's not, you don't do it. If it's a distraction, you don't do it. I'll get to that in a moment. So you gotta zoom out and take a look at it. Number three. So you gotta now be focused on one area to scale. This is so important. One area to scale. So I heard Joe say, one area to scale. What do I mean by that? You could scale a lot of things. You can scale your team, you can scale products, you can scale partnerships, joint ventures, other companies, acquisitions, all kinds of things. You could scale, scale sales, market, all kinds of things. But pick one thing to scale, because otherwise what will happen is you'll be all over the board and you'll be. And, and what you'll be doing is in your inevitable entrepreneurial way, you'll be building everything and you're going to be building everything. Trying to build everything is just not a recipe for success. Not a recipe for success. Scaling is building the plan from the day one in network marketing business. Your insight. Thank you. From Mumbai. Thank you, Anon. Thank you very much for saying that. That's exactly right. Okay, so pick one. Pick the one that you. That's going to focus. Is it going to be partnerships? Is it going to be. Are you going to, Are you going to scale products? What is it, what is you trying to scale? And you got to pick one thing. And I'm going to. And be. And then part four then is to be very Intentional about what you're going to do. Okay. Be very intentional about what you're going to do. Let me give you an example. One of the businesses that I had is what I was in the air freight trucking business. Many of you know this. I was in the air freight trucking business. And my idea of scaling is the way we were going to build, grow, we were going to grow. And the way we were going to expand, the way we were going to create wealth and. And longevity was through it, was by scaling, distribution. In other words, we were going to use other truckers and other agents across the United States to deliver all of our goods for us. We weren't going to put our own people. We were going to leverage that piece, and that was going to be the essence of our. Of our scaling. Okay, now the. The challenge. The challenge with all of that is that. The challenge with all that is that I also felt that the way to scale it was through partnership. So we're gonna have. I had three, two or three partners, and we're gonna scale that part too. We're also gonna scale on and on and on. And so what happened was we try all of them at the same time. And what happened is all of them blew up at the same time because it was a chain reaction. I'm gonna show you what. If you listen to what Joe and I were talking about before, this is why you start with one thing that you're going to scale. Prove it. Scale it before you go to the next item. It's a very, very big mistake that I've made in the past and that some of you made. So we, you know, I'm no longer in the air freight trucking business. Obviously, a long time ago, we had a lot of success. We had a lot of growth, amazing growth. But as Joe said, it was like building a house, and you build a foundation, and then the next year you put another. You put another story on the house, and then another story on the house, another story in the house with the same little foundation. So you know what's going to happen, right? That right after about 10 stories, this thing's going to wobble and it's going to fall over the foundation. The architecture of the building needs to be able to handle the growth. It needs to be. The scale needs to be set up to begin with. Okay. And if not, you need to stop and do it. Doesn't mean you can't. Doesn't mean you're doomed. Just means you need to stop and go back to taking that approach. Okay. You need to build the skeleton. Step number five, you need to have the skeleton that can handle growth. So the idea is to build a skeleton of the business that will handle growth. Not the whole body, not a whole population. A skeleton. Bare bones. You know, bare bones. You've heard that before. Bare bones of what it is you're trying to build and test it and prove it to see if it works. Because if you try to. If you try to do. We're going to build the whole community right now all at one time. And what happens is one thing doesn't work, then the other thing doesn't work. And all cascades on itself. And. And you are continually in the treadmill we talked about in the beginning in the rat race of your own business. Okay. The rat race of your own business. Now stay tuned because I'm gonna tell you about five or six things you should never do. If you wanna scale a business, you never do. And that while they're simple, they're not that easy. Okay? Okay. So good. Oh, thank you for repeating that, Elizabeth. Thank you. Okay, so where are we? Step six. So now what you need is a consistent plan. We talked about that in step three. A consistent plan. Remember, plans never go according to plan. I covered that before. So remember, when we use. Post it. So we use a per chart. So you can move this plan around a little bit. Okay. But it needs to be a consistent plan. Not of growth, but a consistent plan of architectural change. Dr. Buckminster Fuller said, we are designed to be architects of our futures, not victims. I'm going to repeat that and write it down and hang it up someplace. Okay. We're designed to be architects of our future, not its victims. You will be if you. If you're not listening to me. I'm telling you this because I've got the scars. I could tell you many, many stories that we don't have time for right here. But if you don't, you will be the victim of the. Of the engine that you built. Okay, you don't want. You don't want that. So it takes. It takes the vision, and then it takes a model. You got to make some assumptions. And then how am I going to monetize it? So then what you. So what we do is we start with one thing. We start with one thing. Okay, let's say it's a product. Let's say you want to. That your way of scaling your business is through product or whatever. So we're just going to focus on product right now. How am I going to scale this product? Okay. And maybe it's an inanimate product. Like I'm doing one right