Priority Pursuit
A podcast dedicated to helping small business owners define, maintain, and pursue both their business and personal priorities so they can build lives and businesses they love.
Priority Pursuit
Bigger Doesn't Always Mean Better
Sometimes scaling your business feels like the ultimate goal, but what if staying small and focused could actually be more rewarding?
In this episode, we chat about the idea that you don't need to expand endlessly to be successful. We share personal stories of when scaling up didn't pan out, the importance of defining your own success, and practical tips for creating vision and mission statements that keep you on the right path.
Whether you're aiming to grow or stay comfortably small, there's a lot to consider. Let's break it down and see how you can build a business that works for you, on your terms. Tune in now!
Specifically, this episode highlights the following themes:
- Rethinking the traditional markers of business success
- The power of personalized vision and mission statements
- Real-life examples of the pros and cons of business scaling
Other Mentioned Links & Resources
Episode 136: How to Create a Personal Vision for Your Life & Business with Mark Dolfini
https://treefrogmarketing.com/how-create-personal-vision-life-business
Read Company of One by Paul Jarvis:
https://amzn.to/4ags3mh
Book a Strategic Marketing Coaching:
https://treefrogmarketing.com/marketing-consulting-small-businesses
Receive 50% Off Your First Year of HoneyBook:
https://www.treefrogmarketing.com/honeybook-coupon-code
Learn More About Treefrog’s Small Business Marketing Resources & Services:
https://www.treefrogmarketing.com
Join the Priority Pursuit Podcast Facebook Community: https://www.facebook.com/groups/179106264013426
Follow or DM Treefrog Marketing on Instagram
https://www.instagram.com/treefroggers
Follow or DM Kelly Rice on Instagram
https://www.instagram.com/treefrogkelly
Follow or DM Victoria on Instagram:
https://www.instagram.com/victorialrayburn
Kelly Rice [00:00:00]:
Your vision and your mission statements are intended to inspire and provide direction. They're not meant to be some fluffy statement that you just pop in your employee manual or you throw on your website or something like that. They're going to give you a clear outline of what your organization aims to achieve and why. And if you refer to them regularly, these statements are going to help ensure that your actions and decisions are aligned with the goals that you have for your life in your business, whether that means scaling or staying small on purpose hey there, you're listening to the Priority Pursuit podcast, a podcast dedicated to helping small business owners and leaders define, maintain and pursue both their personal and business priorities so that they can build lives and businesses they love. And I'm your host, Kelly Rice, and today I want to clarify something you see on the show. Victoria and the rest of the Tree Frog team and I regularly discuss strategies and tactics for growing your business, for meeting your goals and taking your company to the next level, and why there's nothing we want more than for your small business to succeed. Here's the thing that I found out the hard way. Bigger doesn't always mean better.
Kelly Rice [00:01:07]:
And scaling and expanding are not the only indicators of success. So despite with social media or your friends and family, or the rest of the world may tell you you can have a successful business without scaling, without ten x ing your revenue, adding team members, or taking on so much work that you always feel burned out, overworked and miserable. And because I wish somebody would have told me this years ago, before my family, my team and my personal well being suffered because I hadn't taken the time to determine what success meant for me. I want to have this conversation with you today. So I recently read the book company of one by Paul Jarvis as a recommendation from my friend Travis, who owns Honest podcast. And a side note, if you're thinking about starting a branded podcast, check out honestpodcast.com dot. Travis and his team have put together a ton of great free resources over there and they also produce priority pursuit and we've had like a wonderful experience working with them. So just as a side note, there's a plug for my buddy Travis.
Kelly Rice [00:02:09]:
Anyway, while reading the book company of one, I felt that the author was literally saying everything that I had learned over the past 20 years, especially about how staying small on purpose presented so many more opportunities to grow as a business, to develop and support staff, and to find a stronger work life balance. And I felt his words were, I felt them so deeply because every small business owner, I think, is taught or maybe we just often assume that scaling and expanding are the ultimate indicators of success. But in reality, it's not true for everyone. And, but also for the record, there's nothing wrong with scaling or building a big business, if that's what you want. I just want you to know that you don't have to do that in order to be successful. And then you may be asking me, how do I know this? Because in 2016, I tried the growing exponentially route by increasing staff and hiring a salesperson. Kind of just looking to get to the next level, but I really didn't know what I was doing. But I just thought that tree frog just needed to grow just like everybody else.
