brandUP Your Business Podcast

Episode 16: 7 Day Brand Breakthrough Scaling Beyond the Grind: From Operator to CEO

• Matt Jackson • Season 1 • Episode 16

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Scaling a business isn't just about working harder—it's about transforming how you operate entirely. In this powerful conclusion to our seven-day brand breakthrough series, we reveal the strategic framework that turns overwhelmed entrepreneurs into visionary CEOs.

The journey begins with a crucial mindset shift: "Growth isn't just about getting bigger. It's about getting smarter." Too many business owners remain stuck in the daily grind, becoming the bottleneck that prevents their brand from reaching its potential. We unpack the three pillars of sustainable scaling—systems, people, and consistency—allowing you to work less while earning more.

Discover how to document and systematize every aspect of your business operations, creating standard operating procedures that free you from being the "one-person army." Learn the art of building a rockstar team and delegating effectively, positioning yourself as the visionary steering the ship rather than the crew member rowing the boat. We share practical strategies for transitioning from unpredictable one-time sales to recurring revenue models that provide stability and predictable cash flow.

The 90-day brand accelerator plan gives you a structured roadmap for implementation: optimize your foundation, expand your reach through partnerships, and build the systems needed for sustainable growth. We address common scaling pitfalls that derail even the most promising brands and provide immediate action steps to start your scaling journey today.

Your brand breakthrough is just beginning. With these strategies, you'll transform from overworked operator to strategic CEO, building a business that grows beyond your personal limitations while maintaining the quality and consistency that built your reputation.

Ready to accelerate your results? Download our book "Brand Up Your Business" on Amazon or connect with our community to continue your brand scaling journey. It's time to build that unstoppable brand that works for you, not because of you.

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Speaker 1:

Welcome to day seven. Congratulations. You guys have finally made it and I hope you have learned everything you need to know, and so much more, to have that brand breakthrough in seven days. We want to thank everybody and we are excited to see how you guys do and grow your business and change that mindset on business and positioning yourself out there in the world, whether it be your personal brand, your business or even how you carry yourself in your own life. This course teaches you how to put your best foot forward, figure out how to communicate with people, how to connect with people, whether it be personal life or whether it be in your business. So many vital key components in this course that we are super excited that it is already at day seven.

Speaker 1:

We hate to see you guys go, but in this day we're going to be talking about what does our future look like? Scaling your brand and long-term growth. So eventually you get to the point where you can't hold on to everything yourself. You need to scale, you need to delegate, you need to see how far you can pull this thing and how you can shoot for the moon, and we're going to talk about that today. Branding and marketing are in place. Now it's time to scale. You have everything you need on your brand. You figured out the marketing, the way you're pushing it out there, and now it is time to scale the business, scale your marketing, scale your branding and really see where the sky has limits when it comes to things like this.

Speaker 1:

Growth isn't just about getting bigger. It's about getting smarter. And as you grow, you get better and more efficient. And then you hire people and delegate people and your role shifts. You shift less from the grinder to more of an architect, more of a designer, more stepping back and putting things in place so they can start working themselves and then grow your business. You have to back off of it. You have to allow people to be in place and to run with things. So by the end of today, you'll have a 90 brand acceleration plan and I hope you guys are excited to hit it because we're about to and grow your business immensely.

Speaker 1:

So why some businesses grow while others stay stuck? They focus on systems and not sales. That's the truth. We want to focus every day on driving revenue forward. We want to focus on driving marketing forward. We are sales and marketing businesses. Whatever we we do, we are not the widget. We're not the technical things we do, we are a sales and marketing company.

