What does it take to hit $10m in Revenue (not what you think)

In this video, we're going to share the differences between a six figure service business and a seven figure service business. More importantly, we're going to share what does it take to actually grow your business into seven figures. So if you're currently at six figures and you're looking to go into seven figures, this is a good video for you. If you're at seven figures like 1, 2, 3 million and you're looking to really scale into the close to 10 million, we're going to talk about those different sections here and how you can take your business to the next level to ultimately grow your business. We partner with local service businesses to help them increase their sales and keep their schedules full. And since we are consultants, we work pretty intimately with businesses. We know their numbers, we know the business owners, we know their services, we know kind of how they tick. And so we work with companies anywhere, typically from about a million dollars all the way up to about 20 or 30 million dollars. And we can see basically everything in their business since we are consultants in their business. So for this video we're going to talk about what does it really take to get to that seven figure mark and then more importantly, how to scale past seven figures, past a million dollars, into close to the eight part. All right, so if you do not read books, then you're missing out. I'm going to list off a couple books here that you can read that's going to help you get that mindset that we're going to talk about today. The first one is called The E myth 2.0, which is by Michael Gerber. And basically the premise behind this book is that a lot of times us as business owners, me included when I started my business was I was good at what I did. I was good at this, marketing local service businesses. And I was a director of business development at a local service business. And I knew what to do. So I started a business and I was the technician, right. I was doing everything. And what happens is when you're doing everything and you know everything, you become reliant in the business. You become the technician of doing everything. And what you're not is the actual entrepreneur of running a business. Which is why, like in our business. Yes. Do I know what to do and can I do it? Yes. But we have other consultants that are also doing the work for us and we have standard operating procedures to implement these things. So what I'm getting at here is if you read that book, you're going to be able to see how you can go from the technician mindset into the E myth, which is the entrepreneurial myth. And the myth is if you're good at being a plumber, then you should start a plumbing company because you're going to be a great business owner in plumbing. And not saying that you can't figure it out, but this book will help you figure it out much faster. So that's the first thing is if you're the technician and you're still out in the field, you have to figure out your standard operating procedures and how to replicate you. And we all know, you know, oh, I'm the greatest consultant, I'm the greatest at marketing, I'm the greatest plumber, I'm the greatest this, which is might be very, very well true. But if you're going to grow your business, then you have to be able to teach other people how to do it and how to have your special touch on it, which is a big part of this. So that's the first thing. The second thing is this book right here. It's called 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 Steps to Grow your local service business. It's by Donald Miller. And basically what he says is that when you look at your business, it is an airplane. And you, if you're just starting out or you're in the six figure range, you're all these parts here and if you're in the seven figures, the low seven figures, like around a million, you might be a couple of these parts. Usually what happens is if you're around a million dollars or $2 million, you are definitely the leadership. You are probably doing the marketing or you have some fractional marketing people here and there that are doing random things. You're also probably the main sales point person and you might have one customer service representative or you might have a salesperson here or there, but still you kind of run point on this stuff, the products and services. If you're at the million dollar mark, you probably are no longer doing the products and services except for the really big stuff and then your overhead, you probably have a couple people in here and your cash flow, it might be a little bit loose, but it's probably pretty tight still because you haven't built a cash flow management system. If you're in the six figures and you're just starting out, you're the technician, you're looking at this like, man, I'm the whole plane. And maybe you have one or two people in here that are helping you do these services, but you're trying to do marketing, maybe paying someone over here, you're definitely doing sales. You're probably doing this and you're also the wings. So let's just think about this as an airplane. If, if you are flying the plane and you're also the stewardess and you're also out here doing this and doing this, are you really giving 100% at all these different things? No. And so that's why when you start to hire people 80% of what they do, it's going to be better than your 20%. 20%. 20%. 20%, right. And so when you think about scaling your business, you want to try to buy back your time essentially, is what it is. There's a really good book actually, I have it right here. Buy back your time. And essentially what they're saying is if you're in the six figure range, what can you get rid of that you don't like to do that you're not good at that you could buy back your time and pay someone to do so. Marketing is a great one. For example, you could hire a marketing company or hire out marketing pieces to be done for you. Sales is a little bit harder because you have to hire someone and train them inside of your business. So maybe you do the leadership and the sales, doing the services. Maybe you can train someone to do that. Hiring an accountant or bookkeeper for cash flow purposes, hiring someone to do like service manager to overhear people. You get the point. You want to try to alleviate yourself from all these things because what we found is that scaling into seven and eight figures, you're in the leadership position here and you're the cockpit while all these other people are doing the right things and you're overseeing it. Just like someone who's flying a plane and their right engine goes out or is not working as well. Well, what do they do? They either have to take the plane down and figure out how to fix this or. But they're not the one that's actually going in and fixing the marketing. They know that there's a problem and they're trying to figure out a solution for it. So what have we discussed so far? If you are in the 6 million or trying to go 7 million, you have to buy back your time. You have to get out of the technician mindset and get into the entrepreneurial running and business mindset. If you're in the low seven figures and you're still holding onto some of these pieces, then you need to start to buy back your time. So that way you can focus on the cockpit which is really going to help you scale your Business. If you're getting close to about the $10 million range, you probably have this all figured out. And really what you need to focus on is building up both of these arms. I'll give you a perfect example of how this works. So companies will partner with us, and we're really good at marketing, and we're good at doing all the right marketing stuff, and we have a really big engine over here. And what happens is, is that we can create a lot of visibility and we can, you know, generate leads and do all the right marketing stuff. The problem is maybe their sales arm is not ready to handle this and. And this cockpit, the pilot is over here. And they don't have a really, like, good sales process or good customer service reps to actually take on these leads or work the leads or work the processes. And so you have a big, big engine over here and a small one over here. And so you're just flying in circles. And so if you're at the $8 million range, a lot of times you want to focus on this part here because you can hire a good marketing company and you know, you have the cash flow to pay good people, but really you want to start to focus on increasing your sales. And if your market is not good, obviously you want to work on this as well. Your products, you probably have those dialed in, and your cash flow. There's a really good book for this called Profit first by Mike Michalowicz. If you're in the one to $5 million range and you don't have solid profit and you don't know where all your money's going, you have to read the Profit first book because it's going to help you get a much better understanding of your cash flow in the management process. So I know I threw a lot out there at you, but the gist of it is that if you want to go from six to $7 million, you got to figure out how to get out of that technician. Don't be the guy in the truck. Be the business owner. If you want to go from 7 million to 8 million, you have to think about your business like this. And you have to figure out, how can I be the one in the pilot seat and not be doing everything? You can have your hand in everything and overseeing it and managing it, but it's not DIY all of the stuff, because it's not going to work that way. And you're not going to be able to scale by giving everything 20% of your business, 20% of your time. So if you're interested in growing your company and you think that you need help with marketing. That's what we do at Flash Consulting. Put a link down below. If not, it's all good. Be sure to hit like and subscribe, and we'll see you in the next video.