← Epic Success with Dr Shannon Irvine
Epic Success with Dr Shannon Irvine
The Bigger Job Trap: Why Scaling Feels Heavier Than It Should
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Welcome to the Epic Success Podcast. I AM your host, Dr. Shannon Ervin. On the Epic Success podcast, we unpack the neuroscience of success and really help you become a hardwired CEO and also hardwire your business to scale. All right, this is what we're doing here on the Epic Success podcast.
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So glad you're here. Most business owners think that scaling means more. More people, more meetings, more things to manage. And for a while, that works. Revenue goes up when you push it, right? The team gets bigger, but they depend on you. There's more momentum, but then you look at your calendar and think, thought I was creating freedom from scaling. Why does this feel heavier than it used to? Like everything is on my shoulders. That was me. I had more support, more systems, more revenue than ever. And the business still needed me in every single important area and decision. That's when I realized I'd fallen into what I now call the bigger job trap. Right, the business was getting bigger, but I had just built more complicated version of my old job around me. So today I want to help you see if that's happening in your business too and what to do about it if it is. If we haven't met, My name is Dr. Shannon Ervin. I've been a business owner for over 20 years. I'm the author of the best selling book the 67 Day Year. And I help business owners build what I call self scaling companies. Businesses that can grow without the owner being pulled in every direction and every slack thread, every fire and every decision. So have you ever had a season where everything worked on paper? Right? Looked good, the team looked good, revenue was strong, clients were happy, but behind the scenes, your calendar was wall to wall. If you took a day off, deals stalled, sales stopped, decisions waited. In every quiz, quick gut check, an exception still needed you. The realization here is I hadn't built a self scaling business. I built a business that scaled around and because of. And needs me, right? Just needs me in order to be the engine to drive it. That's what we're talking about today. And by the end of this video, you'll know why your brain keeps pulling you back in the day to day operations in the middle of everything, even when you know you should step out. We'll talk about the one question that tells you if you're actually scaling or just making a more complicated version of your job. And a simple three step plan to start getting out of that bigger job trap in the next 90 days and get yourself out of the day to day operations. So I want to talk about why your brain keeps you trapped in this way, right? You didn't wake up one day and decide, I want to be in the middle of the day to day operations and I want everything to depend on me. Right? You didn't do that. Your brain learned a pattern. For a long time, it kept this business alive. It's the push, it's the hustle, it's the intensity of you driving everything. And that works until it doesn't. Problem is, it's still running that pattern now that you need something different. That's what we're going to be talking about today. Okay, let's talk about patterns. So reason number one. Your brain repeats what worked in the early days, right? Think about it. You jumped into every client fire, every sales call, every we don't know what to do or could you just decide moment, right? And when something broke, what happened? You fixed it at 10:10pm because there was no one else. And it was your business. It was your baby, Right? Every time that worked, your brain recorded, when I'm in the middle, we survive and thrive. When I push harder, we grow. That wiring helped you reach maybe multi six, potentially seven figures. But now it becomes the ceiling that stops your revenue from growing. The pattern that has built the business is now the pattern that keeps you stuck in what we call the founder's operating system. Being needed feels like proof that you're doing something right. And it's rewarding. You get dopamine hits right? You feel most valuable on days where there's nonstop questions and fires that you're just able to put out. When the team doesn't need you, you feel oddly useless. Your brain hits a hit every time of dopamine. Every time you answer a question instantly or make a quick decision or rescue a project or close a deal that no one else could close that trains the I'm a good CEO when everything runs through me. When wiring in your brain. That's why delegation feels like loss, not relief. If I'm not fixing everything, who am I really here? Or they just can't do it as fast as I can. And reason number three is letting go feels unsafe when you imagine a client being handled differently than you would. Your team making big decisions without looping you in or a whole week where you're not on call. Your body tightens, your brain says something's gonna get missed. I better just double check and it shows up in. I'll build systems when things calm down. I'll step back after this next push. Launch higher. Fill in the blank right underneath all this, that's your nervous system staying safe. It's staying