now. A new one, A new product on Pert. Okay, so it's a kit, you know, it's a whole mat with specialized post its and marker pens and all kinds of amazing tools and videos and workbooks and all kinds of stuff. It's really fun. Right? Okay, so you start with that. Okay, so the hypothesis is we're going to market a product to the market and we're going to get it to run on its own and it's going to generate its own income without me having to go out there and sell it. Okay. Very basic. Basic, basic. Something you can all anybody could do. Particular trainer. All right, now second part of that. What's the cost? How much is it going to cost? So I figure this thing's as I've, as I've added it up. Now, we haven't launched it yet, but if I add it up, I'd say it was probably the component pieces of this thing, including shipping and handling. It cost me maybe 50, 60 bucks if I do it in volume. Okay, let's say $50. Keep it simple. Now second, next part. What did Joe say? Try it. Let's try it. Set, get, set up the prototype. Get it out there. Okay. And run it. Now what else do we have to have? Part of the piece is we have to have a marketing camp. You have to have a marketing engine that's going to drive this, this little product here. Not going to try to drive my whole business. We're just going to drive the product. Okay. And get it to drive. Okay. And email, you know, social media, Go to the website, go to a sales page. The sales page. Watch a video. At the video, Purchase the product. Okay. Very simple. And we're going to drive it and run it and drive it and run it based upon our assumptions that people, that entrepreneurs of our target market really want to be able to plan their way into the future and have a really good tool to get it done. Done that stares them in the face every day, holds them accountable and gets them where they want to go. From the S quadrant to the B quadrant. That's it. That's the plan. Now we try it. Does it work? Okay, well, we, it either works or we correct it. Okay, so we correct it. And again, you have to make an honest decision. Is this going to work? Is there really a market for this or am I able to do it? Yes or no? If not, let it go. But your exposure is low. Okay, you started with that. And Then, then you trial it and you try it again, try it again, you run it again and again and again and again until you got something, a prototype that actually works, that actually could work. I'm not doing it. We're. What. I'm watching the market. I'm watching the, this, the, the posts go on. I'm watching the ads go on. I'm watching the emails go in. I'm watching what's happening. We're, we're tweaking, tweaking, tweaking until we finally get it to work or not or we, or we let, or it doesn't work and we let it go without, without taking everything else down in the process. Okay, now once you do, once we do all that, Once we do all that now we've at least scaled that piece of the business. So we've scaled product, we found a way to scale our product. Okay? And again, now if we want to scale teams and we'll scale teams. One of the, for example, I am in the training business and one of the things, one of my visions for Blair Singer Training Academy was originally a franchise. And the franchise was designed to get people to do what I do, to get to be able to get, teach people to teach what I teach, specifically sales, specifically to entrepreneurs. Right? Well, so that was the plan. So I'm going to scale myself. Big mistake. I'm just gonna, I don't know what anybody else is gonna tell you. I'm gonna tell you it's a big mistake. So now I'm gonna start to get into some of the things you should never do if you want to scale your business. Okay. Trying to scale, replicate yourself and scale your business that way is a big mistake. A couple reasons why, first of all, very hard to do, because it's not. You cannot be objective about it because nobody's ever gonna be as good as you and nobody has the insights that you do. And it, it's. You're unique. You're not going to get that done. That's not going to happen. You cannot going to replicate you now. And that was a big mistake that I made is we started and we were making a lot of money selling. We were growing. But what was happening because we hadn't scaled our train, we hadn't really scaled the training of our trainers properly is what's happening is we were, they were not making the money that we hoped that they would make. And ultimately we had to, to bring it, bring the thing back down again. Why my expectations were too high. That was one thing. But the other Part about it is that, is that in scaling yourself, you're putting all of your psychosis into the minds of other people. All of my concerns and all my fears, all that stuff was all cascading out there. And I also at the same time was scaling my business, scaling my operation by using another joint venture partner to work with me. Okay. Two very different problems going on at the same time. I really had no business going to another partner until I had figured out how to scale a trainer to do what I wanted him to do. Okay. Does that make sense? Then I could go find a partner that could help me with it. See, a lot of people try to franchise or leverage way before they're ready to. Okay. Make sure you got a prototype first of whatever it is you're trying to do. Replicate that and keep it going. Okay? Now here are the things that are, that are going to stand and, and, and so the bottom line is that franchise didn't work. And the reason that franchise didn't work is because it was a split in the partnership and their structures were not good and they weren't set up for growth either. And it just became a big mess. We now created Blur Singer training academy where there was no scaling really involved in the very beginning. It was just, I just want to give to the world. I just want to create trainers and teachers because that's what the world really now. So now we're in a process. We've replicated a process. We have taken a training. We started with how do we train them? Okay. And we've taken a training process that typically took three to four years to get a person to be competent teaching just about anything, at