Speaker 1:

First and through, brand up your business and through this course, hopefully, you're able to lock in the clarity you need for that perfect brand. Attract that ideal client. Attract that ideal customer avatar. Figure out how to create that magnetic brand message to make it mesmerized and come to you without you having to push and force yourself out there. Figure out how to create that magnetic brand message to make it mesmerized and come to you without you having to push and force yourself out there. Figure out how to make your logo appealing and visually appealing, to turn up that volume on your brand, to bring more awareness to your brand. Get your social media in check with what we did in day five and then, with day six, figure out the funnel and today we're figuring out how to take that and grow to the moon. So we're going to be talking about a 90 day plan to really accelerate your business and create replication and duplicate yourself here. So everybody talks about working smarter and this is about to be how to do it. The three pillars of scaling a profitable brand Number one systems, automate and streamline operations.

Speaker 1:

Once you do something, write it down. Figure out how to make a standard operating procedure for every task you do in the business. If you're really good at posting social media and this is exactly how you do it, write that down, because eventually you want to hire somebody whether it be a virtual assistant or an in-house team support where you can delegate and offload that task to them. If you can't replicate it and if you can delegate and offload that task to them, if you can't replicate it and if you can't document it and create a procedure for it, then you are at the hamstring of your business. So what we want to do here is create systems for everything we do. Take out that pen and paper, write it down exactly the process and the steps you do, exactly what you click, exactly where you're thinking, exactly what you do to make that post, to make that marketing content, to reach out to that customer contact. Make everything systematized.

Speaker 1:

And then number two is people. This is where we start to bring in the team. So once we created the systems, we wrote everything down, we figured out how to replicate that we need to bring in team members to help out. And then, once we have good team members, we delegate effectively, we allow them to run, we don't hold them back. We don't hold them back, we don't hamstring them, we don't try to control everything ourselves and then you just have a bunch of people who don't know what to do. Find people that are on the same mindset as you, on the same wavelength, and both have that growth mindset and they want to grow businesses together and do things together. Delegate them and trust them, follow the systems, hold them accountable and make sure that you're kind of their cheerleader.

Speaker 1:

And then three consistency is what separates a great brand from a bad brand. We're seeing in every other episode. Consistency builds trust and when there's inconsistency there's no trust, and when there's no trust, the brain shuts off. It's a self-defense mechanism. So we want to create the consistency to keep that brand strong as we grow. So many times companies grow too fast and they're essentially too big for their britches. Their owner was great, their founder was great and then their team they put in place was inconsistent and their brand fell apart. And I'm sure everybody has stories where they know I love that local chain and then they got bought out by a private equity company and just didn't turn out very well because there was inconsistency there.

Speaker 1:

Systems, the secret to working less and earning more. So if you're doing everything yourself, you're the bottleneck. Automate repetitive tasks, whether it be a CRM, email marketing or scheduling. We figured out our CRMs are able to send follow-up appointments every year. Email marketing campaigns through MailChimp. We can automate stuff out that way and use bulk actions to send stuff out and then scheduling Facebook posts and social media posts because the consistency of the fact people want to see the posting every day. We're building that brand loyalty and that trust and the systems that we have written down and are delegated to our team. It's important that we have checklists so we know what's being done and follow through with all of our tasks.

Speaker 1:

So here's an example how I systematize my pressurizing business and scale revenue. When I was doing everything myself, I was stuck as a one man army and then you hit a certain revenue point where you only can take on so many tasks at a time and then you end up defaulting to doing the physical labor work, which is a $20 an hour job. So I had to hire people to do the labor and then I hired somebody to manage the accounting work. I hired somebody to manage the administrative work and then I focus on big picture, moving the needle and pushing forward in the sales and marketing. And that's what you guys have to do Hiring and delegating how to build a rockstar team.

Speaker 1:

You can't do it all alone. Focus on what you do best. Hire for support tasks so you can focus on growth. You want to be the driver. You want to push forward. We take a step back and become more of the CEO. We're the visionary. You want to push forward. We take a step back and become more of the CEO. We're the visionary. We're plowing forward. We want to drive the ship and sail, and we're sailing the ship that our team is on. Our team is doing the work, pulling forward, rowing forward, and we need to be looking through our binoculars forward, looking at the train coming ahead and seeing what direction we're headed and telling them how fast to paddle. That's going to be our job. If we're stuck doing the supportive task, we're never gonna get anywhere and eventually your brand is gonna be so great and so strong that you won't be able to keep up with the work and then your brand will go downhill because you got too big and you don't have the support to back it up and stay consistent with everything.

