97. Are You Growing Or Scaling? Here's How To Know

I see this ALL the time: moms telling me they want to scale—but when we dig into it? They actually need to grow first.

In this episode, I’m breaking down the difference between growth and scaling (they’re not the same, mama!), and giving you a super clear way to figure out where YOU are right now so you can stop spinning in circles and start moving forward strategically.

We’ll talk about what it really means to grow, what scaling actually looks like, and how to figure out which phase you're really in...even if you feel like you're stuck in that awkward, messy in-between.

Whether you’re booked out but burned out, dabbling in one-to-many offers, or stuck with a fully-custom service you can’t scale -- this episode will give you so much clarity on what to focus on now and what can wait.

Also: I need your help. I’m currently playing detective, and I want to hear from YOU. I’m on a mission to learn exactly where my audience is at right now: what your biggest challenges are, what you're struggling with, and what kind of support you actually need to grow or scale. If you're open to answering a few questions, I have something really special for you: an exclusive bonus training pulled straight from my high-level mastermind vault.

To get it: DM me the word "detective" on Instagram, answer a few quick questions, and I’ll send it your way.

What You’ll Learn:

• The difference between growth and scale (and why it matters more than you think)
• How to tell if you’re stuck in the messy middle
• What to focus on right now to get unstuck
• The strategic shifts that make scaling actually work for moms

Resources + Mentions:

• DM me “grow” or “scale” on Instagram to find out where you are and what your next step should be: https://www.instagram.com/theyaelbendahan
• DM me "detective" to answer a few short questions and get access to my exclusive bonus training: How to Create More Pathways to Cash in Your Business

LINKS
📈The CEO MOMS Growth Matrix - feeling stuck or plateaued at your current revenue? Snag your custom roadmap for sustainable growth from $0 to multi-6-figures in this FREE training! >>> yaelbendahan.com/matrix

🔥Join my FREE 3-Day Program, LEVERAGE - the process that’s creating multi 6 figure years working nap times and being a full time mama of 6. Claim your spot here >>> https://yaelbendahan.com/leveragepod

💰Offers in Your Pocket - 11 Offers You Can Pull Out of Your Pocket and Sell This Week! Only $9 - yaelbendahan.com/pocketoffers

💃 Apply for the CEO Mom Mastermind if you're ready to scale sustainably to $15-20K+ months. Read more about the mastermind here OR go straight to the application here.
Want to chat about the mastermind before you join? DM me on Instagram - instagram.com/theyaelbendahan

