Unknown Speaker 0:04
Welcome to this week's rise above noise. Each week, I have the honor of shining a spotlight on someone in our rise above noise community who's making a real difference, and helping others with their own business growth. So if you and I haven't met yet, let me introduce myself. My name is Susan Finn. I'm a digital marketing strategist with rise above noise where for the past 15 years, I've been working with transformation creators to create their personal roadmap in their digital marketing, journey. energy healers, lightworkers, coaches, creatives teachers, we work together to create their own system for showing them showing up in a way that feels generous, and it feels in service so that you show up with consistency. So that the people who are already looking for you can find you, your business grows with flow and with ease. I do believe that when you do marketing, you reach people. That's what marketing is. So this week's guest, Danny Whitestone wants you to know that when you're ready to push your business forward, when you're ready to do the things that are going to help you scale, it's possible, you can totally do this, without losing your mind. Dan is going to help us learn the signs and symptoms that are telling us it's time to scale. She's going to tell us what should be in our toolkit to successfully do that. And we're going to learn how to keep balanced and healthy in the process. So let's not waste any more time, let's get right to it. Part of what I love about the work I do is pressing the buttons, I get that little hit of dopamine every time something does work correctly. And so it erases whatever happened that didn't work correctly. So here we are one o'clock on a Thursday afternoon, and getting ready to do the things. So I'm really excited about today's today's topic, how to scale your business without losing your mind. And in particular, right now, like here in New England, spring, and the longer days and Danny and I were just talking, she's getting a puppy, I'm getting a puppy, I love to garden, I have bees coming, I have a grandbabies I love to play with. And so to have a system right to have whatever we're doing in our business, first of all, be manageable, but also to be able to manage our our business time in a way that we get more done, or that we're bringing in more or same income because we're working smarter. So whether it's the hint, the tips that we learn or the strategies, if it's the tools we use, lately, otter.ai has been one of my favorite tools. Because when I'm creating content for my clients, or I want to go back and review what our goals were, I can just go in and highlight the trend a transcript of a conversation. And that really makes everything much easier. You know what we can do that, like if you're listening or you're listening to this later, I'd love to know what tools you can't live without. I think I'll post that in the group tomorrow. What what tools Can't you live without. And one of the things I've learned too, is? Well, I'm trying to learn this right is the idea of not trading, not trading dollars for hours, but to Again, be very, very strategic about the work we're doing and protecting our time time blocking has been such a gift for me to be able to block out not my work to block out my personal time. So that I know, I can let everything go for those however many hours because that is what my strategy was. So in talking about successfully scaling without losing your business, we couldn't have anybody better to talk about this here today. Then Danny Whitestone, who she'll tell you more, I'm sure but she has she built a huge business. She sold a huge business and now she is passionate about supporting women in particular in small business. So I'm going to get right to it and introduce you with her formal bio. Thanks Danny Whitestone is a small business coach and growth marketing consultant and she helps entrepreneurs grow successful small businesses.
Unknown Speaker 5:00
She is the founder of the women's Small Business and Leadership Network, and the co founder of turbo law software, which she bootstrapped to seven figures. She's the author of the brilliant businesswoman, your guide to entrepreneurial success. Danny is a positive and passionate business geek with a mission to help entrepreneurs succeed and thrive in business. And today, when we talk about successfully scaling our business without losing our mind, we know that in in, there comes a time for all of us, when what we did to create our current success, stops working. And whether we're falling behind in some of our things or losing our networking skills, somehow our emails, whatever it is, we feel stressed, we feel lost, we feel like we're climbing. And what's nice is that Dan is going to tell us that the good news is that you're here because we've done something right. And it's time to take stock of what we're doing in our business, and our goals and start putting the pieces in place to scale. Danny, I'm so excited that you're here.
Unknown Speaker 6:16
He says I'm excited to be here too. Though I spoke one on one a lot about this topic with a lot of a lot of people I've mentored over the years, this is my first time of just kind of having a conversation about it in like in a public forum. And I got I got up this morning. And I'm so excited to talk about this because I'm having so many one on one conversations about this right now to help people that I'm hoping that having this conversation with you will reach more people to make their lives that make their own small business and entrepreneurial lives better.