Speaker 1:

Hiring an admin was my best decision. I was able to free up the phone time so I could focus on passion projects. I could focus on growing, brand up your business. I could focus on growing my pressure washing business and doing big things as opposed to being stuck in the day to day. So virtual assistants are really easy to get. You can find them and a lot of times are support in the Philippines and is very affordable and there's a huge ROI because you have somebody there who is your rockstar's team support.

Speaker 1:

So we want to talk, too, about how to build a reoccurring revenue model. Don't just find one job at a time. Find repeat business. Figure out how to get into a monthly retainer. Figure out how to get into predictive revenue. I would take predictive revenue of 500 bucks, over $5,000 one time. It may sound nice that money is there that one time, but then you have to hunt every single time. So by creating a book of business that you're able to nurture and grow, you can count on. Hey, this job we're going to do annually. So every year I know in April we're going to have a $20,000 project come up that we know is on our books. That is how to plan your business growth and that's how to plan your years out.

Speaker 1:

So focus on that reoccurring revenue model and remember this one time sales are unpredictable income. It may sound great and you're living by the seat of your pants closing these deals, but eventually get to the point. If you're trying to grow, you have cashflow to sustain and manage. So if there's fluxes in cashflow due to seasonality, due to just doing one job at a time, it's gonna be very inconsistent and it's gonna be very difficult to grow your business how you need to grow it. So look for reoccurring services, consistent, scalable revenue. Figure out how to have coaching calls, maintenance plans, keeping up to date with the newest technology. If you're in the marketing space, make sure that you are using and leveraging the newest tools to stay ahead of the technology changes, the algorithm shifts.

Speaker 1:

Provide value for your customers. Sell a website. Don't just sell it one time at this price. Sell it for $199 a month at a management service Multiple ways of doing this. That way you keep customers in the loop. Offer a financing option just to stretch out the term. So you're more on that monthly cash flow. So here's an example how I turned a one-time client into a subscription customers. I do work for a university in town. It started out just as a single customer and I was cleaning his house yearly and then he ended up getting a contract at a job at a local university where he became a director of the facilities there. So we bumped that relationship I had with him cleaning his single house once every three years to a repeat reoccurring contract to clean a university locally, so that $300 ticket turned into probably a $50,000 lifetime value and on a reoccurring basis Pricing strategies to increase profits without losing customers.

Speaker 1:

You want to charge on value, not time. Think about that. If I have a a machine in my pressure washing space, a lot of it is determined upon time and your equipment. So if you have a residential machine, it will take you an entire day to clean a house. But if we have a professional grade equipment, the ones that we use on our trucks we can knock out a house in 45 minutes. I'm not going to charge somebody based upon how many hours I'm working, because if I have subpar equipment it's going to take me all day long. And I also am not going to do that because if I invest in my equipment and I upgrade to even better equipment and it takes me less time, I'm not going to lose money there. So it's very important to charge on the value we deliver, and the value comes from the knowledge, come from the equipment we're able to utilize, come from our team. If I have a team of two trucks on a project and we can knock it out on half the time as one person, I'm not charging them half the amount of money. We are pooling our resources together because the value we deliver and we're charging based upon that value, increase pricing strategically. Customers will pay for quality and this is in the beginning of business.