Transcript

0:00

Hello. Hello. Welcome back to the podcast. And wow. Just a quick life update before we dive into the meat and potatoes of this episode. We're going to a very busy time for me where I am going into the Jewish High Holidays. So it's basically starting from next week gonna be like in and out, on and off of business. I'm still gonna be talking about a bunch of my offers. I have something new coming, which is really exciting, a really new, incredible free offer that I cannot believe I'm even doing this for free. But I feel really good about it. I feel like really excited about it for you. And so as I'm doing this, I am in this process of batching out a bunch of podcasts. Because I want my VA to be able to do this, schedule them, update, upload them and all that kind of stuff. And I'm really excited because I love doing business and holidays because it's a way for me to prove to myself that I can do this and this is possible and that it's possible for you too, to be able to be a present mom during the holidays, but also still keep your business going. Keep it running. Even without a huge team, even without thousands and thousands of dollars in ad spend every month. And so I almost like this as like almost a. Like an incubator like an experiment. So anyway, I'm excited for it and and I love, spending time with the family. It's a lot of family time, a lot of reflecting, a lot of reflect, reflection time.'cause our new year is really all about reflecting on the previous year and where, where we did well, where we could do better. And and I, and as a, as a personal development person and as a business owner, I think that's just an important thing to do in general on a regular basis. So it's gonna be good and I'm really excited for it. Welcome to the Raising Your Business Podcast. I'm your host, Al Behan, founder of CEO Mom Academy, mom of Six and Lifelong Reading addict. This podcast is here to empower moms to run their businesses and lives like the powerhouse CEO. They are. I want you to believe that you can have the business success you desire. And be present with your family and to give you my best tips and strategies for how to make that happen. I'll be sharing the honest reality of balancing business and motherhood biz models that work for you. Marketing simplicity, and the mindset of A CEO, mom. Now let's dive in. Real Talk. Today I'm gonna call out something that I see all the time with moms growing online businesses. They come to me and they say, I really wanna scale my business. And I'm ready to scale. But what they actually need is growth because scaling without a foundation is just scaling your stress. And so in this episode, I wanna break down the differences between growth and scale. Plus I'm gonna walk you through a little checklist to know where you actually are and what your next best move is. Okay? So spoiler, you might be the messy middle, and that's okay. And I'm gonna help you figure that out too. So quick heads up before we dive in. I just opened up a brand new mastermind opportunity for moms. We're ready to hit those consistent six figure years on mom hours. It is for you if you are more at the growth stage and it is a little bit different for my CEO Mom mastermind. You'll see what I mean. It's very high level, very strategic, very built for that real life and and also meeting you where you're at. So if you're thinking, yes, I'm so ready to get this. These foundations in place so I can actually scale DM me the word grow on Instagram, and I will send you all the details and I'll share exactly what we're doing. So if you've been looking at the CEO Mom mastermind and being like I wish I could join, but I don't know if I'm at that point yet. This is going to be a great opportunity for you. So let's get into it. So let's talk about growth versus scale. What is the actual difference between the two? So let's clear this up. Once and for all growth means that you are increasing your revenue, but you're also increasing your work. So maybe more clients, maybe more team, more platforms, more calls, more you. Okay, and scaling means that you are increasing revenue without increasing effort or you're putting things in place to do that. More clients equals the same work or even less work because you might have been adding leverage in. Offers that are passive or systems and automations, things that are enabling you to take on the same amount of clients or more clients making more money, but without actually having to do more work as such. So if you're just straight up trading time for money right now, and we all. We all are trading time for money, right? I'm currently trading time for money right now. If you think about it, here I am doing a podcast. It's taking me time to record this, but you do, there's obviously levels of time for money, and if you find that you have really max out your hours and you're like I would like to take on more clients but I just don't understand, I don't have the time. So it's a problem. I actually had someone come to my dms to say this I, these are the current offer that I have and I would like to take on more clients, but to be honest, like I don't wanna raise my prices quite yet, and I just don't have time to take on more clients. So I, and she was like, she was talking about investing one, my programs. She goes I'm not really sure what to do because I wanna invest, but I also like, don't have the money to I don't have the capacity to do that financially, which I totally understand. Because it is very easy to kinda get stuck in this kind of mindset. And a little bit of fear where you're like. I can't, I don't wanna take on less clients'cause then I'm gonna, I'm gonna go down, in my income. But I wanna be able to grow past this and I literally cannot. So if you are still treating your time for money and your revenue depends entirely on your energy and your availability, you're still in growth mode If you're, and revenue depends. Somewhat on your energy and availability, but sometimes not. Then you're gonna be in that messy middle. And we'll talk about that in a second. But that is not a bad thing, okay? Because the growth stage is essential. It is the foundational piece, but it's not gonna be the same as scale. And if you try to skip ahead, that's where burnout's gonna hit. That's where you're going to stretch probably beyond your means financially or energetically. But the truth is that I do feel that if you have certain things in mind when you are in that growth stage, you're gonna be able to skip to that scale stage a lot faster, and you are going to have your business really set up to scale from the get go. So how do you know if you are in growth mode? So here are a few signs. If you are customizing every proposal or offer. And you don't have one very clear signature product, eyes offer or service, right? Where're like, okay, this is where people come. This is what I sell, this is what I sell consistently. If