close, staying in control. It's safer that way. Once you see this, it's not about you being bad at delegating you. Your brain has simply been wired for the building stage. Now we need to wire it for the scaling stage. That starts by facing the truth about what your current version of scaling is actually creating. Here's the truth that stings a little bit. I had to learn it too. And it hurts, but it's freeing once you see it. If your business is getting bigger, but you still depends on your brain for every important thing, you didn't scale. You just created a more expensive, more exhausting version of your old job. That's the bigger job trap that I was talking about. Being needed feels like a win, right? So here are three truths. Truth number one is scaling is not doing more. It's not more offers. It's not more launches, it's not more meetings. It's not more people reporting directly to you, Right? It is as revenue grows, the business needs less of me, not more. Here's an example of what that looks like. You add a new offer, revenue goes up. Your hours go up with it. That's bigger. That's not scaled. It's exactly where I was when I went from launch to launch to launch to launch. I drove revenue, I drove delivery, I drove whether the team did tasks. And I held every single outcome in the business. And I bet if you're listening to this, that's happening right now for you, too. It feels so heavy. It feels like you can't breathe. It feels like you can't take a day off. Or everything falls down around you. And then you start having thoughts like, why can't my team just figure this out? Right? It's not a team problem. We're going to talk about that. Okay? Truth number two, your team doesn't need more access to you. They need clear outcomes. What they really need is what winning looks like in simple numbers. Here's how we know we win, right? That's so important. And you need to have decision rules. You decide here. You pull me in here in a weekly rhythm as well. This is when we're going to talk about it so that we're not constantly being pulled on. Here's an example. When that happens, everything is defaulting back to you. It's usually a system problem, not a people problem. That's the big aha. I had to realize 15 years ago when I tried to sell the business and I had my investor ask Me three important questions. He said, shannon, does the business revenue rely on you? And I said, yes, it does. He said, shannon, does the day to day operations rely on you? I said, yes, it does. He said, shannon, is there anywhere within the company where I can see from above what's going well, what's struggling and what is failing and what we can do about it with key metrics and owners other than you associated with it? And I said, no, sir, that there's not. We had a $2 million business at the time, but this is what he said to me. He said, shannon, I don't love saying this, but here's what I need you to know. You have a good business for you. Seems like you want to sell it because it's exhausting you, but the problem is it's not valuable on the marketplace because it cannot run without you. Now you know why the passion comes in for systems to be built. Because that solved the problem and eight months later created a 20x multiple exit of that business. It's usually a system problem, not a people problem. So truth number three here is your job now is an architect, not an engine. So your operator question here is, how do I get this done today? An architect question would say, how do we build this so it doesn't always need me. So here's some examples. As an operator, you'd say things like, how do I close more deals? An architect would say, how do I build a sales process and a team that closes deals without me? An operator would say, how do I calm this client down? An architect would say, what needs to change? So clients rarely reach this panic point. So here's the thing. Every time you answer the architect question, you loosen one link in that bigger job trap. Once you see this trap, you have a choice to make. Keep adding bigger around you or rebuild. Build in a way that makes the business less and less dependent on you as it grows. Now let's make that choice super practical today. Okay. You know, I'm always wanting to get it like step by step. So here's the three step plan to escape the bigger job trap number one. Step number one is to take the scaling or bigger job test. Here's the fastest way to see if you're actually scaling or just making your job and everything on your plate bigger. So question number one here is, if I stepped away for 30 days, would the business grow, stay flat, or shrink? Question number two, if I died tomorrow, honestly, what stops completely? This was a hard one for me. So anything that stops when you're gone is pure Dependency. Let's do a quick little exercise here. Grab a sheet of paper and list every decision that requires you personally. Pricing deals, hiring, firing, approving spending, key client escalations, content decisions, sales exceptions, et cetera. Now this is your dependency map. This, the more honest it is, the more useful it will be for you. So seeing that list on paper is usually the first time you can see exactly how the business is still built around you. This is so eye opening. You cannot change what you cannot or refuse to see. And