Welcome back to No Silver Spoons. This is the podcast where I strip away the gloss and I talk about the real journey of building a business and a life that aligns with your deepest values. I'm your host, Sarah Beth Herman, and today we're diving into a topic that's close to my heart, scaling businesses.

Scaling isn't just about increasing revenue or expanding your team, it's about intentional growth that aligns with your purpose, your values, and the life that you really are envisioning. I. It's about building something sustainable, something that's impactful, something that's true to who you are and who you always dreamt you would be.

In this episode, I'm gonna talk about the multifaceted nature of scaling, drawing from recent research that I've done, industry trends, and then a few of my own personal experiences.  We're gonna talk about the psychological aspects, the leadership development, and the importance of aligning your growth strategy with your core values.

Let's get into it. Scaling is often portrayed as a linear path to success. More clients, more customers, more patients. That always equals more revenue, more recognition, but in reality, I believe it's more like a staircase with every single step. Presenting a new challenge, a new opportunity for growth, really defining where you're missing it.

Recent research highlights that scaling involves not just increasing in size, but also enhancing your performance and your adaptability. Consider this story of a wellness brand. I have been coaching them for quite a while now. They launched a new product line that initially was way underperforming and instead of abandoning it,  they took the feedback, they made adjustments, and they relaunched.

That process took about four months for us to gather all the data, really face the hard truths of what that launch meant. Within four months. After our four month pause, it became their top selling product.   this entire process, was true scaling. It meant that we learned, we failed, we adapt, we chose to grow.

Scaling isn't just a business challenge, it's a psychological one. I believe that requires resilience, relentlessness, adaptability, that growth mindset. And I swear every time I say growth mindset, I cringe a tiny bit inside only because it is such a buzzword, but I don't think we think about what really matters.

When it talks about growth mindset, I've talked in a few other episodes about quite a few things that John Maxwell says, and one of the things that he says is, we are easily motivated and inspired, right? We get our energy from that motivation, but what actually takes us places is discipline, and it's not enough to just be like, Hey, I want to grow.

I'm excited to grow. You've got to take yourself a step further. A recent study in the Journal of Business Venturing found that employees in scaling companies often experience increased stress, burnout, and.  Even more so a need for psychological support and effective leadership.

As leaders, we must cultivate emotional intelligence, self-awareness, the ability to navigate uncertainty.  And this means that we embrace that vulnerability, that seeking of support, that prioritizing of mental wellbeing, and that's for ourselves and our teams. I don't think it's enough just to know these things.

I think we have to actually understand it. I know that as I've scaled my business to every single level, every single step forward, I remember thinking back and even now what we have. Trials and tribulations and people that don't like us and losses in business, that doesn't mean you aren't scaling. You are going to constantly have things that come your way.

There isn't a single business that you are looking at right now, interacting with right now or engaging with right now that isn't feeling some sort of pain as they grow, as they continue every single day. Effective scaling. It requires this kind of leadership, this kind of empowerment. And it's really about creating a culture  where the individual team members you have have this sense of value.

They actually feel like you hear them when things aren't going well and they're motivated to contribute their best. And I know you're probably thinking, well, where do you find these magical team members?  Listen, I don't have magical team members. I create an environment where people want to be magical, and that's the biggest difference.

Research from the Center for Creative Leadership.  They talk about the fact that leadership development is crucial for organizational success.  It makes engagement better, it improves productivity, and job satisfaction is at an all time high. Now, have I always gotten this right? No. And am I getting it right every single day?

No, I'm not. But I'm willing to learn what's not working so that we can figure out what is working so we can get to the next level.  I'm working with partners that help me analyze the data of my team performance  so that I can see things that people don't feel comfortable telling me  or they aren't sure if they can tell me.

Investing in leadership training, investing in mentoring, having that clear communication channel, it fosters a resilient and adaptable workforce, and my friends is essential for sustainable growth. Now, as you get larger, you're not gonna know every single team member by name, but you can do things to help you stay connected to them.

And a lot of that starts with what you are willing to do, the time you are willing to invest as CEOs, as leaders, as owners of. Practices and large organizations, we have to take the time to understand how our role shifts. Yes, we're the visionary. We have all these ideas, but as you grow and scale, what you do shifts and changes.

You are no longer wearing 75 hats. You've gotta narrow it down to the most effective hats. Scaling should never come at the expense of your core values, and I want you to remember that you've got to align your growth strategy with your mission and the impact that you want to create. According to Forbes.

Businesses that integrate sustainability and ethical practices into their growth strategies are more likely to succeed long term. So take a minute, reflect on what success means to you.  Is it financial freedom? That's what we think when we first start the business. Right? But has it shifted to community impact?

