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Oh hey, TBD fam!

I’m officially back from house hunting in Vegas and I most definitely came home with more questions than answers, but I’m super glad I went, it’s definitely still on the table, and I’m also not so sure it’s a place that feels like home… yet.

With that, I took an extra week off the show than planned to give myself a bit more space to bring you my absolute best content and I’m so glad I took that extra pause because this episode is SO GOOD!

Over the past few months, I’ve been slowly de-scaling my business and in this episode, I’m breaking down:

• Why I’m doing it
• What it looks like
• How it’s doubling my monthly recurring revenue (MRR) from Q1 + then some!
• One of the trade-offs I’m making to shift into this less scaled business model (this is a big one!!)
• Plus, one of the gains I’m focused on this shift generating too!

I can’t wait for you to tune in! Let’s do this ❤️

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Transcript:

Hello, hello my friends and welcome back to the show!  I am fresh back from house hunting in Vegas and oh my goodness, for a trip where I was hoping to get some clarity – I am feeling just as unclear as I was before I went out.  

These big life transitions aren’t for the weak and although the weather was beautiful and we literally took part in everything the Vegas suburbs have to offer from checking out Mount Charleston, Lake Las Vegas, and Lake Mead, I’m still not sure if it’s somewhere I can imagine myself living.  

The one thing I do know is you do not want for a single store out there.  You name it and it’s there and if you’re a foodie like me, your heart will be very fulfilled – but my immediate impression was a bit of culture shock – mostly just being in the desert vs the rolling lush green hills & streams that I’m used to. 

What I loved though is Vegas feels very welcoming and inclusive and raising my kids in a culture like that is a huge draw for me! I’m going to head out one more time in September/October to get another feel.  For now, this next life move still feels very TBD and I’ll be curious to see what we decide from here.  

Other than that, we are full on into Summer at my house. We’re heading to Charleston, SC for the first half of July to see my family and my calendar is almost completely empty except for 3 1:1 calls over the next 2 weeks.  The spaciousness!  I’m here for it.  I love me a good summer slow down, which is very related to our topic for today!

On today’s episode, I’m taking you behind the scenes of my decision to descale my business –

• Why I’m doing it
• What it looks like
• How it’s doubling my monthly recurring revenue (MRR) from Q1 + then some!
• One of the trade-offs I’m making to shift into this less scaled business model (this is a big one!!)
• Plus, one of the gains I’m focused on this shift generating too!

So much of what we hear in the online space is to scale, scale, scale, which is really just another way of saying more, more, more, growth, growth, growth – but what if your season isn’t about that?  

One, I think this sets a very unrealistic trajectory for any small business owner because you’ll have higher revenue months, lower revenue months, higher revenue years, lower revenue years and this is 100% normal!  

If you look at any big organization – you’ll notice they have higher quarters and lower quarters.  Business is cyclical that way.  

Two, I think this sets us up to feel like we’re not being “successful” (which is oh such a gray term) when we don’t want to pursue more, more, more, growth, growth, growth as if it’s somehow a “lesser” choice, but what I think this is really about is the pushback we might get (from others or even ourselves) that we’re opting out of the macroculture and anytime you opt out of something – you’re “braving the wilderness” as Brene Brown says.  You might feel like you’re the only one, which of course requires all the more courage to march your own way.   

What I know is I’ve felt like I’ve been on a high-speed train over here for a solid couple of years.  I’ve been trying to keep up with the growth of my business – especially the leadership required of leading a team and leading a community while also creating a very robust curriculum.  

And while the growth has been exhilarating, it’s also been a lot.  My nervous system has been doing a lot of heavy lifting – mostly integrating, which is a lot of internal work on its own and when I came out on the other side when it would have been the “right” in air quotes time to scale – I just didn’t wanna. 

I actually wanted to take a beat and chill a bit before I said “yes” to more.  My nervous system needed to be in a place of safety and that’s one of my biggest decisions to de-scale for a bit so I can give myself that.  