Kelly Rice [00:03:18]:
And to be honest, my intuition told me that these weren't the right moves. But I told myself to just trust the logic more than my gut, because I thought, you know, like we were often taught that more clients and more staff would allow tree frog to be more profitable, which would in turn allow me to pay higher wages and do more in the community, and hire more people and attract more clients and so on. But what I learned was that this approach to growth was 1000% wrong for us. Because first, you can't really sell what tree frog offers, because what we do isn't a product or a commodity. It's more of a mindset and a system that a small business has to be ready to move towards. In hiring a salesperson to try to sell a mindset was a huge mistake. But I think the biggest loss that we actually experienced as a company by thinking that bigger was better was the fact that we lost the ability to really get to know our clients and fulfill our mission of helping others. Because we were simply selling services to as many people as we could.
Kelly Rice [00:04:23]:
And because we really unknowingly shifted our focus from helping others succeed to sales, we ended up having to focus all of our efforts on cranking out deliverables, working to fulfill promises made by our salesperson that were sometimes outside the scope of our work, and just trying to make the wrong type of clients, like for tree frog, happy. And to be honest, the extra work we were getting due to sales ended up costing us our sanity and more money to deliver the services that what we actually sold it for. And this was because one we didn't hire well when it came to sales and to honestly, I mean, if I'm being honest, I didn't manage the process properly because I trusted the experience of the salesperson. And for me, this was a huge life lesson learned that I'm guessing that some of you can also relate to so but during the season, I was unhappy. My family time was taken over by work that needed to be done and my key staff were so tired and burnout and they didn't feel like they had a purpose and they really didn't even enjoy coming to work anymore. But thankfully they were strong enough to come to me with their concerns and together we created a plan to downsize. Downsize, if you will. We restructured our services and we also had to say goodbye to clients who just weren't the right fit for us.
Kelly Rice [00:05:50]:
But doing so, this cup came at a cost because not only did I have to let go the salesperson, which obviously made the most business sense, but also a key team member who we loved dearly and truthfully, that conversation was one of the hardest moments I've ever faced as a small business owner. But it sparked new life into all of us and we were committed to rebuilding the agency, supporting our amazing employees, and helping small businesses get to the next level, basically going back to our mission. And then unless in the year we were able to reach out to the team member that we had to downsize. And thankfully she agreed to come back to tree Frog and now she's in her 8th year with us and she currently leaves our creative team. And I am so thankful for her and for her willingness to kind of understand the situation and move forward and help us build what we have today. So now with the story that I just told you, you can see that I clearly had to learn that bigger isn't always better the hard way, along with some other lessons. But I truly hope that my story and the tactics that I'm getting ready to share with you can spare you and your loved ones in your team the same heartaches and headaches that we had to experience. So jumping into some of these lessons that my experience and stories have taught is that one.
Kelly Rice [00:07:14]:
I highly recommend the company of one by Paul Jarvis, and I'll be sure to include a link in that to the book in the show notes. But I don't ever want to wrap up an episode of Priority Pursuit without giving you something tangible and tactical you can use to create a life and businesses you love. Because nothing irritates me more than listening to something going, oh, that's, that's great, and then having zero ways to impact or make a change or anything like that. So with that in mind, I want to walk you through an exercise that Victoria and I always do with with our coaching students during their first session with the hopes of helping them build a roadmap in a clear path to their businesses that is both professionally and personally fulfilling. So you see, before we make any business decisions or we think about your marketing, you need to cast a vision for where you want to go. And it's so important to decide what you want the future of your company to look like. Otherwise, you'll find yourself, like, chasing goals and making decisions that aren't in alignment with who you are or what your business, what you want your business to be. Kind of like what I did back in 2016.