Unknown Speaker 6:46
That I know and I know, we've had this journey for a couple of years now together, and it's really exciting to see how everything goes. So I when I asked you, Danny, your what your superpower is? You said your superpower is removing roadblocks to business success. That's that's a huge, that's huge. How did you first how did you realize that's your superpower and how to use it now.
Unknown Speaker 7:10
I actually realized it was my superpower when growing the software company. Because I would as I was I operated I was I was a co founder but I operated as the Director of Sales and Marketing. But even though I was operating as the Director of Sales and Marketing, you know, as a as an owner, I would be constantly scanning the organization for where I it's it's that part, you know, obviously brained and entrepreneurial stuff, but also just where I'm feeling the friction and what what's going on. Maybe it's someone that comes in I'm like, what is going wrong here? And just playing out like asking people like with my developer, even if it was someone in like development in programming, if they had hit a roadblock, and you could see it, you could feel it. And also in the in the data, you can see it I'm like, Okay, well, what's going on here? I'm the Director of Sales and Marketing. And yet I'm sitting with the development team saying, Okay, guys, like, what's going on, and they do like you, you probably wouldn't understand it. And like, I don't care. Because if I know enough to be able to find the people that do know how to help you, then we'll get past this roadblock, which is, which is I found myself doing that a lot, whether it was working with our CFO, or attorneys or and that's kind of where I stood back into like, Okay, well maybe that maybe that's what I'm good at is in when I look at when I speak or mentor with someone and I have a you know, conversation with them. And they share me their business or their like their websites. given them. I've been doing this for 30 years now. You can kind of see it, I have. And also I have some coaching certifications in things other than business, which give me a leg up in terms of where the roadblocks are. I'm like, is the roadblock mindset is the roadblock money messages is the roadblock road roadblock, your health outlook. And I tell you that you're not sleeping and eating so your brains not working? Right, you're not making, you know, decisions properly that you would be if you were in a healthy state. And so I guess that's in the nuts and bolts of it. And just it just probably is just experience. I could have said that a lot of simply I say experience by meeting with people now and and seeing and getting an understanding of okay, what's going wrong? And how can what's going wrong? What's going right, and how can we make things better?
Unknown Speaker 9:19
Everybody needs that right? Like we all get stuck no matter what. Yes. So you I know that you said that you have 10 tips that you could usually go over and I know that we might not get to all 10 today but I do know that you're holding a webinar next week where you will be going way deep into these. So let's get let's kind of scrape the surface surface and start getting us into what what are the main things we need to know if we're going to successfully scale our business?
Unknown Speaker 9:49
Well, if you if you are to the point that you need to scale it, you're going to find yourself there's going to be two parts of this you have a proven business model you're making. The revenue is there you know you have Have a business that's working. And kind of that's the that's the good part. However, what the the signals are that you that you need to scale and you need to stop doing what you're doing is basically like you keep. On the personal side, if you want an indicator, you have to start apologizing a lot, like, oh my gosh, I'm so sorry, I didn't get back to you, oh, my gosh, I can't believe I missed your email. Maybe a lead came in and you missed it for a week. So on the personal side, you know, you need to make some changes, if you find yourself apologizing a lot. On the financial side, you know, we talked about earlier in this talk about the the need to scale for personal fulfillment in doing what we need to do to be well balanced humans. However, if you don't make these changes at the stages of a business, it's going to go backwards. Because you'll get those negative reviews, you'll get the people like well, I reached out to them, you know, they'll talk amongst their friends, I forget what the data was, but how many people will actually spread the word I forget what it was back in the day, I'll make it up. I'm like, you know, they'll tell 10 people about a negative thing, but only like one other people for a positive thing. So if someone reaches out for your services, and you don't get back to them for like, a month or a week, or something like that, that's gonna start eroding all the good that you've actually built. So that those are some of the those are some of the warning signs and the signals that it's time to go, you know, now you're kind of get through startup and you need to scale and scale is different than growth scale is that growing exponentially versus growing exponentially where growth is, you know, adding more you can you can grow by adding more hours and working more hours. But scale is really putting in those systems in those systems and changes in place to get us to that next level, while still keeping the expenses, expenses, expenses and check.