Has it shifted to personal fulfillment? Has it shifted to creating the world that surrounds you into being a better place than what you found it as? Let your values guide your scaling decisions. Are you a part of an industry that is just not magical at all  and you know you've gotta change it into something magical?

What is it? Define it. Get it where you wanna be. Decide who you wanna create this business to be.  What are you doing and why are you doing it? How is it going to change as a result of the decisions you make right now for a better future?

I think it's important that on this episode we talk about the fact that we've got to embrace technology. We have to embrace the innovation that comes with that. I'm telling you that we are rapidly evolving in technological stuff. We have to leverage technology in every single way we possibly can, but that also means scaling effectively without losing the side of the human touch that's required for your business to scale the right way.

Now, there is a ton of stuff out there, automation to data, analytics, a lot of things, the right tools can actually streamline your operations  And enhance your own decision Making. A report by KPMG indicates that 90% of investors are urging companies to prioritize AI integration, recognizing its potential to drive efficiency and innovation.

Now, that's from Business Insider,  but I wanna take a moment to talk about that for a second. AI is huge, and I know a huge buzzword right now is the use of chat GPT. Now I have been working with a lot of third party vendors, but what I really try to draw from is the people I personally connect with,  not that have anything to do with my business,  but who I am personally interacting with in my personal life.

Because in many cases, these are smaller organizations  that haven't quite yet figured out how AI will work. Properly or haven't quite figured out the customer service side.  There are so many different aspects that they're leaving on the table, and I'm gonna give you an example today. I have been going to a particular med spa for quite a while now.

This isn't the only med spa I attend. I actually have five different med spas across the state that I live in that I frequent from time to time. There are people that work there. Services. I get a lot of different things I do at a lot of different places, and I do that for the simple fact that I love to spread myself amongst a community.

I never just solely work with one person and. Everybody that I work with,  they know that's my personality. They know that I just go to wherever.  I don't really discriminate on one place versus another. And sometimes by happenstance I'll catch a business that I absolutely love and I'll stick with them forever.

But this one particular med spa, I had an unfortunate experience. I won't go into all the details, but it was a. Poor customer service experience, and they asked me for feedback after my visit and I gave them that feedback,  and I did it in a really respectful way because I think feedback is great. I think it's incredible if we can pause for a moment  and realize how valuable feedback is to organizations Now, I didn't give feedback in a negative way.

I didn't bring their team down. I didn't discriminate. I didn't try to be harmful. I didn't try to get my own way. I just provided feedback in a really calm, cool, and collected way, and how I did that I think mattered because if I would've gone in and replied to them in a way that I was trying to elevate myself and minimize them, I think that's really unfair.

But I simply told them what my experience was from my vantage point   with the intent that I would understand where they were coming from. After everything was said and done, I got a reply back from them. And immediately I knew they were using chat GPT to respond to me, and I knew that because of the M dashes, I knew that because of the specific words that come through with chat GPT.

I knew that because of how I could tell they were copy and pasting even there was a quotation mark at the very end. Now, I did disclose to them that I knew they were using chat, GPT. I understood that they were using chat GPT because it helps them keep things professional. It helps them have a similar response across their entire team so that the customer facing responses  all, have some sort of similarity.

It creates, maybe you could even say a cohesiveness to how they reply to people,  but the problem is that's an example of using AI and not fully understanding ai.  Now, when you use chat, GPT. It is an incredible force. I mean, I'm telling you, it is transforming productivity in a million different ways, but you have to understand how to use things, what words to do with that,  how to integrate it into your world to where it actually makes sense.

 Integrating and embracing technology and AI is a must, but you've gotta take the time to understand and do the research on how to use it so it doesn't feel like you're using ai. You still work with people Now if you're a completely tech-based company and you never have that customer facing side. Cool, no problem, but learn to use it in an effective way where it's not completely obvious, because I'll tell you right now, more people than you know are using chat GPT, and it's every age group  and people are starting to pick it out.

Yes, it became popular a few years ago, but now we're just trying to find out who's using it, and we're trying to pick out the people that don't have it all figured out  are trying to fake it until they make it. So pay attention to that and use it in the right way. We're almost finished with this episode, but I've got just a few more things I wanna share with you.

Now. I know I touched a tiny bit about this earlier in this episode, but scaling inevitably comes with challenges. It comes with financial constraints, it comes with market fluctuations. I. Internal conflicts. Building resilience is really key to navigating what these obstacles look like for you and the outcome of those obstacles.

