Sharon: Hi everyone, this is Sharon Heller, and I’m here today with Steven Kohnke from Denver Business Coach. Hey, Steven.
Steven: Hi Sharon how are you doing this morning?
Sharon: I’m good. Looking forward to learning something new, as I always do when we chat. So what’s our topic today?
Steven: Yeah, so as we’ve been talking about, we did some research, qualitative research, asking business owners in the area where they’re showing up in their business, where they’re not showing up, where they might be struggling, where they’re strong.
Steven: One of the questions on there, which we’ll be talking about today, is really understanding the revenue-generating areas of your business or your products or services, and which ones are fit to scale on. And we have a couple of different ways that we look at that. So that’s what we’re talking about.
Sharon: Awesome. Well, we both know that scaling is a hot topic and something that we’re all thinking about in business. So how can a business owner even just start to think about what are the right products and services to scale? Where do they start?
Steven: Yeah, that’s the hardest part to really understand. As the business owner, you’re the expert in everything in that business, every other services that you deliver on the products that you make and you sell. So sometimes it can be really tough to understand what are the pieces of that business? What are your capabilities that you can actually scale on?
Steven: When we’re talking scale we’re talking beyond just you being the one who’s able to make the delivery of the service or the product or however that works. So of the ones that we look at that through is which services, which products you have that are teachable? How can how easily can someone else learn how to do it?
How valuable it is? So that is straight from the customer’s perspective. Your understanding, what do they really enjoy about what you’re able to provide, and what do they really keep coming back for? So that’s that valuable piece.
And then the repeatable, how quickly, how often can you keep doing it.? And that has a little bit to do with the teachable piece of it and the valuable piece of it.
Steven: So how teachable is that service? How valuable is that service? How repeatable is that service? And that’s the first lens that we look through. We actually have an exercise that will go through business owners with that just rates or has them rate each one of their products and services one through ten on each of those areas.
Steven: And the ones that score the most, those are the most scalable features of the business. So the ones that we can actually say, “OK, what is the system, what is the process for delivering this? Who else is capable of doing this” And being able to really build from there and a target market and all that. So that’s that lens of really looking at something and discovering which ones are actually scalable, if that makes sense.
Sharon: Yeah, it does. But can you say a little bit more about why understanding where to scale is so important? And I don’t know, maybe you even want to say, like, what are some of the most common mistakes business owners make when they’re looking at scaling? Because I imagine there’s there’s quite a few pitfalls that can happen.
Steven: Yeah, it’s picking the wrong one to be super general about that. But the thing is, when business owners, because they’re such experts at whatever they do, that they think everything is scalable. They think everything they’re able to deliver should be scalable and should be able to be delivered. And sure. Yes, eventually that is true.
Steven: But there are certain aspects of what most service providers have that are going to be more teachable, repeatable and valuable first, and then you get that one to scale. And then what’s the second most teachable, valuable, and repeatable piece. And you kind of work at it like that rather than just saying everything, everything, everything should be able to be scaled on.
Steven: It’s being able to really understand what are the right ones to do first and then building on top of that. So by doing this exercise, I mentioned it. We do list all of them and we have them go through one through ten, one through nine and have them say which ones are? And then we prioritize that list, too.
Steven: So what it does is it just provides a little bit of extra clarity of where and why. What is the benefit of focusing in on one area to scale? OK, that’s good. What’s the next area to scale of which people our customers find valuable? So understanding kind of that priority list, too, is important for that.
Sharon: Great. Well, thank you for these helpful insights today. Any closing words as we wrap up?
Steven: Yeah, if this is a question that you’re having here, just visit us at our website. DenverBusinessCoach.com. We’d be happy to have a conversation with you and figuring out where in your business you can scale.
Sharon: Thank you, Steven. Great talking to you today.
Steven: Thanks, Sharon.