this was the moment for me when I put it all on paper and said, oh my gosh, I'm trapped. So once you see this list, your old pattern will try to fix everything. Right? Now that tyranny of the urgent, that's the same pattern that burned you out. We're not going to do that. All right, so here's what we are going to do. We're going to choose one decision category to shift off your plate. For example, maybe it's refunds, maybe it's first line client issue, maybe it's scheduling, maybe it's content approvals for that one area. Give your team three things. Three things. They must have these three things. Number one, they need an outcome. What does winning look like in this area? So an example of that is resolve 90% of refund requests within 48 hours while keeping lifetime value high. Some guardrails here, some non negotiables. That's number two. So example here is we never blame the client. We don't approve refunds above X without checking with me. That means beyond it, they have it. The decision rule here is who decides what you decide? Any refund under X inside the guardrails, over X or anything outside that pattern. You loop me in, expect the urge to come up for you to jump in and save the day. That Superman cape or Superwoman cape is what built your business. You'll see a message come in and your brain will fire. Just handle it, it's faster. When that happens, I want you to pause and I want you to name what's happening. This is just how my brain is wired. It's that bigger job trap pattern again. This is my brain wanting me to feel needed in the arms of. It's just faster. That pause and letting your team run the play you agreed on is where you start proving to your nervous system and to the team that it's safe to not be in the middle. You're building a new pattern, one decision at a time. This is eight figure level thinking. So next in step three, I want you to build a simple operating system, a 90 day cycle. You don't escape the bigger job trap with willpower. You escape it with a simple operating system that you actually use for the next 90 days. You don't need 47 systems, you need a few that actually run the business. Here they are. Number one, you need a CEO system. This is where your calendar matches. CEO work, not firefighting work, not operations. One simple weekly dashboard and a 30 to 60 minute weekly check in what's mine this week. What moves forward, what comes off of my plate. Right? And then you need a team system. This is paramount. This is clear roles based on outcomes. One to three simple numbers per owner. A weekly red, green and yellow rhythm. Red being it's broken, it's not hitting the numbers, it needs our attention. Yellow meaning it's fragile. Let's make sure we shore this up in green meaning go like it's working. But this is a weekly rhythm. A team member that is an internal owner will say here's what's red and here's what I'm doing about it instead of what do you want me to do? That's the shift. And the last of the key scaling systems is, is a profit scaling system. It's a simple view of how leads become sales, how a client gets results in retention, how profit creates capacity. Focus on one constraint, one red thing every 90 day cycle. Instead of chasing everything, let's call this the 90 day rule here. So for the next 90 days, you pick one of these systems to improve, whether it's CEO team or scaling. And you run a simple weekly rhythm around it. No random side projects that don't touch the system. Now you're starting to lead from above. When you keep that rhythm for 90 days, your calendar starts to change. Your team starts to own the day to day and the revenue generation, they own more. The business becomes slightly less dependent on you every single week. That is how you walk out of the bigger job trap. It's not overnight built in one 90 day cycle at a time. So if you're listening to this video and thinking, okay, that's exactly what's happening in my business, that's what my free self scaling business diagnostic is for. In this diagnostic workshop, we'll score your CEO system, your team system and your profit scaling system together. Together. And you'll walk away knowing which one is your real constraint for the next 90 days and what to change first. And if you want to keep learning the scaled CEO operating system that allows you to go from stuck, struggling and in the center of everything in your business to a scaled CEO running the business from above. Click here and learn more about the scaled CEO operating system that gets you free from the day to day. Let's build the system that lets your business scale without scaling more of you. All right, that's what we have for you this week. Bye for now.
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Thanks again for listening to the Epic Success Podcast. If you loved the podcast this week, do me a favor, would you give us a five star review? And over in Instagram please share with me in the DMs. What was it that you loved about it? How did it resonate? And I always say for podcasters those reviews are our big warm hug. And of course, if you want to go deeper or see this on video, please follow my YouTube channel at doctorsannon Ervin on YouTube. I cannot wait to see you next week on the Epic Success Podcast.
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Bye for now.