A study that was published in Science Direct, it emphasizes the importance of adaptability and continuous learning and overcoming scaling challenges. I want you to remember that as you grow, you are going to have setbacks, but those are learning opportunities. Learn to develop contingency plans, seek mentorship, and maintain a flexible mindset that adapts to changing circumstances.

You have goals, you have things that you wanna do in your business, and every single goal and thing that you wanna do is not gonna work out as perfect as you imagine it.  When you first think of the idea, when you first develop the process, everything grows. Just last week, Microsoft, shut down Skype.

Totally shut it down. They dissolved that part of their business. One thing I can tell you is I thought that was really beautiful because when my largest brand started nearly 11 years ago now, we started communicating with people all over the world using Skype. The use of Skype transformed my entire business, which evolved from that and developed different communication methods and hiring practices  that ultimately got rid of Skype about eight years ago.

 But how beautiful is it that technology can continue to evolve and advance, and even something that once was so useful for so many people is now obsolete. That happens in business, and that's okay. We have to just continue to move forward. Now before we end this episode, I wanna talk about mentorship because it is so powerful, especially as you grow, when you learn from those who have navigated similar paths that can provide insight and support for you, it is a game changer.

As a mentor, I aim to bridge the gap between where you are and where you aspire to be and where your challenges will be at. Now I offer guidance, accountability, and encouragement, and I have an incredible platform that keeps you on track. We meet once a week. I work through what you're looking to do, and you have an action plan.

Now, I'm not doing the work for you, but I am guiding you along the way. I am supporting you. I am tracking your success, and we're taking you to the next level. It's not just regurgitated information that you might've heard somewhere else delivered on a pretty platter.  It's actual work. We're getting to work.

We're developing plans, we're masterminding together. Research from the Harvard Business Review. talks about mentorship significantly improving leadership effectiveness and organizational performance. Now, mentor your people. you get mentored. Listen to audio books, read quotes, follow inspiring things on social media.

 Learn what you need to pour into yourself. A great way I do this is if I'm headed to a speaking engagement. You'll know, especially if you've worked for me before or you've worked with me before when I've spoken at an event that you have, I never prepare. I don't have slideshows, I don't have a script. I need someone to have me read.

I read and speak off the cuff, and I love it that way because it's so genuine. Now, if you have a specific topic you want me to speak on, absolutely. I can ad-lib that. But the thing about me and public speaking is that I really. Love to just talk about what I know. I don't wanna have to do a bunch of research on what I have or haven't done, or what someone else says should or shouldn't be done.

I like to take the knowledge that I've actually learned along the way and I've put into use, and now I'm sharing it with you. My experiences, my stories, the whole trajectory of my businesses, where I'm going in the future. It's really important for me. And when I'm on the way to those speaking engagements, I'm about to hop on a mentor call.

Throughout the day on the way, even the day before, I'm always filling my mind with goodness. I'm always filling it with inspirational authors and, public figures that have written books or that have a podcast so that they're pouring into me and I'm hearing and listening what they're talking about.

And oftentimes, a few hours before any event. I make sure I call someone who has mentored me, who is a business partner of mine, who is a leader in my world, and I speak with them and we just workshop, Hey, I'm headed to this speaking engagement. I just wanna workshop what my thoughts are for that. We talk about it, it gets my head right, I'm ready to go, and I'm energetic.

I have a million stories and I often tell people I've had a thousand lifetimes in my one. Single life, because I'm always open to new experiences and every bad thing that's ever happened. It only gives me more content, more information, more experiences, and more moments that I can share with those  who are willing to have me on a platform so that I can listen to what they have to say and respond with great information.

Our That's good moment for today. I want you to think about all that you've learned today in scaling. Just what that looks like, how you build out your platform, how you talk and engage with your team. Understanding that it is a staircase where you take steps, there's plateaus, then you grow, then there's a plateau, then you grow.

 It's not just this perfect aimed trajectory of a shooting arrow that goes exactly where you want it to go. Every time you shoot it,  things happen. It's not perfect, and you will have losses along the way,  but it doesn't mean you're doing anything wrong. Scaling is a journey of intentional growth. It requires self-awareness.

It requires resilience. It requires that relentless pursuit of alignment with your core values. It's not about rapid expansion at all costs, but about building something meaningful and sustainable.  Remember, you're not alone in this journey. Seek support. Invest in your development and stay true to your vision.

If you're navigating the complexities of scaling and you're seeking guidance, I'm here to support you. I offer mentorship fractional CFO, and CEO services and public speaking engagements to help bridge the gap between your current state. And your aspirations. Let's Connect and explore how we can together work to achieve your goals.

You can check the show notes for all the links on how to connect with me and even how you can be a guest on the show. Thank you so much for tuning in to no silver spoons. I'll  📍 catch you on the next episode.