Growth vs Scale | Ep 067

Stay tuned for this week's topic, Growth vs Scale! This week John and Kacie explore the differences between growing and scaling your business. Join the conversation LIVE, or leave a comment on the replay, we would love to hear how we can help you lay a foundation of complexities and considerations involved when navigating business expansion strategies.

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Transcript

 We have a really good podcast for you guys today. We are talking about growth versus scaling. Wow. Yeah.

Interesting. Should we do the whole thing speaking every other word? Let's do that. I like that. It's like a rap song.  You get your section, I get mine. Yeah.  I think that would be a terrible podcast.  Um, so growth versus scaling. Definition man. How are they different? Are they different? They are very different.

How are they different? Well, actually they're not that different because, um, scaling.  Can you grow when you scale? Yeah. Yeah. Where you grow when you scale. Right. But you don't necessarily, you don't necessarily scale when you grow. Okay. Right? Yeah. So growing is, you know, let's just say you're growing your company, you're hiring people or you're out there hitting the streets, marketing to bring in more money, you know, so growing can, can be an expense to the business as well.

So you put a lot of money into growing by hiring, by  creating new systems, creating, buying new technology and all that stuff. You're growing  or the goal is to grow, to generate more revenue. Right. When you scale.  This is my definition. I know you're going to go into a nice little story here. Oh yeah, I got it.

You're making fun of mine. You're making fun of my definition. This is going to be funny.  But when you scale, you're creating systems right, that help you attract more revenue and touch more people with minimal effort, additional effort. So essentially you're like, you're creating an email campaign or email marketing campaign versus um, um, going out there and talking to people one on one.

You're reaching a thousand people through your campaign, you know, so minimal effort, but you're scaling, you're touching more people. So growth costs you money and scaling creates equity in your company. Yeah. Is that right? That's right. That sound good. All right. You ready for my analogy? Let's go. Is that the right terminology?

Yeah, my analogy. We're brainstorming this and I came up with this and they both started laughing at me, but it's really good I like it. Okay. So tell me what you're ready for this drumroll so growing is like a flower and Scaling is like pine tree okay, because Okay, so growing It's like a flower. So it's like just straight up and then you, it buds and you're like, okay, we're growing, growing, growing, and it buds. 

Uh, but scaling is there's roots like deep roots. There's a solid base. There's a solid trunk and it can. Create branches and the branches create branches and it grows and as a more solid structure and The what happens to a flower when it reaches a certain height like what if a flower were just to continue to just grow Grow grow grow grow.

It'll droop.  It'll droop and fall sunflowers with it Yeah, the the flower part is like hanging down exactly. Yeah, and and it eventually It'll kind of it'll wither and die, right? but When you're looking at a pine tree They can live forever, they can live forever and they just get bigger and bigger and bigger and it's strong creates a forest worded Yeah, so that was good.

Wasn't it? That was good. Yeah, and when you grow like a flower  When I was a little lost at the beginning  Came back around when you grow like a flower too. Sometimes it looks pretty you're like, okay We sprouted up and for a season It might look pretty and beautiful, but then if there's no foundation or strength or roots, then it's going to wither and die.

Yeah,  that's interesting. Interesting you say that. Because I think you can, you can grow  to your own detriment. Yeah.  Right? You can  invest in your, in the wrong things in your business. You can hire the wrong people. You can reach out to the wrong clients, bring the wrong people in that will bring in revenue, but it's not. 

Really doing the business justice, right? It's like a short term boost, like the flower.  Flowers are short term. They come, some are seasonal, right? Some are just, some just die and you gotta replace them.  Um, so like growing can actually  hurt your business. Yeah.  So, that's good. Not as good as mine, but it's good.

I'm trying to, you know, trying to compete here. It's tough. So, let's talk about, um, let's talk about how to grow. Hold on, let me get to some of these comments. Hi, Justine. Hi, Crystal. Hi, Faith. Hi, Alicia.  So, you're saying be a pine tree. That's what I'm saying. That's exactly what I'm saying. Be a tree. Isn't that a show?

Be a tree. I'm a tree. That's a show. I don't know.  Good morning, Ariel. They say when you go to the gym, you work your trunk. Oh, that's your core. Your core is your trunk. Yeah, you want to have a solid trunk, um, because that affects everything else. Yeah, that's good, too. Good job. You're, you're catching up a little bit. 