Unknown Speaker 11:52
Yeah, so. So how do people like where are we going with this right? Is it? Is it a CRM system? Is it? What is
Unknown Speaker 12:01
it now that I set the groundwork now what is now that I set the groundwork a little bit because I now that we set the groundwork? First of all, you need to pause, which is really scary, because if you're in the stage of business, you are going to be frantic, you're going to be juggling so many balls, but you need to pause because you need to start taking that mental shift of work instead of working in your business and working on your business. So one of the first things I always recommend when people are at the stage of businesses that you need to look at, you need to look at technology. And even if you've been using wonderful tools that got you up to this point, it's up you will need to make that jump to something else. And what I usually see is people using miscellaneous tools you got email over here, you have calendaring over here is moving to like a really full scale CRM, something that's going to run your entire organizational ecosystem, from orders invoicing, and billing. Because these types of systems can do a lot more than your standalone, for example, someone misses an invoice, the system's follow up automatically and chase that payment for you things and we need to just automate as much as possible while still keeping it while still keeping it personal. The next thing we need to the next one we usually talk about is hiring. And that can be interesting for entrepreneurs, because you because especially if we're control freaks, and we don't want to take our hands, it's it's such a scary time of business for business owners, because you're so used to having your hands on the wheel in your hands and everything. But we need to start taking that and taking that away and start in start delegating, so a lot of people's you know, like, oh my gosh, I'm overwhelmed, I need to hire, that's usually a you know, their next go to and that can be a really good thing to do. However, they're usually too fast to hire in too slow to fire. So if you do have someone that's part time with you, or even full time, but it's not the right person and you find you're kind of like, oh, this is not really working. Sometimes, you need to take a look at the people if you do have some employees and think okay, this is not the right person or they're not the right back to like, Good to Great, no, this isn't the right person, right, not the right person in the seat on the bus. So I really encourage entrepreneurs when they're doing that hiring process, don't like Go with your gut, get someone involved and it doesn't have to cost a lot of money now, someone to do like a Colby or something like that to do one of those assessments to really make sure that this person is the right person that you need because a hiring mistake at this stage of your business can be can set you back so far because it's expensive to hire in train. And then it's especially if you need to fire someone with unemployment and all that kinds of stuff. It's it can be a real giant headache, so do your best to hire correctly. Another thing is communications. So now it's not going to just be you. You need to have a communication system with your team in terms of to make sure that you're all rowing in the same direction, you can't be going this way. And someone else has done you find someone else on the phone, giving a customer completely information that's completely not in with your vision of the company. So you need to invest in talking to them about this is a company vision, these are the company protocols, and this is what we're going to do, and having those regular check ins with staff, and setting up the agenda to make sure that they know what their responsibilities are, and that you're tracking their metrics in their progress. So but all of these things Susan, come at you talk about you know, juggling all the balls, you know, if you have to take on no the management and training ball, you have to put another one down. So bringing on if you've done your own bookkeeping, like that's the time you need a bookkeeper, you know, again, hiring those people because if you're picking up if you're picking up a ball, you have to figure out which one you're going to put down another staff here's a personal stories just like this, instead of just going on with business not so investment. There well, even though we we tried, we do try to grow and be as in my humble opinion, do so and be as lean as possible with our expenses,
Unknown Speaker 16:11
you're going to need to put some significant investment at this stage of your business those full spike those full CRMs if you find your need to go to one of those, they're not cheap, you know, you're looking at between 150 and $300 a month in a lot of cases. They're I'm so grateful there's a lot on the market. But I'm full spectrum thing that's going to run your organization is usually quite an investment. In my personal stories, I remember when we were doing a lot of mailing, a lot of postcards were basically create an in an in house mailing department in in my business, because that we figured that was the most cost effective way to do it. And I remember, I had just like bought a house, like a year and a half before. And I remember having this copier, one of these big things that collated and printed and it was huge. And I remember having to sign the lease on this thing, I'm just gonna look this up dysregulated body language, it was like I signed the lease on this thing guaranteeing it, it was it was as much as my house in terms of making those leaps in business. So, but it's one of those investments that Did you know that that got us to the next level of, of growth. So you might not have something extreme like that on your Horizon. But it could be an employee, you know, to the tune of whatever, you know, 10s of $1,000 a year. So they can be very scary. So do what you can to make those decisions very wisely. And of course, you're going to need to if you don't have a business plan yet, you're going to need to get on that and work
Unknown Speaker 17:39
with that's what I was just thinking when you were talking about having to purchase this piece of equipment and created a whole department. Like why I don't think any one person could make those decisions or even a team you would really need to have somebody I would say facilitating guiding mediating, and then putting together the plan to say, well, when does this get paid off? At what point does this investment pay off.
