A lot of people in 2023 had the intention to slow down their business so they could scale their business faster, only to find themselves experiencing incremental improvements at best, and at worst, completely stalled revenue a year later.
And because typically in these slow-down periods, they probably invested in people, in systems, in all the resources they could to stabilize their business only to find themselves now spending MORE money with very little to show for it, they feel conflicted.
Here’s why this happens:
The process of slowing down to speed up is about building a stable foundation upon which to grow your business, yes, but this only works if you are focused on and interested in innovating your existing business model.
If up until this point you’ve been the primary person driving your business forward, being the face of the brand and delivering the service then your business model heavily relies on YOU being the glue that holds everything together.
And some people (even if they don’t admit it) find comfort in being the glue. But the problem is they’re tired. And they don’t have a lot of time, so there’s no room for them to grow more.
So then they slow down to speed up, and they focus on putting the systems, the structure, the team in place to take the burden off of them, right?
Except, they still kind of want to be the glue. And there’s all kinds of reasons that they choose to still be the glue:
They worry that if they were to do less, existing clients might feel resentful and back out of their agreements or stop buying future products/services. Basically, the client well will run dry.
They worry that if the team sees them doing so much less, the team might be resentful and ask for more money for the work they do
They worry that their team cannot do it as well as them and customer experience and satisfaction will tank, and again the client well will run dry
There’s more examples of this, but these are the most common ones I hear from people I’ve worked with in the past.
Which is interesting because usually my clients are kind of frustrated and quite frankly, fed up with unequal relationships between them, their service, and client expectations. But, I digress LOL.
So because they want to be the glue, but, like, a lesser amount of glue, LOL, they spend money putting all these systems and teams and structure in place to help them but unconsciously they’ve created a mechanism to further LOCK them in place.
It reminds me of the scene in the movie Wreck-it Ralph where Fix-it Felix tries to free himself from this jail cell he’s in by hitting the prison bars with his trusty hammer only for the bars to like quadruple in size.
Fun fact: I’m a Disney Nerd lol.
Most people only have this one hammer in their toolkit - they only know how to build themselves into the mechanics of their business, they don’t know how to build themselves out of it without sacrificing income, impact, or influence, you know?
So when slowing down to speed up, the intention HAS to be slowing down to either drastically reduce the involvement you have from the process or removing yourself entirely.
Otherwise, you’re just locking yourself into place and paying for things that may be giving you incremental ease but ultimately aren’t doing anything drastically helpful for you.
Now, many of my clients have gone into a slow down to speed up period with me and experienced exponential growth in just a few months.
And by exponential, I mean something UNLOCKED for them.
First, we did an audit so that we could see where in their business they were most unconsciously unwilling to stop being the glue, and we explored the root fear.
Because if we don’t know the root fear, then what happens (which I’ve also witnessed) is that they might let go, temporarily. They’ll let go until our container ends and then as soon as they are faced with a stressor - either life or business, they go back to the status quo and back to the comfort of being the glue and all the progress is kind of derailed.
As far as the root fear: I would guesstimate that over 95% of people tell me that if they pull back, they are worried about other things not being able to replicate their results, which then could lead to them losing money. So we do some leadership identity work and get their buy in to make some small but exponential-level shifts.
Second, we set a plan, typically a 90-day plan of how we are going to get the pieces in place and what THEY should be focused on as the changes are taking shape based on their goals.
This is usually CEO-work. Stuff that they have likely undervalued in their business but in actuality is the most important work that only they can do. It’s creating space that serves their business.
Journaling, nervous system regulation, visioneering. How can they take what exists and make it better without needing them, and also, what’s next on their dream board that we can start working on bringing to life.
The more we get them into a routine of valuing themselves as the CEO rather than valuing what they can produce as a “doer”, the more it becomes a second-nature habit that sticks.
Third, we create an SOS plan - as we start to introduce new variables into processes that they have built from scratch themselves and only had to worry about themselves doing the things, it’s going to be bumpy in the beginning. How will WE know when they are starting to feel overwhelmed with the changes and are tempted to jump back in and take over? What will we do when (not if) that happens?
When these steps are in place - which usually takes about a month or two to work out the kinks, suddenly they find that their business is running SO FREAKING SMOOTH without them doing everything. Yes, they still have involvement, but at the highest and most impactful level of it - which is really what they wanted all along.
When they show up for their businesses as the CEO and not the glue, it dramatically changes the landscape they’ve been playing on.
Stuff they’ve tried to launch in the past now starts to work, even though the strategy to launch it didn’t change.
They hit record-breaking months, like a $200k launch, while working less hours.
They easily secure corporate contracts with packages starting at $100k when they were breaking their back to sell courses for $1997.
They start a new podcast a year earlier than they thought they would be able to.
They completely change their niche and go on a podcast tour with their new ideal clients.
Their expenses actually go down even though they are so much more supported.
If you’re interested in working with me to help you better leverage the slow down to speed up concept, I start all new clients in a 30-day private intensive where we focus on the steps I've described to help them slow down to speed up.
You’ll meet with me in two 2-hour blocks of time, where we will audit your business bottlenecks and pinpoint the exact areas to focus on first. It’s a low four-figure investment, and usually brings about huge shifts right away as I work with you and your team to make sure the changes are made while empowering you to step back.
If you want to keep working with me after that intensive is over, we have that option as well.
Message me if you’re interested in working together and we’ll have a short chat to see if it’s a good match for you.
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