Just keep throwing these out there until it's really good. Justine said she wants to see a rap video by us when we were opening and trying to do every other word. We should do one. We should. Justine, Challenge accepted. Yeah. We will do a rap video about business. It'll be a comedy for sure. ? Yeah.  Um, let's see.

I love that. Good morning. Good morning. Christmas tree. Yes. Okay. Um, so let's give some examples. What are some things a business can do in order to scale versus just grow  systems? Systems. Implement systems. Yeah. Because systems, you can duplicate. What's an example of a system? A CRM system. Okay. What's a CRM system?

Customer retention management system or client, whatever, whichever one you want to change for the C. A relationship. Relationship management system.  Client relationship management system. Something like that. CRM. Yeah, but that yeah, that is a system that you know, you're communicating with your clientele You're maintaining communication  So the more people that you put into that system the more people you can you can touch.

Mm hmm It helps you track it so that you're not just willy nilly calling and calling Joe and Sally Just randomly, but it's like, Hey, you need to call Joe on Wednesday. And then two weeks later, you need to call him again. And then three weeks later, you need to send them an email. Automation. Automation.

Yeah. I think automation is very key in scaling. Mm hmm. Yeah. 100%. The more, the more processes you can automate in your business.  The better off you will be yeah, and it takes time. I my husband and I had a huge Conversation about this the other day because he's in a season of scaling versus growing I think he's been growing and now he's like, okay I'm running myself into the ground and I need to scale you, which I want to get into are in a huge season of growth, which is really fun.

We're going to be sharing some of that on our social media, scary, scary scaling, I should say. Um, but I think, you know, we had this big, this whole conversation and I forgot what it was now.  Caught up into a squirrel. Um, oh, he's just, he's running himself into the ground and, and he. Sometimes it takes a lot of time to sit down and create these systems and automations, and so you're, you don't want to do it.

You're like, well, I'm already busy. I don't have time to sit down and create these, and at the beginning it is, it is a lot of work, and it's a lot of being intentional, and it's a lot of Mental, you know, sitting down and thinking things through and long term. But it's something that we have to do in order to scale successfully.

Otherwise, you're going to run yourself into the ground. Yeah, I think, um, and I'm listening to a book. You ever hear the e myth? Yeah. So they made one for accountants, believe it or not. It's called the e myth accountant. Like, I'm like, okay, I'm listening to it. And it's the same concept, right? It's just they're geared towards accounting firms.

So.  You, there's two types of people, right? If you wanna scale, you have to become a business owner,  right? Versus a, an employee in your business. Mm-Hmm. . Mm-Hmm. , right? So you can either be a technician  or you can be the owner, right? A technician is you're, you're absolutely just working in your business constantly, nonstop.

You can grow.  As a technician in your business, but you won't build a scale because you're too focused on the task at hand versus the overall. Where do you want your business to be down the road  when you're the only one that can do certain tasks when you're being a technician? Exactly. You don't want to delegate or you can't delegate because you don't have a staff, right?

Um, or you have a staff and you don't want to delegate and you're just in it. You're in it. You're not taking that step.  Out and looking at your business and creating the strategies to around and implementing the systems in your business to help you truly, um, attract more clients and stuff like that. So you can, a technician can grow their business, but a technician can't scale their business.

So which one do you want to be a business owner or technician? Yeah, yeah.  And it's hard. It's hard to go from the mentality and the mindset of being a technician to being a business owner. And I would say most businesses, small businesses never get there. They. They continue to work in their business. They, whether it be, you know, Running the coffee shop or doing all the bookkeeping or because I think they have the mentality of nobody does it like me Right, or they don't know how to lead other people they don't know how to surround themselves with people that can create synergy synergy in their business and Because it's hard.

It's not an easy thing. You can't just say Tomorrow we're going to start scaling, you know, it's mentally, it is draining and it's hard and you mess up too in the process. I think people are afraid to mess up. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, we, we've messed up so many times we've done things and we're like, this isn't working.

We need to totally tear it apart and try it a different way. And that's okay. That's part of the growth. I think if anyone starts a business and things, they're not going to mess up, then you're going to be highly disappointed. Let me just say, say that now, don't go into business thinking you're not going to mess up, but you're instantly going to be successful because you will be disappointed and you'll be disheartened and you'll quit.