you find that you're hustling for every new client, maybe you're relying on referrals or posting and praying and or just throwing spaghetti at the wall. I not really figuring out like what works consistently for you. If you are maybe juggling a bunch of different delivery methods, so you have one-to-one and you have you have power hours and custom packages and one-off calls and things like that, then that is a sign that you might still be in growth mode. And if your income goes up and down, depending on your energy or availability. You are in growth mode. This does not mean okay that you are behind. It just means that your focus should be on building that consistency and that solid foundation first. Okay, great. I'm in growth mode. How do I know if I'm in scaling mode, how do I know if I'm actually really to scale my business? So what if you're not quite in growth mode anymore, but you're not fully scaling either, right? So you might be in that messy middle, that awkward, stretchy, like in between. Stage. So here are signs that you are ready to scale. Okay? So if you are booked or you're nearly booked with your signature offer, ideally one that is productized or repeatable. And even if you're not quite hitting the income that you desire to hit, which makes a lot of sense, right? Because if you're like I wanna grow my business, obviously. You wanna make more money than you currently are, but you find that you're booked out time-wise with your signature offer, or you're like, you just don't wanna take on a lot more clients than you already have, right? You're like, I have a certain cap and I cannot make more than that with one-to-one clients. And so I wanna make more money than that. Like I have a client like this right now who has an incredible service. But it requires her traveling. And so there's only a limited amount of clients you can take. Every month because she has five children and she can't just spend all of her time traveling as much as she enjoys it. If you are getting leads consistently, not just from referrals, but from content or emails or funnels, right? And again if you feel like some of these describe you and some of these don't describe you. That's fine. That means you're literally in the messy middle. It's messy, it's not perfect. Okay. If you are making five to 10 K months, but you have no more hours to give, so you're like again I wanna make more than$10,000. I wanna make more than$5,000, whatever that is. But you're like, I just literally cannot make any more money than this. Because I don't have enough time. If I take on one more client, then I'm gonna have to just stop sleeping. And maybe you've da dabbled in those leveraged offers.'cause maybe you have a group program or a course, but you haven't really built the backend systems to really scale it sustainably. And this is where I see so many moms get stuck. Okay, you're doing both. You're doing growth activities, like showing up for client work, and you're trying to scale like you're building funnels or you're selling a group program and you end up spinning in circles, second guessing everything and not really sure what to do, and you just find yourself not really moving forward because you're just you're doing these, like you're halfway done with all these things. You're never really taking a project, launching something, following through, getting through the process. So let's talk about bridging that gap a little bit. And here's how I'd like to break it down. If you are in growth mode, your number one priority is to get booked with a clear, productized, profitable offer. Okay? So you need offer clarity, you need messaging that converts, and you need a simple marketing system that brings in leads for you. And again, a referral system is part of this. I love referrals. But if your entire business depends on that, you're gonna need. Something to bring those people in that is not just people thinking of you at the perfect time when someone else needs you. Okay? And that is what we focus on inside of CEO Mom Academy. That's the process that I bring you through. But I've added in my CEO Mom mastermind, I've added an opportunity for you to come in and get the pod funnel power program, which can, is basically a front end funnel a podcast funnel to. Bring in high quality leads for your premium service. So if you are like, I would love to have that turned on and have that just like out there so people are coming in signing up for it or listening to my podcast, binging the podcast, and then applying to work with me, that is a great opportunity for you to be like, in that growth mode and start moving into that scale mode if you are ready for scale. Okay. And if you're like I already have an offer. I'm fully booked, as booked as I possibly can be, and I'm ready to move beyond one to one, I am. I do not wanna fill my time with more one-to-one. I wanna be making more money even while I am, doing everything else. Being a mom, taking my kids to school nursing my baby going on family vacations. Then this is time for you to start doing three really important things. Number one is just stepping into your CEO mode, and the truth is, when you are thinking like a CEO, then you are going to be doing this from the beginning. If you're thinking like a CEO, you're thinking long term. You're be like, okay, I'm gonna have a productized premium service because that is going to eventually turn into my leveraged offer, whatever that looks like. Whether that's gonna be products, a digital shop, a group program going from services to coaching or consulting. That is going to be where your head is gonna be at. And you, so when you're creating your service, when you're selling your service, you're like how can I turn this long term? Is this something I can turn long term into some sort of one to many situation? As an example, my client, Katie, so she has her marketing intensive for messaging. It's called messaging to the Masses Intensive, where she helps you create a messaging sort of hub that you can pull from to sell to the masses rather than having to sell directly on sales calls. You can still use sales calls, but she helps you create the messaging that will sell to the masses, literally. And we're currently discussing, okay, like how can we turn this into potentially a group intensive maybe a course, let's talk about that because she will eventually, be booked out. Like she cannot take more than. At least maybe one of those a week, maybe. And so she's gonna be capped at a certain income. And and that's not okay because I want her to make a lot more money than that. So as she's doing this we're discussing this and being like, okay, so the more you do these intensives, the more I want you like nail down the process and the productization of it, because we wanna turn this into something that we can do in a group format. She is seriously, she is the go-to for this. If you are interested in in, in learning how to turn, take