Speaker 1:

A pricing mistake I often see is people start to lowball, like you said and like we were talking about earlier, the generic marketing. We all start out not a lot of value, not a lot of branded logos, not a lot of branding to our names. We don't have that social proof, so we're just doing whatever we can, throwing spaghetti on a wall to get it to stick. So there's a phase in our business where we need to have a proof of concept and then, once we have that proof of concept, every year we need to adjust and dial in our marketing and our branding. So focus on upgrading your branding and by doing so you're raising your pricing, like you were saying that customer avatar. In the second day we want to attract that customer avatar and we can refine that avatar as we get bigger and have more leads in our funnel and have more customers in our base. So we're raising our prices to refine that customer avatar and by doing so, we're going to weed out people that are more price shopping customers, the people who are not our ideal customer. So as we raise our prices strategically, charging based upon value we can have very predictable margins and we can grow our business successfully that way, while focusing on saving our time and dealing with the best customers we can possibly deal with. This is why premium pricing attracts better clients, because a great client is gonna be taken back by a cheap price and you think, oh, I'm doing them a favor, I over deliver, but if you give them a low ball price, they will think something is wrong with the deal. People pay for quality.

Speaker 1:

So how to leverage partnerships for faster growth? Your network is your fastest way to scale. You've probably heard this before. Your network is your net worth and this is the truth. Figure out a network of local service providers or contractors or business owners who are in your direct field, competing with the same audience, competing with that same customer avatar, and then become friends with them. See how you can help them out and be referral partners. See how you can do business symbiotically and help each other out and then tap into that network and then become friends with them. See how you can help them out and be referral partners. See how you can do business symbiotically and help each other out and then tap into that network and then grow together. This is a giant pie and as entrepreneurs, we have to be creative and creators and add to the pie and grow it. We're not competing with each other. We're not here taking from somebody else. We're figuring out ways to add value and then, therefore, the adding of value is an exchange of money. That's how we grow our businesses. So collaborate with complementary businesses. If you own a coffee shop, collaborate with some pastry places. Collaborate with places where they sell stuff that you can have in your window as well, and then they can refer you to coffee. That way, you don't have to produce the sandwiches and they don't have to produce the coffee.

Speaker 1:

Expanding your brand without losing quality. Keep your brand messaging and service quality consistent. For example, I maintained a strong reputation as my business grew. I kept improving my branding and I focused a lot on reinvesting, not just in my equipment, not just in my employees, but in my branding itself. I spent the time and the money to wrap vehicles as I got new vehicles. Not only did I buy nice equipment for the work, I spent a lot of money reinvesting into nice video marketing, into upgrading my logos, upgrading my branding, upgrading the journals and the publications where my, my branding and marketing was being pushed out into. So it's very important that you expand your brand as you get more money as your business grows. I like to say you wanna have your brand above where you're currently at in your business. Brand yourself so high where people see you are the top, even if you're not at the top yet, because if you brand yourself up there, that perception becomes reality and therefore you will achieve it. And I've always believed that you brand yourself up above where you currently are and then you will eventually get to that level.

Speaker 1:

Here is the 90 day brand accelerator plan. Step one optimize. We want to fix weak spots in branding and marketing. Go back through the seven day course of brand breakthrough and look at areas where you can improve. Always try to tighten and sharpen things and reassess your customer avatar. Make sure that that customer avatar is still relevant today as it was back when you first started your business. Step two expand, increase reach, partnership and lead generation. Once you have that brand dialed in, you can increase your marketing spend, you can invest more in ceo services, you can invest more in organic branding and reach and eventually your brand gets out there more. So that expansion is very exciting. Put that extra money into marketing and push that brand out there. That's why it's extremely important to have a brand that is a top tier brand that you can grow into. You never want to have a terrible brand and a lot of business. It's way better to have a great brand and a growing business that fits that brand.

Speaker 1:

So step three this is the scale side. What we're talking about. You're building the systems, you're hiring and automating it. There's a lot of tools automation tools and there's a lot of virtual assistants available or hiring team members. So here's some common scaling mistakes and how to avoid them Hiring too fast without the right systems in place, like we were talking about earlier today.

Speaker 1:

We talk about systematize what we do. We are at the level we're at because we do something right. I want you to write that down verbatim, figure out exactly what you do and understand what you do so you can teach somebody else how to do that. And then, if you're not providing them with the step-by-step guide on how to do things, you need to look at yourself in the mirror and figure out how to better write that down and systematize it so you can hand the torch off. We don't just want head count. We don't want to hire people and say, oh, I have 10 guys working for me, but what are they doing every single day? They won't be at that same 100% level that you're doing it, but if they can be at a 70% level and then you can hire somebody else at a 70% level, those two guys are 140% of the level you could have been at, and that is the game plan.