All right. It's you have to go in there with the understanding that in order to grow, in order to scale, you have to try new things, implement things and see what works, see what doesn't  bring people in to find the ones that that connect the ones that don't. And then allow yourself to, um, release  some of your.

responsibilities onto the teams that you're bringing on. Yeah. John messes up all the time. I don't ever mess up. I could write a book on how many times I messed up. An encyclopedia of volume. That's why we're doing this podcast. So we can help you guys not mess up as much as we did. Okay, Justine says, documenting your process is so important for scaling.

If you want to take your business from one city to 10 cities. You need to be able to look at the blueprint  that you have created for the first city and analyze what works or what needs to change and what people you need to bring on to make the vision a reality. It's a lot of planning. That's so good, Justine.

And you know what it also is? It's a lot of vision casting, which I think as leaders is really hard for us because  we see where we want to go. We see the end results. We've given this vision of, yes, we're here now, but we see The building on the hill and, but the building doesn't exist yet. And so getting that from our brain into the people that you're leading and bringing them on that journey and helping them see that vision, that's a really hard part too. 

It is. That's why documenting is so important, so important. So bringing that vision down on paper and sharing it with everyone,  posting it places so that everyone sees it. And then it becomes a, you know, that's your. You're, you're sounding call. There was another thing that I want to talk about in that book is, uh, the McDonald's, McDonald's, right?

So McDonald's is a good, um, A good example of scaling, right? How you scale a business. So Ray Kroc was the, he bought the McDonald's store in California, the original store. And he's, his vision was I can see this all over the country, all over the world, right? He loved their French fries. He loved their process on making burgers and whatever it was.

So he created  the exact burger size. Uh, of the burger that had to be created in that, you know, the exact, everything was written down. It was, there were dimensions, the potatoes had to have a specific amount of moisture in it. So there was dimensions that were documented that then they took and were able to replicate that in other stores.

What he wanted to do was make each store an advertisement for other stores in other places. So if you saw a McDonald's in, or you went to a McDonald's in New Jersey.  And you saw one in California, you knew what you were gonna get, right? Even down to the ketchup and the amount of pickles, I think, on the burgers.

Everything was documented by size. So he created a system that allowed him to be able to duplicate that in other places. That's scaling.  Good. That's a great example of scaling. You like that? I'm coming at ya. I'm coming at ya. Good job. What's up Game Gear 585? Thank you so much for watching. I think Game Gear is like our most, our biggest regular watcher.

We appreciate you for sure. Yeah, he's awesome. We appreciate your Game Gear. Yeah, go give Game Gear a follow if you're on YouTube. For real. Alright, um, let's see. So, we talked about the difference of  growing versus scaling. We talked about Be a Tree. Be a pine tree not a flower. Yeah, um strong roots strong roots.

Let's get to y'all want to hear from lorna I'm here from lorna. She's a good one with a spring break coming up. This is some good information This is really good information. Yeah, so we're gonna head on over Listen to our friend miss lorna and then we'll be back if you guys have any questions Even if it's not related to growth and scaling now is your time to put them in the comments Even if we're not live anymore, we will go back and answer your questions.

Join us in the conversation. Let's go You guys are while we're here. All right, let's go 

My name is Lorna Peters, Director of Marketing and Communications at Better Business Bureau, serving Middle Tennessee and Southern Kentucky. And it's that time of the year, it's coming, I know I look cold, I'm always cold, but it's that time of the year where it's time for us.  To prepare for our spring break.

So how can you avoid scams as a business owner, as a consumer, as it pertains to travel, right? First things first, if you can plan ahead, if you can't, it's fine. Life happens, but we encourage you to plan ahead because when you plan ahead, you're not always in a rush. You're not always taken by your emotions and you make good decisions, right?

When you plan ahead. So that's the first things first plan ahead. Okay. Second thing is to always make sure you use a credit card, not a debit card. Credit card because if, if something happens, if by chance you're scammed, you can't dispute that charge. Third thing, if you're looking for somewhere to stay, use a credible website.

Don't just Google, hey, I'm staying somewhere in Florida, find me a good location, because a lot of times scammers know.  And the first things that pop up may not be legit businesses. So take the time, do some research, visit bbb. org and see if that particular hotel or that particular  website that you're using is actually legit.

Last but not least,  post after you actually get back from spring break. A lot of times people post a lot. And scammers understand you're not at home. They, they can take advantage of knowing all those things about you and scam you out of your money, your identity. So always post when you get back, like, like the celebrities do.

