30/10/2023 Title: How to Shift from Doing All the Work to Running Your Business - Part 1: Getting the Basics Right

I'll never forget the day it hit me like a ton of bricks – I wasn't really running a business. I was great at marketing and delivering, but everything else was a total mess.

The truth is, many online coaches fall into the same trap I stumbled into a couple of years back. They listen to these marketing gurus who keep saying, "You've gotta be a marketing whiz, post on social media, create a hundred funnels and offers," and just typing that out exhausts me! 😅 But here's the kicker: they forget to mention the crucial shift from being the star player who does everything to becoming the manager who guides their team to greatness.

This shift is the secret sauce to real growth.

Imagine this:

Most people go from being regular employees to freelancers or entrepreneurs, thinking they've got a business. Some even start calling themselves "CEO" without really knowing what a CEO does.

And 99% of coaches are stuck in being self-employed. 

To truly own a business, step one is to lay out your whole operation. I'll be honest, it's a bit time-consuming, but trust me, it's worth every second.

This means mapping out your sales and delivery, figuring out your daily routine, breaking down tasks, setting up procedures, and putting together user-friendly guides so your future team members can step into their roles like pros.

Here are some starting questions:

What are the main things you do?

How do you do them?

What are the different parts of your coaching program?

What are your values and culture?

How do you handle all the nitty-gritty stuff, like customer service?

How do you maintain your values throughout the whole operation?
How do you handle problems?

How do you deliver results to your clients? 

I started doing this by writing down my whole end-to-end marketing and delivery systems + upsells and downsells. 

Separating into different trails, who would be responsible for what and each touching point that my clients would have with us. 

For example

In this picture you can see a little part of my sales trail. And the emojis represent how my lead might be feeling in each step of the process, which helps me to understand what I can do better. 

Each of those tasks are allocated to certain team members, the closer, the settler, the account manager… 

Now that I know what it looks like, I can develop the process for each of those steps, and actually improve my KPIs. 

Which means making decisions based on data, instead of emotions. 

Let me give you an example, I had a client who was doing weekly masterclasses to sell his program. 

When we started working with him, we started to collect the actual data of the masterclass, using paid ads + CRM. 

We found out that this strategy was time consuming AND his ROI was terrible. He was paying 2000 per client acquisition. 

What was the logical step? 

Increase the budget for our frequency-aligned CAS, a strategy that we implemented and we were paying 300 dollars per client acquisition. 

Although he loved the masterclasses, he could make the decision to change the strategy not just because another marketer told him to, but because he now had data to make logical decisions. 

Same goes for every other part of your business process. 

Maybe you have a team member that is not performing well. 

Are they not performing well because they are not the right fit for that position? Or are you just not being a great manager and actually helping them to perform better? 

When you map out your whole operation and create SOPs and a clear vision of everything, you can answer this question based on data, not based on how you feel. 

Now, the first thing you'll realize: there's a boatload of stuff to do! But don't sweat it, this is the key to your growth. Without this game plan, scaling up is just a daydream because there's only so much one person can handle.

Been there, done that. I used to think it was a lot of work too. Especially because as employees we think that the most productive thing to do is to actually do something. But when you start transitioning to a manager or CEO position, your job is not to do anything, it is not implementing, but tracking the performance and creating better systems to increase the productivity of your team. 

When you start mapping everything out, you will feel like you are not doing much, it will feel strange, but believe me, it's going to be crucial for your growth and scalability. 

Let me tell you my story, and how I failed! 

At one point, I was pulling in 50 grand each month and had a team of 12 people, but it looked more like a crazy circus than a well-oiled machine. I dropped the ball as a manager because I didn't spell out everyone's job descriptions.

My productivity took a nosedive. Instead of handing off tasks, I tried to do everything myself, just with more people to keep an eye on – that's it.

What happened? 

I couldn’t sustain my growth energetically and physically! Because I didn’t know how to get out of the operations, and actually become a CEO. 

Two months later I went from 50k per month and scaling to 20k per month and dropping. 

I mean, was it because of my marketing? No! It was because of my lack of organization, processes and systems that could support my growth! 

So, if you don't want to head down that rabbit hole, you've gotta start drawing up your game plan. Write down everything you do and how you do it.

You'll want to figure out all the roles you're juggling and divide them into categories, and then break them down into specific tasks.

Here's a hot tip: You won't find one person to do everything you do. That's a pipe dream.

You might need two or three folks to cover your bases. Person one could handle about 70% of your tasks, and person two, another 70%.

You might be thinking, "Wait, that's 140%!" Yep, you got it. And that's the secret sauce for scaling. A bunch of people working together can do way more than you can solo.

That's when the real magic of growth starts.

The journey from doing everything to running your business is a rollercoaster, but it's a ride worth taking. Stay tuned for Part 2, where I'll dive deeper into the nitty-gritty of delegation and growth.

Trust me, I've been there, and this journey is absolutely worth every step.