Unknown Speaker 18:05
And that's another one of the that's another one of the things but I have in terms of investment is a coaching guidance at this stage of your business to talk with someone like a really well vetted coach to make sure that like someone who's been there, who's done that, who knows how to run those kinds of numbers and help guide you and help guide your hand in some of these decisions. So, you know, have I made you know, have I made six figure business mistakes? Absolutely. And I had, I wish I had not done it. Yes, it's um, it's kind of like a, I'll call that my MBA my six figure business mistake. Another thing I talk about is the right professionals around you, whether they be your accountants or lawyers, because the people that have helped you get to this stage of business might not be the people that get you to the next stage. And it can be it can be scary to depart from friends sometimes, but if sometimes your professionals can hold you back because they don't have the knowledge to help they don't have the knowledge and vision to get you to that next level.
Unknown Speaker 19:09
That is a whole different thing as well. Right? So you're right, like all the different investments and it's scary if you don't know what you're, what you're actually doing or where you're going.
Unknown Speaker 19:20
But the right professionals can guide you and get you to get you to the right people. Yeah, and I I've you know, I've lived through this I've probably been through three accountants which is you know, a good problem it is a good problem to have, but and they're all amazing, wonderful people. But when you when you do think that you need someone kind of a level beyond where you are because you know people that are used to working with if your goal is to get to those, you know, get to that seven figures you know, part having an account and a partner with people who like this is their like daily life and this is what they do for business owners. Not only can they have the knowledge in the scope to look at you to say like Okay, you know, let's take a look at this and help you plan but they know people like, Hey, do you like you know what I'll connect you to let me connect, you know, connect you to Sarah, you know, she's you know she's doing this maybe she has some resources for you. So in addition to their perfect, you know, their professional advice, they're wonderful. They're absolutely wonderful resources for help.
Unknown Speaker 20:18
That's awesome. And if I would, so then my mind goes on I know you have other tips to go to so we'll get there. But also my mind goes to the many different networking groups that I've been in, there are so many, but that when you go to let's say, a mastermind group, same thing and investment, a mastermind group with the people that you're right, that you're describing, who are at that level of thinking where they're going to push you beyond your comfort zone and connect you with the people who are going to lead you to your success.
Unknown Speaker 20:49
Yeah, absolutely, absolutely. When you are with those peoples that Jim Rohn famously said, you know, you become the five people that you surround yourself with. So if you're looking to get to that next level, this actually might be the most important thing that comes out of this, this talk is that you surround yourself with those people, those people who have already been to where you want to be and, and I remember, this is a non business example of that. But I remember I walked into cross across my first CrossFit class, and I walked through the doors, and I saw these women, they were like, they were like human Shiras, you know, stilled into the 80s, they were jumping up in these boxes, they're like, oh, my gosh, but again, because of my business, Aldo, like this is the place I want to be. Because there's no way I can't hang out with these people and not get better. True. That's right. And, but just like in business, like they're all incredibly supportive, because they've been where I've been, and they know, they, they want to, they want to help and they want to help you grow. Because they know what it's like to struggle, you know, in startup and feel like, oh my gosh, I don't know what I'm doing, though I have my expenses are up revenue, mortgages, employees, and it can be, it can almost feel like a second startup, Susan, because everything that works doesn't seem to be working anymore. And you have to learn everything, you have to learn everything new, like we talked about, you know, hiring employees, okay, now you need to look into employment law and hire and look for someone to help you in that area to make sure you're doing that. Right. Because last thing you want to do is mess up the legalities when you're hiring somebody.
