The Expert's Dilemma: How to Transition from Hard Work to Scalable Success

Hey, everybody.

Welcome to today's episode of the Scalable Expert Podcast.

I am thrilled that you're here.

Hey.

One of the things that I want to talk about today is how working harder is not actually going to help you grow your business.

And.

And this is a trap I fell into over and over again as an agency owner is like, I'm an overachiever.

I thought that if I just worked harder, if I was more tenacious than everyone else, and I just did more of the things that I was going to get ahead, there was, like, no way that I wasn't going to just power through and get her done.

One of the things that.

Which is, again, that's part of who I am, is I'm just determined, right?

Like, I can get things done.

When I was a kid, I had all sorts of challenges with my feet, and I couldn't actually run or jump or do sports or do any of the other things that I wanted to do.

And if you know me at all, I'm, like, super athletic and super interested in all things active and doing things.

And it just drove me crazy because I would run in gym class and then my feet would swell up and I would just be miserable because I would be in so much pain.

Or I remember that I had to do the hurdles in gym class, and I literally could not jump and do the hurdles because it just.

My.

My feet just wouldn't do it.

That was my childhood is.

I had lots of obstacles when it came to being physical and being able to do all the things that I wanted to do.

Of course, I still did sports.

I still did all of the things because I was just so bound and determined to do it.

But I would have a lot of pain.

I would just have to ice my feet and all the things.

And then.

And then fast forward.

I had surgery on both of my feet as I was.

I think it was like starting high school.

Like, my feet stopped growing and then I could have the surgery.

And the only thing I really remember around that was, like, I was popular for the week, right?

Because everybody wanted to get out of class 10 minutes early to drive me in my wheelchair to the elevator to so I could go to my next class.

And, and.

And then that surgery actually ultimately didn't work, and.

And so it didn't heal.

That, that.

That foot challenge that I had.

However, again, fast forward again.

And as a young adult, I started doing marathons and, and training for marathons, running marathons, half marathons, full marathons, all the things I still actually run.

And.

And so it's one of the things that I love to do.

And so, again, like, I'm just tenacious.

Like, that's just how my brain is just more powerful than my body.

So I was like, I'm figuring this out.

I'm gonna do it.

And now I can actually do it without that same level of pain that I had as a kid.

And I tell you this story in the abbreviated version of this story just to prove to you that, again, like, I. I believe so strongly that you can make anything happen that you want because you just have to work harder than anyone else in order to have it done.

So you can imagine my frustration when I was growing my agency got to seven figures and then just stopped, right?

Like, we just got to a certain point in the business and I couldn't get any farther.

Didn't really matter what I did.

And.

And so I ended up, okay, I'm just gonna keep working hard.

That's what I do.

That's worked for me in the past.

And I kept hitting that brick wall, and I kept getting more and more burnt out trying to break through that wall, right?

Trying to do something different than what I was trying to do, because it wasn't working.

I thought, oh, I just don't have the magic key, right?

I just don't know exactly what it is I'm supposed to be doing.

I didn't know the questions to ask to get to the answer that I really wanted.

And trust me, like, again, case in point was my story.

But, like, I. I tried everything I could think of at the time, but I wasn't getting there.

And because here's the problem is that I was in the wrong business model.

And so when I.

Instead of just pushing and pushing and trying to get the answers and trying to work harder and trying to do all the things, I had to stop and look at how to change fundamentally the way that I was growing the business and how I wanted to show up and grow the business.

Because here's the thing is that when you are an expert and whatever kind of expert you are, right?

Typically what happens is you've developed your expertise by helping people or by going to school and going into your job and doing the thing and being successful at it or doing the research or whatever it is that you're doing, right?

So you've done something, and in terms of Macklemore, right?

Like, you've done your 10,000 hours, you become an expert at whatever it is that you have developed over time.

And because of that, we've done the work we've put ourselves in positions where we are testing and we're putting in the practice, and then something starts to happen.

Like where I was, where I just got stuck, right?

Like I got stuck because I couldn't get past, past that.

That period of growth with my expertise was not what was going to lead me to that next place in the way that I thought it was going to.

And, and so as an expert, the only way to really get into a different place with your expertise is when you own your expertise and when you become an authority in your expertise, whatever that looks like.

So I'll just use a traditional example just to get us started in the conversation.

But my brother is a physician in a very specific niche of medicine.

And so he sought out a lot because of his expertise in being in this small niche of medicine, right?

So people reach out and say, okay, you have an expertise in this kind of medicine.

There's not a lot of people who are an expert at this.

We would like you to publish an article.

We would like you to come and speak to our audience.

We would like you to consult on this patient in, wherever they've asked him to do that.

So because of his expertise and the level of specialization that he has, he is sought out as an expert.

That is one way to develop your expertise.

For me, I was an expert in creating and launching scalable elearning programs within organizations.

So I was able to go into companies and, and go through that whole process and get them tangible results.

Every single time that, that we worked with a company, I was able to develop that methodology and I was able to use that methodology to successfully create an agency where people, companies sought us out in order to work on those projects.

You are an expert in whatever it is in your, you're an expert in.

When you've developed something that's your proprietary methodology and you've used that to help other people, right?

So people are seeking out your expertise.

Now what happens is you get to a certain place and as an expert, people are, are asking for you to help them, right?