Kelly Rice [00:08:20]:
So in order to cast your vision for your company's future, you need to decide what your business values, what you stand for, and why you do what you do. And then this should be the foundation of your brand and influence everything from the way you operate today to the way that you scale. Or maybe you choose not to scale in the future.
Natalie Franke [00:08:41]:
What would you do with an extra 45 minutes every workday that would save you 16 hours a month or roughly eight days a year. And over the course of your career, we're talking about over one year of your life. Saved all that time back? Well, many independent business owners spend far more than 45 minutes a day on administrative tasks, and with honeybook, you can get that time back. And then some. Honeybook lets you easily manage projects, contracts, invoices, scheduling and client communication, saving you time and allowing you to better serve your clients. For a discount on your first year of honeybook, visit honeybook.com and subscribe with the code priority pursuit, 45 minutes a day adds up quickly. Use it to focus on what matters most.
Kelly Rice [00:09:27]:
Many small businesses don't have an effective marketing strategy, and because of this, they try one tactic after another without seeming results. This not only prevents consistent business growth, it makes managing marketing efforts more difficult than it should be. As a marketing agency for small businesses, we understand how frustrating it can be when hard work doesn't deliver the results that you want. Because of this, Treefrog has developed a proven four step marketing system that will help any small business grow. On our website, you can also schedule a 30 minutes discovery call to discuss working with Treefrog to build a marketing strategy that will allow your small business to finally see the growth you've been working so hard to achieve. There are a lot of ways to actually create a vision for your business, but one of the things that I would love for you to do is go back and listen to episode 136, how to create a personal vision for your life and business with Mark Delphini, which, again, I'll share in the show notes or you can find it, you know, wherever you listen to podcasts or whatever. But Mark just has a way of making this complex task seem a little bit easier, and he breaks down why it's so important, all that so, but like a quick, practical way to determine your business's identity if you don't have time to quickly go back to that episode. And to cast your vision is to write a company vision statement.
Kelly Rice [00:10:45]:
A mission statement for your short term goals, and then a mission statement for your long term goals, which, like I mentioned, is something that Victoria and I have all of our strategic marketing coaching students do during their first session with us. Now, I get that your to do list is already miles long, but I promise you that if you take time to do this exercise, it is, it will be completely worth your time and effort and save you heartaches and headaches in the future. Because these statements, well, the statements, the way that we're wanting you to write them, are intended to inspire and provide direction by outlining a clear idea of what your organization aims to achieve in the long run, and then why. So essentially, these statements are going to help ensure that your actions and decisions are aligned with the goals you have for your life and your business. But these statements are only helpful if you refer to them on a regular basis or when you're making business decisions. So I want to encourage you to write these statements and then to memorize them and read to them yourself, like every day. Or find a way to fit them into your weekly or monthly team meetings, or however you can build them into your thinking and planning routines. It will be important.
Kelly Rice [00:11:57]:
So, okay, so let's start with your company's vision statement. So this statement explains what your company aspires to be in the impact you want to have. And I know it sounds heavy, indeed, but your vision statement can be written using a simple formula. It doesn't have to take 100 hours or a bunch of fluffy words or anything like that in the formula. Looks like we are x so that our customers can achieve. Why? So, to give you an example, Treefrog's vision statement is at Treefrog, we are an impactful marketing partner that helps small businesses build marketing strategies and systems so that you can streamline your efforts, generate business growth, and create loyal customers regardless of budget. So this statement clearly shares who we are and what our customers can achieve with our help. So again, I want you to write your vision statement using a simple formula, we are x so that our customers can achieve.
Kelly Rice [00:12:56]:
Why? So I get that if you're listening to the podcast, and you can't write that down. We'll be sure to include that in the show notes. And then also remember that every podcast that we have also has a coinciding blog post. So you can find all of these formulas and stuff at priority pursuit.com. okay, so after you've written your vision statement, I want to encourage you to write your mission statements for both your short term and your long term goals. And these statements are likely going to look different than you might expect, because the way that we have you write these statements, they're not the boring, nobody cares mission statements. And I mean, I don't mean to be rude, but I think you know what I'm talking about. Instead, your mission statements should inspire you and others not to just be something that they're not, just something that you just want to add to your employee handbook that has a bunch of fluffy words.