Unknown Speaker 22:24
Right, right. Yeah. Yeah, there's so much and also, I think, right now, where we are, in this moment of time, things have shifted so much in the past two years, that may be what was working great two years ago, really needs to be re examined. Right, everything now more zoom, more, more online, less meeting in person, are we meeting in person are we not meeting in person, it's so up in the air so that when you create the systems that you're talking about with strategy, then those are the things that can kind of not that you can ignore them, you can't ignore them, but you know, where you're going, you know, the path you're taking, and you don't get distracted by the other things.
Unknown Speaker 23:07
Getting dissed. It's, it's an interesting, it's a fine line to walk as an entrepreneur when you're, you know, to get distracted by other things. Because if you're a vision, especially if you're the visionary type of entrepreneur, like everything's gonna be excited. It's like, oh, this, I can do this over here. And you totally can. And what I usually recommend is like, okay, just, you know, open up your phone and keep a running of all your ideas, keep the note, but then strategically look at them and don't, because I in the book, I even call it like shiny, you know, shiny beware of shiny object syndrome, because it's so excited to, you can get so excited about so much. But at the end of the day, we only have so many resources. So in the in one of those keys is really focused, you know, focus just like in life focused intent.
Unknown Speaker 23:49
Not that I can't I love that focus intent.
Unknown Speaker 23:51
Not that we can't, you know, have the idea bank so that we can look at it because we don't want to miss opportunities. But when everything seems like an opportunity we can it can be a business detriment if we try to spread ourselves too thin.
Unknown Speaker 24:03
Absolutely. I've lived it.
Unknown Speaker 24:06
Yeah, we all we all have, because we're like creative types. And it's all exciting.
Unknown Speaker 24:11
Yeah, before I even finish one thing, I'm on to the next shiny thing. Yep. And it's also that addiction to dopamine that I mentioned at the beginning, where I just like doing the things right, it's it's just it just feeds me what I need. That's how I got into sciences into into my food science business. That's how I got into digital marketing. Excuse me through through the Women's Business Network at southeastern Massachusetts. It's like doing the things gives me joy, and when the things that I do help other people in their lives. That brings me joy as well. Yeah, so it's right but you have got to stay focused. It would be so easy for me not to stay focused.
Unknown Speaker 24:56
It's it's a final it's a delicate balance. Being an entrepreneur and in it Yeah, in managing that it certainly is.
Unknown Speaker 25:05
Great. I agree what else you got on your list?
Unknown Speaker 25:07
Well, I know we're coming up on time. So I will say quickly others, in terms of you mentioned it earlier in that, you know, boundaries, boundaries for your time, because you get to start putting on that CEO hat instead of being that worker in your business all the time, you have to carve out that time, so that things get handled properly. And also, it's interesting with boundaries, because I was once asked, I did a wonderful talk out in Boston, and they like, what's what in terms of what's the, what's the toughest thing to do as a manager in a small business, and unlike its employees, when they're like your friends, and that line gets really blurry, and then they start, you know, like, oh, I had to pick up you know, I had to pick up, you know, my daughter I had in all that stuff's great. But if it happens, like, every single day in that lines blurred between friends and employee, then that can lead but the work starts not getting done, that can be a huge problem. So boundaries is one thing I talked about written processes time for that if you don't have one yet time for that operation to manual doesn't have to be scary. All it means is writing down the stuff that you do. It's not scary, you do it little bit by little bit operations manual, sounds scary, it's not. And the others wrap it up, because we this is a whole little depth. And we'll I can talk more about this on that webinar is contingency plans. If you cannot run your business, who's gonna do it? If you God forbid, you're laid up for a little bit, or a lot of it with them anything, you know, even a broken, like knock on wood. But you know, who's gonna send the paychecks? How are things going to function? Because now you have other things in people to take care of? So what what are those? You know, one of the things figure it out before it happens, it makes it life a lot easier.
Unknown Speaker 26:46
So smart. Oh, my gosh, so many good tips so much, I
Unknown Speaker 26:51
hope it's not too much.
Unknown Speaker 26:53
Well, you know, what it was, I know that they went high level, right? Because you're gonna go into them deeper level, when when you have your webinar. So why don't we go ahead and share, share the information about your webinars so people can dive deeper?