Because you're an expert.

So in my brother's case, people are seeking him out because he is an expert in this specialization.

For me, companies were seeking us out as an agency because of the work that we had done and the referrals and all the other things for you.

You could have an expertise and you could decide to write a book and then people are seeking you out to speak on that book or to help with whatever it is you're doing.

That's your proprietary methodology.

So the shift that needs to happen is instead of saying the here's my expertise and here's how I apply it to the work that I'm doing.

It's how do you look at your expertise and put it into some sort of packaged format that allows people to access it without you being present, without you taking up your time to be there.

So again, if we go back to my brother and that example like he is, people hire him to speak.

So say he, he has all these people who want him to speak and he has to go and travel to all of these different locations.

He is maxed out in terms of how many locations he can speak at when people are seeking him out, right?

So he has a full time job, he has a family, he has all sorts of other things going on.

So say he can only do two speaking gigs a week, Mex.

What happens when he has 5, 6, 8, 10 medical practices asking him to come and speak?

Does he just work harder and spend more time traveling, spend more time going and doing all of these things because he wants to grow his expertise?

No, that's not possible.

Because at some point he's maxing out his ability to travel, maxing out his ability to speak, maxing out his ability how he balances work and family and these speaking gigs or whatever else he's doing, right?

So he's going to get to that place in the agency.

We got to that place when I was hiring other people at an exponential rate.

But the business wasn't growing at that same rate, Right.

So we had to figure out how do we deliver our expertise, that framework, in a different way so we can go from 10 to 20 to 50 to a thousand companies that we're helping and what does that look like?

So when you start looking at that fundamental mental question, and you may have a similar or just slightly different fundamental question that you are asking yourself as an expert, but the question is really like, how do I go from what I'm doing today and expand it so that when and when more people come to seek out my expertise, I am able to serve them?

And, and so that's the question that you should be asking yourself.

If you're not there yet, you will be at some point, especially as you grow your expertise, as you get even better.

And if you're not, I'm just going to tell you it's because you're hiding because you haven't declared your authority and you're not leading with your authority out in the marketplace.

So if you're leading with your authority out in the Marketplace and you are not busy beyond your capability, then keep working on your messaging around your proprietary methodology.

Because as an expert, you have what it takes for the people that need your expertise to come and be served by what you're doing.

So if that's not happening yet, it's because you're not actually declaring your expertise out of the market.

But if it is happening and you're leading with your expertise and you're looking at your calendar and you're like, how on earth do I do this?

How do I move beyond one on one or where I am today and be able to start thinking about expanding beyond the current capacity that you have.

Congratulations.

You are in a place where you are thinking about becoming a scalable expert, which is a super exciting place to be, especially if you're in my world.

Because I love talking about this.

Because here's the thing is, when we can apply the infinite scale method to your business as a scalable expert, then what starts to happen is you take your signature methodology, you take your, your just your one framework that you have created around your expertise, and you can start delivering it in an infinite number of ways.

So you could have a book, you can do speaking, you can have a program, you could have a live event, you could have anything that you can dream of, you can use to deliver your message in an infinite number of ways.

And by the way, you can charge for all of those different ways.

People will pay different amounts for different ways to consume your authority framework, your expert framework, because they're going from where they are today to getting the result that your framework is giving them.

And so start getting creative.

You could have a certification program, you could write that book, you could have a program, you could have a mastermind, you could have a live event, you could have a group of people who want to learn from you, and you take them through that particular cadence of your framework together as a group.

There are lots and lots of different ways to start to scale your ability to help people beyond one on one, beyond where you think that you could be today in terms of your capacity.

And it takes a couple of things.

It takes one for you to clear your authority in your framework.

Then it takes you creating and packaging that signature framework and then looking at what's this signature scale will offer.

First of all, like start with one and then how do you start to maximize your ability to help people beyond hours, for dollars, beyond custom proposals, beyond going into a company and saying, yes, I can do this, I deliver my methodology, how much do you want to pay me for that, you get to own what that looks like.

Because you're able to package your expertise in a completely different way that will help you become a scalable expert.

So do not get stuck thinking that you have to outwork your bad business model that you have today or your ability to just look at.

How do you look at your capacity different, right?

Because it's not about working more hours.

It's not about how do you tough it out.

It's not about how do you just keep going until you can't go anymore.

It's about shifting the way that you think about your expertise and how you can package it and how people can consume it.

Because as an expert, your job is to give people the fastest path to the result that they're looking for.

Because you already have the answers.

You already know how to get them from point A to point B because you've done it.

You're the expert.

So they're looking to you to guide them down that road.

They're looking for you to guide them.

The faster that you can guide them from where they are today to where they want to go.

That is what's going to put you in a position of being able to build an infinitely scalable business as a scalable expert.

So I challenge you to really think about where you are from a capacity standpoint and what that looks like, and then identify where.

Like what's either holding you back from becoming an authority in your space or what's holding you back from really taking charge of the capacity that you have and just completely tipping it on its head and.

And becoming infinitely scalable.

All right, until next time, really think about that.

And if you love this episode, give us a shout in the show.

Notes is my information.

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I'd also love for you to share this episode with other people and give us a rating.

Like, again, like, all this is helpful for me so I can continue to create these episodes.

All right, we'll talk to you next week.