Scaling A Business vs. The Flying Trapeze

Scaling a business has many similarities to swinging on a flying trapeze. I should know as an adult, I have learned to do both. On the Trapeze, you must climb a 35-foot ladder to reach the top. Yes, it can be terrifying, but just like growing your business, you must be willing to take many fearful risks to achieve your goals. Once you make it up the ladder, you stand on a platform only a few feet wide. It's nerve-racking, and to some people, paralyzing them to allow their fear or lack of direction to hold them back, and they're not willing to. ?

In business, leap exactly the same when you are poised to expand and scale. You have two choices at this point. One, you can gather your courage and breakthrough to where all the riches await. This experience is exhilarating, enriching, and tremendously rewarding. Or, two, you can get stuck on the platform and tell yourself why there are better ideas than scaling. In this scenario, you go nowhere. What will you choose to do? I chose the first option, though it took some time. I started my first business in college, and by age 25, I was already running my own national advertising and public relations firm. My clients included Fortune 100 companies, such as Supercuts and Ben and Jerry's. I was making great money, but I was working night and day. I should have been on top of the world, but I had no life of my own. And honestly, I felt miserable, and I recognized that. My business needed a new model to continue its growth beyond my efforts. But I didn't know how.?

Years later, after a powerful wake-up call resulting from a near-fatal car accident and a failing marriage, I decided to walk away from the lucrative agency that was starving my soul and figure out how to get there. Whatever that ultimately meant, the result was that I developed an innovative Method of Scaling that led to a much more impactful and meaningful business path, both personally and monetarily. I took a risk and have never looked back. Instead, I've moved forward to achieve even greater success by building and scaling multiple businesses, generating millions of dollars. It is of even greater personal importance to me that, along the way, I've developed a business mentoring company that has helped thousands of business owners worldwide realize their full potential.?

As many of us know and have already experienced, dreams can quickly get shattered if you are among the few who still need to. Trust me when I say you will; as you'll discover in my Scale or Fail book, setbacks and failures are not bad things. Expectations sometimes need flexibility and a willingness to look at a challenge from a new set of eyes. They start with an innovative idea, seed money, hard work, hope, and confidence building. Pep talks are all significant assets, but they are certainly not guaranteed success.?

There are a great many variables affecting whether you and your business reach their full potential. Growing your business is an even more daunting endeavor. You've made it through the early stages. You've built a client base. You've established some product recognition. You've seen some decent results and managed to keep your cash flow somewhat consistent. But soon, you find that one business leveling off costs is rising to achieve your long-term financial goals. You need to expand existing revenue streams or create new ones. Or your company will stagnate and then sink.

On the other hand, such expansion involves risk. As a rabbi once said to me when I was discussing the pains of my marriage, "nothing worth having is ever easy." However, there are ways that you can stack the odds heavily in your favor.?

The scaling model is described in the Scale or Fail Book, and I am excited to invite seven and 8-figure CEOs who want to build a team-managed company that thrives without them to join The SCALEit Method Book Club.?

Each week, I will go through The SCALEit Method, sharing ways to bust through your fears, just like I did on the Trapeze and scaling multiple companies. My Book club is getting started this coming week, and I'm grateful you all will join me HERE.