Speaker 1:

When it comes to scaling, you also don't want to expand too broadly. Stay within that niche that you selected. Don't hire people that are doing things that you don't know how to do and get lost in hiring bad people. Focus on what your brand does the best and hire people that supplement that and support that, and don't be just hiring somebody who is gonna bring on services that are gonna lower the quality of your brand overall and then forgetting that customer experience equals your brand reputation. Don't get so busy where you drop the ball on customer service, because at the end of the day, customer service is your brand. If you are great at marketing, branding and bringing people in the door, but as you scale, you're getting too big for your customer base, they're gonna notice that customer service is no longer there and your brand is gonna suffer. So make sure that you focus a lot on that customer experience.

Speaker 1:

So here's some quick wins three things you can do to start scaling today. Number one automate one task to free up some, whether that be set up a CRM to automate emails to customers every year, or set up MailChimp email campaign or hire a virtual assistant. Do one task to free up time. If I can free up two hours a day, what does that allow me to do more of? Figure out the most optimal things that you can do and delegate downwards the support roles. You'll be amazed what just freeing up two hours a day can do to your business after one year.

Speaker 1:

Number two create a simple upsell or reoccurring offer, if most people in my space get their houses pressure washed. We offer a window cleaning service as an upsell. Most of the time people don't opt in for it, but occasionally they do. So we convert that $300 repeat business into a $450 total ticket, so that's a 50% increase just because we asked if they wanted an upsell. And it's very important to keep top of mind and keep introducing products and people often like to spend money with you. So as you have these repeat customers, you look at their customer lifetime value and some of them are 5,000 bucks. So what is an extra $150 to them on a service? Just ask. A lot of times, just asking for an upsell and providing a new service will be exciting and the customer likes to bite onto that.

Speaker 1:

And three reach out to potential business partners for collaboration. This is huge. We want to connect with customers in the same space, selling to the same customers. We're not trying to take business. Remember we are, as entrepreneurs are, creating more into the pie, so we're adding to it. We're adding value here. This isn't taking from him. There's not one single slice of pizza that we're all trying to take off of it. We can collaborate and create and add value together and cohesively grow our businesses as a union. That's the great thing about entrepreneurship. So your brand breakthrough is just beginning. You've completed the seven day brand breakthrough, but it's just the start. Now that you understand what a brand is, what your marketing is, how to grow your brand and then how to scale your brand, the fun starts to happen. Here we laid down the perfect foundation for you to increase and improve your brand into different ways to really level up and get into the next level. The key to success is keep implementing and staying consistent with what you learned in this course and then join our community on Facebook.

Speaker 1:

Go to Brand Up your Business. We recommend our book on Amazon. We have a book on Amazon called Brand Up your Business Elevate your Business Through Branding, where we break down all of the important things and foundations of branding, and it's got a lot more how to's in it and step by step guides that we don't cover in this course because it's gonna be a little bit more detailed. So go to amazoncom and make sure to buy Brand Up your Business Elevate your Business Through through branding, and we also have it available on Kindle, hardback, paperback and audio book. And, lastly, make sure to download our podcast, because it is a weekly show where we discuss branding. We interview local businesses, called Brand Up your Business Podcast.

Speaker 1:

So our final challenge to you take action and build your dream brand. What is the one action you can take today? Comment in the group on our Facebook page or write it down in your notebook today, share your biggest win from this challenge. Let's make your brand irresistible and unstoppable. Congratulations you've now completed the seven-day brand breakthrough. So you now have a solid brand foundation, but there's more you can do. Success comes from implementation and consistency. Want to accelerate your results? We've got something special just for you. So what's next? You've built a super powerful brand and now let's make it even stronger.

