You are not your business. Your business is something you are creating, which means you have a relationship with it. Like any relationship that we are in, the relationship that we have with our business can be complex and takes understanding, consideration, and work. And as with our personal relationships, the ones that we have with our businesses are shaped by our past experiences, for better or worse. We might have been told that we’re supposed to leave our baggage at the door when we come into work–we might even think we succeed–but that’s not how humans work. And when we ignore how our pas ..read more

When was the last time you crossed off everything on your to-do list? Have you ever? Does even glancing at it make you feel overwhelmed and maybe a little bad about yourself? Hustle culture tells us that working 24/7, 365 will bring us success, that we have to grind it out to gain ground. But not only is that not realistic for real people with families and friends and lives we want to live, it’s not even true. There’s a ton of research out there that says resting actually increases your productivity, your effectiveness, your problem-solving skills and your creativity. We need rest to do our be ..read more

Maintenance mode as a topic for the podcast actually came out of a personal capacity crisis. Like a lot of people, since March of 2020, I've been without child care. With my son in hybrid school all year long, I gradually started having less and less time to devote to ScaleSpark. I lowered the bar on my expectations for myself and what I could accomplish again and again and again, but there was still stuff that just wasn't getting done. Don't get me wrong, I wasn't sitting around doing nothing. I executed a big business model shift that included piloting my first group program and creating my ..read more

The point of maintenance mode is to give you time and space to take a REAL break. Not a vacation where you're checking your email or you're stuck on your laptop kind of break. But a real, genuine break. That step back can feel kinda scary. It might feel like you're standing at a precipice, trying to figure out if you'll trip and fall over the edge, or if it's just a tiny step down to a solid surface. That step means that you have to trust that the systems you've built and the team you've trained can handle whatever comes up. That's the goal, to allow you to be able to take a break from your bu ..read more

In order to be completely away from your business for any length of time, you probably need to hire someone. Or maybe a few someones. In the last episode, I talked to Jason Staats about how he uses technology to help him keep his 4 different ongoing projects in maintenance mode, but hiring is also part of his maintenance strategy. He comes up with the ideas, figures out the tools, then hires someone to monitor and maintain. Technology and Team are the two most powerful resources you have when it comes to operating your business in maintenance mode. Technology allows you to make sure your team ..read more

You can't step away and do something else if everything's going to come to a screeching halt when you do. To be prepared for maintenance mode, you have to figure out how to get the behind-the-scenes systems to operate, consistently, without you. In order to get your business into maintenance mode–and build a stronger business while you're at it–you have to answer the question, "What if I'm not here?" Ideally, the answer is that nothing changes. Invoices still get sent on time, your products and services still get delivered, and the wheels on the bus keep going round and round. That's the goal ..read more

Sales are the lifeblood of any business. So when you're thinking about maintenance mode in your business, you need to think about how to make sure sales still come in, even if you're not around. Last week we talked about the first step in preparing for maintenance mode by being consistent with your messaging and your offers. If you haven't listened to Episode 81 with Michelle Mazur, go check that one out. This week, I want to talk about step two in preparing for maintenance mode and that's your sales process. In order to put your business into maintenance mode, you have to understand how sales ..read more

No one is bored with your business but you. The last month or two, we've been talking about maintenance mode–the idea that you can create a business that can kind of run itself. There are systems and processes set up, so everyone knows exactly what they need to do. The same kinds of systems and tools that you would use to prepare your business for maintenance are the SAME ones that you would use to free up capacity and prepare your business to scale. And that means that spending time setting up repeatable processes and checklists and automation has a HUGE return on your investment of time and ..read more

Sometimes we end up building a business that just doesn't fit our lives. Not intentionally. Sometimes it just happens that way. Maybe you don’t have the freedom you thought you’d have. Maybe you’re doing group courses but you really want to be 1 on 1 with clients, or vice versa. Sometimes when you step back and examine what it'll take to get to maintenance mode or what it will take to scale or grow, you realize that you don't actually have the capacity to grow this thing you built. The business you built isn't designed for that. In order to get to maintenance mode, you need to shift. Ryan Laza ..read more

Don't break it, stay the course, work the system. Don't break it, stay the course, work the system. That's the refrain that's in the back of my head all the time now. One of the biggest challenges of getting your business into maintenance mode is your mindset. It's not that it's so difficult to build systems or design your business model to be sustainable and resilient. It's that we, as entrepreneurs like breaking stuff and we LIKE shiny new things–shiny things are FUN! Breaking your business over and over with new offers, new messaging, new technology tools, new business models is not the pat ..read more