Unknown Speaker 27:06
Oh, that would be great. So I've created that webinar, successfully scale how to strategically grow your business without losing your mind. I'm going to be doing it on Tuesday, April 5, at one o'clock Eastern Standard Time. If you go to Danny whitestone.com, forward slash scale, that's d a and I that whi T sto N E forward slash scale. You can sign up for the webinar, if you can't make it sign up anyway. You know how it works. You get the recording?
Unknown Speaker 27:34
Oh, that's good to know.
Unknown Speaker 27:36
It's I'm in it. I'm doing it with go to meetings, not like the so that I can see faces and talk to people. So try to keep it fun and intimate and never boring. I don't like I don't like boring.
Unknown Speaker 27:47
I'm looking at it here. So it's Danny Whitestone. Calm? Yes. I want to make sure that I share the
Unknown Speaker 27:56
Oh, thank you. Thank you so much. And also I have, of course, I have the women's Small Business and Leadership Network. So if you want to, if you're not in the if you're not in my group yet, go ahead and join and I'm so grateful to be a part of your group, Susan, rise above noise because you really help people do that. And as marketers, there's nothing more important is how do you rise above that the noisy marketplace? Well, that's the
Unknown Speaker 28:18
thing is to be it's too I love the community. I'm a community builder. So I love the the rise above noise Facebook group, I love that people can jump in there, ask a question and get an answer right away. And I also love that people are sharing, sharing their comments and sharing everything in there and as as they do in the in New York group as well. And I just put the link to women's Small Business and Leadership Network into the Facebook page that people can go in there. And I'll find the other link in a little bit. But I think basically it's it's what I think the most important well, I guess they're all really important. But I almost think that the last thing you said was the most important is what are your systems? And maybe not, you know, you, of course you want to figure out what all of the systems are. But that is where I live right with the email marketing and figuring out I can't you know, I You can't write down everybody's email that you meet, throw them on an email list. You can't do that. First of all, you just can't It's against the rules. And secondly, right it's time so how do you get people to come into your community to come into your email list so that you can share with them and you can be able to generously give hints and tips, right? Like I'm thinking oh, this would be a great series of 10 things you need to know right? Like that's a great network, great nurture sequence, like what do you have already that you can share and it makes it easy so that you know Alright, I just have to share this one link the next time I do networking and my list will grow and I can attract more clients.
Unknown Speaker 29:54
Business is really at its you know, at its heart. Is it a series of it's a bunch of systems I'm
Unknown Speaker 30:00
like that, well, then I'm gonna write that in their business list system
Unknown Speaker 30:06
is a is a Yeah, it's a collection of digital collection of systems. Like that's how like when you have a fridge in for like a franchise look at, it's just like, Okay, we have a McDonald's stamp. Now we have a McDonald's over here, and you get the people to run the systems. Love that. It's systems. I mean, we're small businesses, and we're all very unique, and we're all very needed. So but you know, you can't take the personal element out of it, but really, really be someone else has a better quote, I'll work on that, in terms of us a smart sounding code that talks about business and systems. I like that system. Yeah, that's a great tip.
Unknown Speaker 30:40
It's a great takeaway. Danny, thank you so much for being with us today and sharing and then inviting us to your webinar in a couple of weeks. Looking forward to seeing that and learning more. And, you know, I've been watching what you're doing. And I just really admire how you building community, you always feel so approachable. And you wrote a book and and, and, and I'm just really proud to know you and have you in my community.
Unknown Speaker 31:03
I love you so much, and I love your community. Thank you so much for having me on. This was great. I really, really appreciate it. Thank you so much, Susan.
Unknown Speaker 31:11
Very welcome. Well, there you have it. I hope you enjoyed this week's rise above noise spotlight as much as I did. You know, our rise above noise community is really revolutionising how service professionals show up in their marketing to make a real difference in the world, where showing up with generosity was showing up with consistency. We know that marketing is what helps our business grow. But it's also how we show up. Now, Danny made clear today in order to grow without losing our mind, we need to be strategic in the systems that we set up to support that growth. There are investments of time and money that we might need to commit to if we're going to successfully scale. Now more than ever, our world needs our transformation creators to be successful in their ventures. We need you to show up in service and make a real difference in our world. And again, I'll say now more than ever. So I do want to thank you for joining today and I look forward to seeing you in our rise above noise community and I can't wait to share the next rise above
Transcribed by https://otter.ai