least to my standards. Okay. We shorten that when that. We've shortened that down to less than one year, about nine months. I get a person from zero to nine months to be competent on a world class stage in less than nine months. Now I can take, go to the next step and go get scale that go to the next level, which is the marketing piece, which is what we're starting to do now. If hopefully this is making sense. Before I just, it was a, it was a nightmare anyway. So here are the things not to do. Here are the things not to do or not to be like. The things that will stop you from scaling is this thought I'll do it myself. I can do this myself. Big mistake. Big mistake. That your strength, this is the other part. Your strength that got you to this call right here, that got you to this discussion is your weakness. I'm going to Say it again. Your strength that got you to wherever you are in your business is your weakness. Why? Because you're really good at what you do. You're really good at what it is that you create, particularly if you're the person providing the service yourself. And it'll be very, very difficult to get yourself weeded out of it. First of all, you'll have a. You have a psychological addiction to it now. So now it's becoming an addiction. Okay? Some of you are addicted to work. Some of you are addicted to your talent. Some of you are addicted to your skills, okay? That's not going to help you scale it. Okay? So again, you have addictions. I wrote down here addictions, distractions. And you're naturally impatient. If you're an entrepreneur. This is what I know about. After dealing with hundreds of thousands of them, you're naturally impatient. That could be a strength, right? You're naturally addicted to working hard. That seems like it could be a strength. But you're also distracted because you're impatient. This is working over here. Let me try that. This is working over here. Let me try that. That's not the formula for scaling. The formula for scaling. You remember to stay very myopic, very focused on what area am I going to scale and how specifically am I going to do that. And every decision you make, remember the engine. I'm designing and tweaking this engine to do exactly what I want it to do. And if it's not, and if it's not doing that, I gotta stop and re engineer it. Okay? Distractions do not help you do that. Well, I like that engine. No, I like that. Maybe we'll go to an electric engine. No, I like gas power. Maybe we'll try diesel. Not good. Not good. Okay? So that ingenuity and your creativity and your ability and your natural impatience is no longer a strength. Not that they ever were. But it could be a liability. You've heard me say it before. If you are the primary asset of your business, you are also a major liability. A major liability. Okay? Why? Because you stand in the way of growing your business. Your business can't scale, because it can't scale you. We can't clone you, okay? Can't clone you. I can't clone myself. And if you get past all of that, then you may have a chance of this thing. Okay? Here's another thing not to do. Just don't think that if I just grow and sell, I can figure it out later. That's another recipe for disaster. If I just grow and Sell. Growth, growth, growth, growth, growth, growth. Everything will take care of itself. No, it won't. It'll become a big mess and become a big frustration to you because like I said, 5, 10, 20 years down the road, you're going to look at your life and go, this is not the life that I want. This is not what I want. Okay? Now don't get me wrong, it's all hard work. It's rewarding work, but it's not easy work. I was just talking to my friend Ken McElroy, one of the rich dad advisors, very wealthy individual, very successful Entrepreneur, has over 500 employees, $1.5 billion in real estate assets that he's developed and managed. Excuse me. And he said to me the other day, he goes, excuse me. He said to me, he said that, you know what? This is not easy. He says it's worth it, but it's not easy. I mean, dealing with the people and the succession planning. And he goes, it's not easy, but. But it can be done. Okay? But it's a different part of the business. He's not out there buying and selling real estate, okay? He's dealing with, replacing him, replacing leaders in his organization and joint ventures with other people to finish out building his scaling plan. Okay? So again, your strengths could end up becoming your weakness. Your distractions and your impatience will get in the way. So what do you do? Stay focused. Pick one thing. I heard Joe say it. Look at your business as an engine, and it may be as multiple engines. Look at it one engine at a time. What is the one thing that you're going to try to scale that can scale beyond you? Take a product, for example. All right, now that we got that to work, let's take a look at how do we market that. Let's see how we. Well, we can scale that. I take a look at if, if all of a sudden that little per product, if all of a sudden I got an order for 10,000 of them, would I be able to fulfill it? Not right now. Not even close. But is that something I want? Of course that's what I want. So looking at that, so how do I, what do I have to engineer? What do I have to design into this process to accommodate a growth of 10, 20, 30, 40,000 orders for something like that and have it run on its own? Think about that now. Once we get, we do that, then we take, maybe take a look at marketing. If we're going to market something, how do we market it so that we're not continually changing this, that and the other thing, and changing teams, which you may have to do anyway, but to have the marketing system that runs like an engine that generates the type of lead we want, recurring, predictable again and again and again and again, again. And to have a team that is able to adjust for that and. And watch the market. So again, if. If we want to ramp this company up and go from. From 5 million to 20 million, it's not a big deal. All we got to do is add a little bit more fuel to it. But the infrastructure is able to handle it. Think about that. Does your infrastructure able to handle the growth that you're looking