I’ve been pulling back the layers of why my nervous system felt so overtaxed with a scaled business model and I’m really going to take you into the depths of my own mind and dynamics here for better or worse, but I’ve identified a few things: 

I wasn’t ready for the shift in intimacy a more scaled business model would create. 

I’m used to being very up close and personal with my clients’ businesses so I can hear the nuance they’re moving through and supporting them through it.  I’m used to supporting small groups of 20 so when I went from 20- 50, I was not prepared for how much that would shift the depth of connection I was used to having with my clients. The other things was I was slowly shifting from a coaching model to a curriculum model and I have all the aha’s now being on the other side for how this will shift the way your delivery feels so let’s dive into each one. 

This was for a few reasons: 

• Up until this scaled program, I was used to my programs leaning mostly on coaching, then on curriculum to create results and this was the first time I was completely shifting that to lean more on curriculum and then on coaching. 
  
  What this ended up feeling like to me on the backend is feeling more disconnected from my clients than I was used to.  I was so used to having a good finger on the pulse with where they were and the nuance they were moving through and with this new model, I was noticing gaps in that clarity for myself, which created some anxiety. 
  
  Are they getting what they need?  Are they applying the curriculum okay?  I’ve never been someone who’s just like “yes, sign up and pay me money.  I don’t care if you get the results or not.”  So looking back, I should have integrated feedback loops in different ways – quizzes after certain pieces in the curriculum, feedback forms periodically, etc. 

• The second is I unintentionally scheduled myself out of my own program, which is a key mistake a lot of business owners make when they get to the $250K revenue mark.  They try & remove themselves from their businesses too quickly because we hear all the time that in order to scale, we need to remove ourselves from delivery, which was so not the right choice for me and how I work – but you live and learn.
  
  I only had 1 call/month in my original program design. I ended up adding another call to create more touch points with my people, which greatly shifted the disconnection I was feeling! 

• The third is something I’m still working through, which is being invested in my client’s success.  This has been a fine edge I’ve had to find for myself this past year because although it’s a great thing to want your clients to be successful, there’s also a blurry line that can show up that makes their success more about you than them.  This a sneaky one because if you’re taking responsibility for a client being successful, you’re also taking responsibility for someone NOT being successful. 
  
  And the reality is, every single one of your clients is going to be on their own path, their own timeline, learning their own unique lessons and their “success” is so much more nuanced than getting the promised results in your program.  There have been so many times I have not achieved the core focus of programs I’ve signed up for.  I haven’t gained that result, but I’ve walked away with so much more!  It’s so important to trust that your people are going to get exactly what they need whether that be seeds that are planted that radically shift their trajectory or meaningful leaps that bring abundance that they’ve been working for for years.  You just happened to be walking alongside at the right time for them to have the right foundation and to step into it. 

• The last thing I was not prepared for was the energetic pull of needing to be in curriculum design while also being responsible for creating community and I simply could not do both at the same time.  There was a constant guilt that I was not more present in our Facebook group because I just didn’t have the juice.  And honestly, I’m still recouping my juice over here! 
  
  I have always seen myself as a community builder and I didn’t realize how much of a value that is for me until I wasn’t able to embody that value to the extent I’m used to.  I’ve always been big on creating inclusive, welcoming, vulnerable space by being the one who “takes the first step” if you will.  But I didn’t have it in me to create both community at that level while also pouring so much of my heart and soul into the curriculum I was building so I made an agreement with myself.  Our connection would happen on our live calls, not in our private FB group, which was great for those who could attend our calls, but not as much as those who couldn’t. 
  
  I went back and forth with myself, which was tiring, on trying to ensure no one felt lost, no one felt like a number, & there was a community to plug into – this shifted our community and connection to one central place (live interaction), but it did not feel inclusive for me not also having an active, engaged FB group for other clients to plug into and that weighed on me quite a bit.  

So, all things I’m still reflecting on for the future when I step back into a more scaled model, but for now, when I think of the easiest, lightest lift for me – I think about my 1:1 clients and getting to show up to our calls and dance with what’s in the room with the added benefit of having a rich and robust library of trainings I can pull at a whim to deepen whatever it is we’re working on. 