They always post things after the fact. Not usually in the moment. So let's take a tip from them and post after the fact that you can to make sure you're protecting your family, protecting your identity from scammers. Those are my tips for this week. Enjoy your spring break and I look forward to seeing you soon. 

If you need us, I almost forgot Casey and John, if you need better business for your eyes, feel free to reach out to us info at go bbb. org. Info at gobb. org. See you soon. 

Yo. I love that girl. She's amazing. She is amazing. I saw her on Sunday. What up, Lorneth?  Spring break is coming up. Those are some good tips for spring break. I think some things that we wouldn't normally think about. Yeah. Definitely want to be careful. When you're heading out of town, like don't broadcast it to the world that, Hey, we're going to so and so for spring break.

We're going to be gone for a whole week. My house is open for you. Come and come and check it out.  You don't want to do that. Be careful. No, no, we could do that though. Cause we have a pig that would bite your face off. Yeah.  And I have two monsters in my house. Yeah. Those guys are savages. Are they? Yeah. Um, Don't talk about your granddaughter like that. 

That girl is something else. I can get into so many stories about her right now. She's a sassy pant. She is very sassy. Talk about growing. Mm hmm. Yeah. Yeah. Oh my God. Too fast. Too fast. That's another thing. What? You gotta control your growth. Mm hmm. Sometimes you can grow too fast. That is true. And that becomes dangerous.

Yeah. Cause your body's not, your mind is not ready for that growth. Mm hmm. Set yourself up for failure. So I gotta slow my granddaughter down. She's growing too fast.  Yeah. So let's get into your growth story because you've got some really exciting things going on. Your scaling story. Yeah. The goal is to scale.

Yeah. You're about to scale. And we're gonna, we're gonna be talking about this. You guys can follow our journey on social media for the business project, social media, because I'm going to document it. Cause you're taking a leap of faith. You slapped me in the face the other day. I will say that because I was like, John, what are you doing?

How, why, why are you doing this? And you're like, Casey, where's your faith,  right?  I can't afford this. I ain't got no money. John is, he's renting a huge space, eight offices, 13, 13.  13 offices about as opposite on the side of town as you can get from my house. Are you trying to run from me? Is that why you did that?

You're like, leave me alone. Our town is just so big. It's like, you know, a 20 minutes is normal driving in Clarksville. This is true. But you're just taking a leap of faith and you are. Talk a little bit about your scaling story, where you are now and what your vision is. Yeah.  Who? Well. So now I'm in a, I'm in a small office.

I'm renting a small office space and, um, I have my business there, but I also have other small businesses that, um, rent some space in there. So it's kind of like a quasi coworking space. Um, I like to call like a collaboration, a collab collaboration  spot, right. Where we, we get, um, business owners that are kind of like in the same, um. 

I would say focus. They all do business to business services. Yeah. B2B. Perfect. B2B. Um, so we all get together and we support each other and, you know, we refer business back and forth. It was kind of like a nice little networking group as well. And it's a very small time, right? You, you know, there's maybe three or four businesses in there now in my current location. 

So I've been praying about it and I'm like, uh, you know, I really want to take this to the next level. We spoken about it. Cause we're. We're, we're collaborating on this as well and it's a, you know, kind of create an environment where we can affect a lot of, a lot of businesses in a way that, um, provides a place where we can go, we can collaborate and, and help businesses be successful.

So it's very B2B focused. It's very collaborative and it's very, um, you know, just support, support there, um, supporting each other's businesses.  So that's my, I'm doing that in a small scale.  I had I saw this location come up that is obviously like three times larger than my current space, um, 13 office spaces and, um, you know, it provide an opportunity to to scale that, right?

Because there's not I'm not adding. , anything new? Well, I, I am, I'm adding an, uh, I am adding a new, um, revenue stream and I'll get into that, but it's more, um, you know, it's more an opportunity to scale this little tiny model that we got going on into something bigger and incorporate a lot of things that we've been collaborating on into that as well.

And just really build something that this community can, can embrace. So,  prayed about it and that off office space came up. I went to visit it  and, uh,  I said, God, if this is for me. You know, open the doors and make it happen because I don't know I'm gonna pay that rent.  It's triple the rent that I'm paying now.