for? Okay, all right. So I could go ranting on and on and on. That's right. Elizabeth Frisch said it was Bucky Fuller that said we are designed to be the architects of our future, not the victims. So I'm gonna. I'm ranting. And one of the reasons I'm ranting right now is because I have worn the scar. Personally, I'm okay to admit that I've worn the scars of this for many, many years. We've had amazing successful growth in our. In all businesses that we've had. We made a lot of money, and most importantly, we've helped a lot of people become very rich and very wealthy. Big companies and little companies. But at the point of view, at the point of my career where I say, okay, this has got to perpetuate itself. My lifestyle is fine, but the business, the way I design this business is this business needs to last. It needs to last beyond me, needs to last in such a way to create great teachers, leaders, entrepreneurs in the world that teach the way we teach. I'm happy to say I believe Elizabeth is one of those people that continue to teach people in a way that not only makes their businesses successful, but makes their lives successful, but a thirdly that makes our planet successful. Because if you haven't looked lately, it's crazy out there, and it's getting crazier. People say, what's the new normal? The new normal is more crazy as far as I'm concerned. And there's not a problem out there that we can't fix. Not a problem we can't fix. If people knew how to cooperate, collaborate, get their egos out of the way, manage their little voices, understand how to scale a business, understand how to build something bigger than themselves, attract people for the right reasons, to do the right things, to recruiting systems. Recruiting systems that allow people, that attract people not for the money, but attract them. Because they know that by being Part of your team. They're gonna. They're gonna become more of themselves. They're gonna become the best version of themselves that they're taking. They're working for you because the. With you. Because the mission that you're offering makes a big difference in people's lives, and they want to be a part of that. That's why this business needs to. My business needs to scale. And that's why Joe and I are working together to take this business to its next level. So whether it's with me or without me, it does the work that it was designed an architect to do. But regardless of all that, what do you want your life to be in 25 years? What do you want your life to be in 10 years? And how is that going to affect the engine that you're building right now, the one you're involved with or considering building? Because it will only deliver to you what you designed it to deliver. So be very, very, very careful. Do not allow your psychosis. You know what I'm saying? I got to do it myself. Nobody's better than me. Sales is the key to all problems. Your addictions, your. All that. Don't build that into your machine, because you can. I have done it. You can do that. That machine will. If you want to make it a mirror image of you, that'll work. That'll work. And then you'll have the same problem that you have on a grander, more chaotic scale. Okay? So design it the way you want the outcome to look. Okay? So that's the eighth step. And those are the things not to do. Some of the things to do. And again, if you want some support with. You want to do this quickly, then go back, go to YouTube and watch this again. Subscribe and share this video with other people. Okay? If you want to do it really Quickly, go to blairslinger.complan and sit down with one of us. Sit down with one of us and find out what the heck you're trying to do out there. And it will give you a little game plan. And if we can help you, we'll help you. If not, we'll send you on your merry way. But you'll know where you're going, okay? Because there's no sense building something that you're going to be unhappy with later. Don't do that. You deserve better. You have a gift as an entrepreneur. You have a gift to give to the world, and the world deserves to have it. And you deserve to give it, and you deserve to have a legacy type of a lifestyle to be rewarded richly for doing it. Rewarded richly for doing it. You deserve that. Okay, so again, if you need some help, go to blursinger.com plan and be happy to work with you. Happy to find out what you're up to, what you're trying, what you're about, and help you scale your business. Okay? So thank you again. Again, thank you for going to YouTube. Watch this video again, share it with other friends. Share this video with as many people as you can. Have a great weekend. Wherever you are, whatever you're doing, just remember the world needs you now more than ever before. It needs you, it needs your business. But it needs an engine that can scale so that engine can outlive you and continue to feed you and your family for generations to come. Okay? So be amazing. Hi, Tiffany Greeley. Good to see you. Elizabeth Frisch. Can't wait to connect with you again. Me too. Anat. Thank you. Little voice mastery is the final frontier. You're right. That's it. That is one of the steps. It's resistance. And all the things I told you not to do, that's the resistance. It shows up. Not like I don't want to do it. It shows up in the form of the way you do it. Remember, your strength may become your weakness. And that's a good thing when you recognize it. So you architect and design a business that protects you from you, protects the future and the gift that your business can give from you. Because there's nobody like you. No, it never will be. And you want to preserve the best parts of you in the engine that you're building. Okay. All right, you guys, I'm gonna get out of here. I'm still responding to people. Thank you, David. Thank you, Rachel. Yes, Rachel. Blairsr.com plan that's correct. Go check it out. Rachel. Resonates so fun. See you again. Meet meeting at the talking more event. Awesome topic. Thank you so much. Design a business that protects you from you. Okay, thank you guys so much. Watch it again. Go to Blair.complan and we'll get you going. Okay? Thank you so much. We'll see you next time. Be amazing.