Speaker 1:

We're offering exclusive done-for-you branding templates. This will save you hours of work and help you launch faster. The done-for-you brandingkit is a $97 value. You can get instant access to plug and play branding resources, pre-designed social media templates for consistent branding and customized lead magnets and website templates. What's included in this branding toolkit? Magnetic brand messaging worksheet. We talked about this on day three. That magnetic brand is gonna be everything. The messaging there is going to rope in and hook people into our branding. So if you guys want more information on that or some help. We highly recommend this in the branding toolkit. It's gonna consist of the Magnetic Brand Messaging Worksheet, helping you nail that brand voice, with detailed, tailored questions to dial in your perfect brand message, as well as social media templates. We have some done for you post designs and captions that can be easily editable, as well as Canva templates that you can just change your branding and then change the text on. Lastly, we have some lead magnet templates convert visitors into paying customers. We have some tried and tested templates that we use in our business currently that have generated us over a million dollars available to you and all you do is plug and play your industry into it, as well as a website homepage template and high converting layout.

Speaker 1:

So why?

Speaker 1:

This toolkit will save you 20 plus hours. I get it. We all want to start something, but sometimes you just don't know where to start or you rather have it done for you and you just model and follow. Now that you understand the frameworks and the theory behind everything and you're applying it, this brand toolkit will help you with the technical. You can just instantly open it up and it's right here for you. So this toolkit will save you 20 hours and get your brand off to the right position.

Speaker 1:

No need to design from scratch. We've done it all for you. Simply edit, personalize and launch your brand assets. This will instantly improve your brand's professional look. So who's this for? Business owners who want to launch their brand faster. Entrepreneurs who struggle with design and consistency If you're anything like me, I'm not the creative type, so when I have resources available to me and I just edit it out, it looks far better than me trying to design from scratch. So anyone who wants a pro-looking brand without hiring a designer definitely needs the brand toolkit. So why most businesses fail at branding and how you can avoid it. They don't have clear, consistent visuals. They spend too much time figuring out branding instead of growing, and this toolkit eliminates that guesswork that we're talking about and helping you scale faster. So, for a limited time offer, get the branding toolkit for just 97 bucks and this is a one-time offer for students of this course. Get instant access and start using these templates. There's an exclusive bonus for all you guys as well. Done for you.

Speaker 1:

Social media content calendar. Never wonder what to post again. That was a big thing for me in the beginning. I didn't know what to post. It can get overwhelming. There's so many things to do. How am I gonna sit down and figure out what to post? For 30 days, we have done that for you, based upon what works in the industry, and all you have to do is change the design and style to meet your brand. Never wonder what to post again. The 30 day plug and play social media calendar gives you everything you need with daily post ideas that engage and attract customers. It also works in any industry, because we're using brand foundations that we've just learned in this course.

Speaker 1:

So how will this make you more money? A strong brand equals more trust, equals more sales. Consistent branding turns followers into paying customers. So we want to stand out from competitors and attract higher paying clients. And, like we were discussing in this course, yes, how do I do that? Well, this toolkit is here to help you and it's a plug and play method. That way, you can get accelerated quickly without having to struggle and figure it out yourself or hire somebody on Fiverr or designs.

Speaker 1:

So see what others are saying. These templates made my brand look 100% more professional. I used a social media calendar and my engagement tripled. And that's the thing. If you look at your engagement on social media and it's not high up there. You're not being seen. So it's vital that we have this calendar and we follow the brand strategy attached in this brand toolkit. This is the best $97 I've spent on my business and it saved me hours. So are you ready to upgrade your brand instantly? Get the $97 brand toolkit and done for you templates for just 97 bucks. Instant access to start using these today. One-time payment, lifetime access. So the final reminder of this course this offer is only available now. This is a one-time opportunity for course students to take your brand to the next level effortlessly. Click the button below and unlock the brand. Your brand breakthrough journey starts now. You've built a strong foundation and now it's time to scale and dominate. But if you have any questions, reach out to our support team. We are glad to help out. Now go and build that unstoppable brand.

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