So it has to, it has to work and it needs a good amount of work too. It's not a place that you can just walk into and be like, all right, let's start making some money. Right. It needs a good amount of work. We got to paint, we got to tear down walls. Um, so, you know, we got to definitely  put in some, some sweat.

So I've been already tearing down walls myself. I get in there and I don't, I don't mess around. Um, but it's gonna be ready to go on Monday.  Don't I wish I wish.  Um, but I spoke to the realtor and I presented the vision of what, uh, what I want to do with that spot. And he's like, let me talk to the landlord.

Um, got back to me the next day. He's like, man, he's all in.  So I said, okay, well, in order to make this work, I got to have, I won't go into the terms, but I like, I need you guys to work with me on the terms for a short period of time. And sometimes you can do that. So if you're looking for a space, you can negotiate with the landlord and everything that I presented was accepted. 

So I was like, God, this is, this must be you saying yes. Right. So I signed the lease and we're moving into a new space. It's going to be, it's going to be an opportunity to bring in more businesses. into that space, give them a place to go and and get work done and also collaborate with other like minded businesses.

And we're also going to just it's going to be, uh, an amazing spot in the side of town that doesn't really have anything like that. So we're filling a void there to that side of town has nothing like that. It's going to be really great. I'm really good blessing for a lot of people Yeah. And then there's going to be, so people can get their own offices.

There's going to be, we're moving our podcast studio over there again. We're moving our podcast again,  yeah. We're not moving again for a long time and we're going to rent it out. Yeah. Yeah. We'll have, we'll be able to rent out all the things that we do for our podcast. We can do for other people. So if you're looking to record videos and podcasts, we're going to have a spot for you.

Yeah, if you're in clerksville, yeah, and you can't use driving as an excuse because i'm driving all the way across town  Small sacrifice. Yes. Yes. It's gonna be cool. So not only do we Come in here and talk to you guys about growing your business and scaling your business and all of the details in between But we're living we're living it too and we're taking steps of faith And we're getting out of our comfort zone and we're doing things and learning and failing and all of the things So we're not just sitting here talking to you telling you to do things without us.

Also doing them or have done them and And so that's that's what this is about Doing it together. We want to hear from you guys. Where are you with your business and what, what challenges do you have and how do you want to grow and what goals do you have? We want to hear from you guys, even if we're not live anymore, even if this is, you know, months down the road, we recorded this podcast.

We want to hear that from you guys in the comments.  Yeah. You know, you don't be, you can think about what you want to do for your business and you can prepare. For the potential scaling opportunity or growing opportunity that your business is going to provide for you. But there's always that uncertainty of taking that first step and That you have to have faith when you do that Like you have to truly even though you've prepared and you've put a lot of thought into it and you've written down what it's gonna Look like that first step is always the scariest part because you don't know if that is actually going to be successful or not But you gotta take it because if you don't you won't know Yeah, and I think asking yourself my mom used to tell me this all the time growing up What's the worst that could happen?

Because I think too we build up in our heads. Oh that like the worst case scenario This is gonna happen and then this is gonna happen and then I'm gonna fail and then I'm gonna lose my house and be homeless And then I'm gonna lose my husband and all my kids and you know We like go down this rabbit trail of just negativity instead of you know, taking a step and being like what is actually The worst that can happen.

Okay, so we do this and it doesn't work out and then we go back to how we were, which is where we would be anyways, if we didn't take the step. So yeah, exactly. Don't be afraid. Don't be afraid. Don't be afraid, but put the plan plan, but don't be afraid. Be smart about it. Yeah, for sure.  All right. I think that's all we got for today.

That's it. This was good, right? Yeah. Yeah. This was a good one. It was a good one. So y'all, y'all ready to scale your business, put some systems in place  and figure out how to replace yourself so that you're working on your business, not in your business, and put some people around you that can help you grow and give you, give you some wisdom in that  and let's do this.

Yeah.  You know, think like a business owner, not like a technician. Exactly. That'll help a lot grow like a tree not a flower. Yeah, like a pine tree not a  strong roots  Grow that forest. Yeah. All right. Well We would love it. If you guys share this in groups, please the ding ding bell thing Share, you know, do you comment all the things?

I know I hate saying all of that But it really does make us such a big difference. We are A small business, just trying to get the word out there and help other businesses. And we can't do that without you guys. So we really appreciate that. Yes, we do. Thank you so much. Yeah.  You'll have a good one. We'll see you later.