I also think about these small 6-month cohorts I’ve been enrolling for that allow me to build intimacy and connection much like I’m used to as they work through curriculum leaning more so on my trainings and then on coaching so I can get a deeper feel for how this feels for me at a much smaller scale.  

The biggest shift I’m working on making these next 6 months is realizing a scaled program won’t feel the same as a very intimate container.  And that’s neither good nor bad, simply different.  I may not have the same level of connection with everyone and that’s neither good nor bad either.  

• Some people will sign up for a larger program because of the curriculum and NOT the coaching.  Some will sign up for the exact opposite reason. I think I’m just getting used to not being needed as much as I’ve transitioned so much of my wisdom that used to be available only through live coaching to have actually done the work to build high-level curriculum that gets results on its own. It’s just a weird shift for me that I was not expecting to have the impact it did so I’m leaning into normalizing this new business model. But more slowly this time. More gradually.  

So, that’s an almost inclusive look as to why I’ve chosen to descale as well as the fact that I’m launching an app soon and I want my nervous system to be super grounded to support that!  If I can lessen the strain on my nervous system in this arm of my business, I’m opening up more capacity to stretch myself into app development, which is going to be a whole new world!! 

So, what this looks like on the backend of my business is this: 

• Taking on more 1:1 clients
• Continuing to enroll my 6-month small cohorts

Over the past two months, I’ve gone from having very few calls on my calendar to having more calls on my calendar, which has been an adjustment.

I’m used to having plenty of white space for content creation and for the past couple of months I’ve been like “why do I feel so busy?”  And it’s been because I’ve been trying to create content at the same level I’m used to when I literally don’t have as much time as I’m used to.  So I’ve decided to hire support with content creation like emails and social media.  Yay!  

Having less white space will be an intentional tradeoff of shifting to a more de-scaled model so be ready for that! 

The second is de-scaling your business doesn’t have to mean a decrease in revenue.  I had the lowest months of revenue in Q1 I’ve had in a long damn time as I was on the tail end of a lot of integration and then found out I was going to have to go through a complete rebrand and my little entrepreneur heart was like, “I just can’t”.  

I stopped selling while contracts were also ending and my revenue took an almost 50% dip, which although wasn’t ideal, I also was totally okay with because… Profit First y’all!  I always have money stacked in the bank to cover dips – whether those are chosen or not.  

BUT, when I got my feet back underneath me, revenue doubled in April (thank goodness) and as I also looked at the future of the app and how much I needed to feel deeply supported to truly focus my attention there, I landed on consistent $30K months for the rest of the year, which I’m anticipating locking in as soon as this month. 

Those $30K months allow me to pay off some investments I’ve made for this year while also paying myself $10k/mo as we prepare for our transition after the military because this housing market is crazy, y’all!! 

And I’m doing it by focusing on supporting a few more 1:1 clients and continuing to enroll for my small 6-month cohorts that I’m loving so much!! 

So all to say, I’m really feeling this de-scaled model right now that feels good for my nervous system, my bank account, and the foundation I’m building for the future.  It’s opening up a lot more mental capacity, which is exactly what I’m wanting.  And I’m sure by the end of the year, I’m going to be ready to go bigger or maybe not.  TBD, my friends!  

But what I do know is it feels really good to opt out of the more, more, more for the moment and opt back in to more of the right things for me in this season. 

If you loved this episode, I’d love for you to share it!  And if you’ve been needing permission to scale back, go smaller, go more intimate – I hope this offers you just what you need to choose YOU!  We always get to define what success looks like for us, which in my opinion, should always include what feels good! 

Sometimes we get what we thought we wanted and realize either it wasn’t what we wanted or we’re going to need to spend some time helping it feel the way we want it to.  It’s okay to take a step back, do some restructuring in the meantime, and reflect some more before you try again.  Don’t let the more, more, more override your nervous system.  You get to choose.  Always!! 

Until next time, friends – here’s to the courage to keep showing up even when clarity is still forming – trusting, knowing, believing the next right step is always on its way!