Lessons Learned From Scaling

Are you focused on scaling your business this year?  

While growing a business is one thing, scaling it can be a challenging transition.  When done well, scaling give you time freedom and financial freedom - you are able to increase profits and expand your impact without a significant increase to resources. 

But when scaling isn't done well, it can be expensive, draining, and unsustainable, putting your business at risk.

So how do you scale in a simple and sustainable way and avoid the common mistakes that businesses make when scaling?

You learn from other's experience and in episode 105 of the Lean Out Your Business Podcast, I share my experience scaling one of my first businesses, the avoidable mistakes that I made, and what I did to achieve success. 

In this episode, you'll discover:

• How I grew my very first jewelry business into multiple six figures
• What I did to transition from growing to scaling and break through the multi-six-figure ceiling
• One of the biggest scaling mistakes I made that I see other entrepreneurs commonly make
• 2 of the critical things I focused on to scale successfully and sustainably
• The important and overlooked role identity evolution plays in scaling success
• Why customer-centricity is crucial to scaling up your business
• What soldering jumprings has to do with scaling

The best way to avoid the common mistakes businesses make when scaling and to fast track your results is to learn from someone else's journey. 

Listen to Episode 105 of the Lean Out Your Business Podcast to learn more or keep reading below.

Today I wanted to share a story with you that I have been sharing with my clients a lot lately because it's a powerful thing to reflect on in your business.

It's about a big mistake I made when scaling my jewelry business, Criscara.

If you've been in my world for a while, you probably know I launched a jewelry business back in 2004. 

After growing it as far as I could wearing most of the hats in the business myself, I decided it was time to scale, so I reimagined the business model.

Instead of hand making every piece of jewelry myself, my role changed from maker to designer, and I partnered with some incredible local small businesses and people to make my designs. 

Instead of selling through a whole lot of hustle at local in-person events, I partnered with sales reps who sold my jewelry wholesale to some of the biggest brands in my niche, like Free People / Anthropologie.  

And instead of making a few sales a day online via Etsy, I went all in on being an ecommerce brand, and was selling hundreds or sometimes thousands of pieces of jewelry a day through my own website.

I did a lot of things right - built out my team, put a system in place to sell at scale, upleveled my dream clients and met them where they were at...  

But I also made a lot of mistakes!

Because while this wasn't my first business, it was my first physical-product-based business... and I didn't know what I didn't know.

So what was the mistake I made?

I was making decisions like a creative and not like a business owner.

Even though I had this rapidly scaling business, I was still making decisions like the one-woman-show who handcrafted every piece of jewelry from her studio.

I had put a system in place to sell at scale - yay! - but I didn't change my products to be scalable...

The designs were a work of art with incredible attention to detail.  Every design was intricate. Every jumpring was soldered for durability.

The artist in me thought that was a great thing... only no one (but me) cared!

And all that intricacy and soldering drove up my costs, increased the price of the product, and reduced my profit margins.

It was added complexity and expense that was unnecessary.

Even though the quality was better than other jewelry in its category.  Even though it was more durable...

The harsh reality was that none of that mattered to my clients.

I had to evolve my identity and stop thinking like a creator and start thinking like the CEO of a scaling, profitable, and successful business.

I see this happening all the time in scaling businesses - especially in coaching, consulting, and service-based businesses where the founder is very passion-fueled and impact-driven.

Because they are so passionate about what they do, they tend to make personal decisions rather than business decisions.

Things that they think should be a certain way because it will be "so much better" but that don't actually matter to their clients.

That's why inside the luxe client experience module inside my Simplify to Scale program, we talk about how to evolve our businesses from being founder-centric to being customer-centric.

It's critical when you want to scale simply and sustainably.

But it can be a much harder transition to make that you might think, because aside from behavior changes, it requires an identity evolution.

If things feel incredibly complex in your business right now and really hard to scale, it is likely time to make that transition.

This is one of the many things we do together with you to simplify and scale your business inside Simplify to Scale ELITE, which we are now accepting a small number of businesses into. 

For now, I encourage you to ask yourself the same question I ask a lot of my clients in our calls - "Where are you soldering the jumprings?".  

In other words, where are you adding unnecessary complexity and expense in your business for something that your clients don't really care about?

Ready to simplify and streamline how you scale your business?

• We are now accepting Visionary CEOs and their right-hand Ops Leads into our signature Simplify to Scale mentorship program. Learn more and join us at leanoutmethod.com/scale.
• Join us for our transformational in-person business retreats and masterminds each Spring and Fall at leanoutmethod.com/retreat.
• Have questions? Want to explore partnering together to scale your business? Connect with me on my personal Instagram @cristagrasso or LinkedIn and let’s start a conversation.