your messaging that sells so well in sales calls and turn it into content and emails and messaging that converts to the masses, right? Whether you're doing email or ads or content or podcast or whatever. This is what her zone of genius is. And her clients have literally had insane amounts of ROI on her intensive. So I'm gonna just plug her over here'cause she's amazing so as we plan this out and as we plan out a promotion for her intensive, she's also thinking, all right this is great and I love doing this one-to-one, but how can we turn this potentially into something that will. That will also be something I can do, deliver to a group of people at once. Or we can do this with a group of people, or maybe it'll be a hybrid one-to-one and group opportunity. I don't know, we're still working, we're still working on that. And the most important thing is keeping that long-term vision in mind. So when you're in growth mode, you wanna get fully booked, but you also wanna have that long-term vision in mind because that is what's going to serve you later on as you scale. But if you are ready to scale. You are gonna wanna start building leverage, right? One to many offers, group offers, courses, hybrid models. You're gonna wanna set up more systems, right? So email, automations or on, onboarding flows, evergreen funnels passive products, things that can sell even when you are offline. And that is what we build together inside the CEO Mom Mastermind. And if you are somewhere in between, that is normal and your next step really depends on which part feels the most frustrating. Now, if you're like. I'm willing to put in the time and the effort to go into like the leveraging and once many. Mode. Then you still will have to have offer clarity and you still have to have messaging that converts. And you're still gonna have to have a marketing system that brings in leads because those offers are gonna need to have leads as well, right? But we can create this hybrid approach and and really help you continue to grow as you set up your systems for scalability. So let's recap real quick. Okay. Growth equals more work with more money. Okay. Scale equals more money with the same or less work. Alright? If you are customizing everything, you're still in growth mode. If you are booked out but totally exhausted, you are ready for scaling mode. And if you are dabbling in both, it is time to get really strategic and decide where you wanna focus first. And if you wanna help with that, DM me the word grow or scale on Instagram, and I'll ask you a few questions that you know what we can do, right? How we can, how we can help you figure out where you're at and what your next best steps are. All right? So I want you to build a business that works around your life and actually makes sense for what you're doing for the life that you want with your family and the money that you want to support your family. Okay? That is what I want for you. So that you so much for hanging out with me today. Again, reach out to me with either grow or scale. If you wanna know if you wanna know more about this opportunity to work with me to either grow or scale your business, it is really exciting. I'm really excited to share this and I cannot wait. So if you are at that messy middle, okay, if you're at that place where you're like in that growth mode, but you are still scaling, you're like, you have maybe a one to many and a one-to-one offer and you're trying to stuck with you're trying to figure out like where you're stuck between the two and how to grow, maybe how to book out that, that one-to-one offer and just keep that as your bread and butter while building out your scalability piece of your business., So I'm putting it out there. I wanna talk to you, I wanna talk to you in the dms. I'm not going to pitch you, I wanna talk to you because I want to find out where you're currently at, what your biggest challenges are. I just wanna have a little chat and and get to know you because I'm doing some research in my audience, in my world to kinda see where most of you are at and how I can best support you. And I just honestly feel like I have not had enough just conversations and I want to create conversations. There will be zero pitch unless you specifically ask for one and you're like how can we work together? I will tell you. But other than that, I honestly just wanna chat. I am gonna be offering a special bonus training. Okay. If you reach out to me on Instagram, okay. If you reach out to me on Instagram and you sent me the word detective because I'm a detective this month, I am investigating. I wanna know all about you and all about you and your business and where you're currently at. If you send me the DM with the word detective and you answer a few of my questions, we have a quick chat. It can, and it'll be in the dm, so it doesn't have to be like, on a Zoom call or anything. I. We'll send you a amazing bonus training all about how to create more pathways of cash into your business. This was a mastermind only training for for my highest level mastermind clients, like my really high ticket clients. And I do not generally put this outside of my highest ticket spaces, but if you want to get access to this incredible bonus training, I would like you to reach out to me on Instagram with the word detective, and I'll just have a few questions for you. Maybe I'll ask you if we can take it into Telegram or Voxer so I can grab the transcripts because I love those transcripts. But I just wanna have some conversations. So if you are in growth mode or if you're in scale mode, okay, I wanna talk with you and I wanna see where you're at and where your head's at. So DM me the word detective and I cannot wait to hear from you and hear where you're currently at and send you that bonus, incredible training that we have that I cannot wait to share with you. So thanks for hanging out with me today and if this episode gave you clarity, I would love if you just screenshot it and shared all stories. Tag me at theyaelbendahan as always. I really appreciate it. The more people you share this with, the more people I can help and the more people can be a CEO mom and be making that money that they deserve to be making. And you are helping more moms get the insight that they need to grow those sustainable, scalable, spacious businesses. So I'll talk to you next week and cannot wait to hear from you. I can't thank you enough for listening to raising your business. I hope this episode has inspired you to take another step towards building a business and life that you love, and growing your income in a way that works for you and your family. If you enjoy this episode, please take a second to rate and review and let's connect that on Instagram screenshot and share it on Instagram Stories so we can get the word out to more mom business owners like you. Tag me at the El Behan and share your biggest breakthrough from today. See you next week.