Kelly Rice [00:13:48]:
They need to inspire you to do something. And these mission statements that we're getting ready to review are important because every human being is looking for two things. One, they want to be part of a story that's bigger than themselves, and then two, they want to understand how they can play an important role into that story. And when you create mission statements for both your short term and your long term goals in a strategic way, you and your team, if you have one, will be reminded that you're part of an important story and that your gifts, skills, and hard work matter. So let's start with your short term mission statement. This statement should focus on the goals you aim to achieve in the next one to two years. And it should also detail how these goals support your company's like overall vision. And again, we have another formula for you to help you make it clear and concise.
Kelly Rice [00:14:41]:
And it looks something like this. So we will accomplish x, x and x by y because of z. So again, using tree frog and as an example, our short term mission statement is we will close five new flywheel clients, add two fractional CMO partnerships, and receive 98% client satisfaction survey results by the end of the year. Because small businesses are the backbone of our community, deserve to be successful, and shouldn't have to waste their time and money trying to figure out marketing on their own. So as you see, this statement gives specific objectives to work towards and a clear deadline. And it explains why we pursuing the things that we're pursuing, which again, ties to our overall vision of helping businesses succeed. And again, we'll be sure to include the formulas in the show notes in the blog post. But using this formula will help you align yourself and your team again if you have one around your current priorities.
Kelly Rice [00:15:41]:
And this statement helps remind you where your time, your energy and your resources need to go so that you won't get distracted by tasks, projects or other shiny object ideas that aren't in alignment with your vision. Plus, you can track your progress and review these goals in your weekly standout meetings or however you track things. It will help you in your team kind of understand where you are, what needs to be done, and then also get them thinking or you thinking about what you can do or they can do to help achieve these goals. Plus, one of the things that we do is that we can tie, we tie like rewards or goals, you know, such as bonuses, raises, extra PTO or whatever to meeting some of these goals as well. So that's kind of like why you would, you're you, you would create your short term goals. It's that those one to two year goals, we're going to do x, x and x by y because of z. So formula will add to the show notes okay, so now I want to jump into creating your long term mission statement. And this statement kind of outlines your longer term goals for your business.
Kelly Rice [00:16:48]:
So like think five years or longer, right? Your short term ones you'll update every year or two. But the five year goal, your short term mission statements are going to help you get there. But the long term one, it explains the importance of the goals in their role in achieving your company's overall vision on a longer, wider net aspect of it. So we're going to use kind of the same formula for this, which is we're going to accomplish x, x and x by y because of z. However, again, this statement needs to focus on your longer term goals and using tree frog, again, our long term mission statement is we will maintain a minimum of ten monthly flywheel clients, consistently manage five fractional CMO partnerships, and implement a lucrative profit sharing opportunity to team members by 2029. Because helping others succeed is what we are called to do. So again, your vision and your mission statements are intended to inspire and provide direction. They're not meant to be some fluffy statement that you just pop in your employee manual or you throw on your website or something like that.
Kelly Rice [00:17:55]:
They are going to give you a clear outline of what your organization aims to achieve and why. And if you refer to them regularly, these statements are going to help ensure that your actions and decisions are aligned with the goals that you have for your life in your business, whether that means scaling or staying small on purpose. So while I hope you take time to write these statements. Please remember that bigger doesn't always mean better. And one of the most beautiful things about owning or leading a small business is that it can be whatever you want it to be. You just have to take the time to decide what it is and what priorities you need to pursue in order to get there. So on that note, thank you for tuning in to another episode of the Priority Pursuit podcast. If you enjoyed this episode, we hope you'll take a moment to share it with your small business friends to leave us a review on Apple Podcasts, and that you'll join us next week for even more marketing boundary and priority driven tactics you can use to build a life and small business that you love.