Episode 79: 5 Shifts to 7 Figures

Welcome to Scale to Seven®! Your behind-the-scenes look at what it really takes to scale your business to seven figures. I'm your host Kathryn Binkley, business and leadership coach for online entrepreneurs. Here's what I know, building a business that will generate millions requires the mindset, strategy, and action of a future seven-figure CEO, starting now. Ready to Scale to Seven®? Let's go! 

Hey hey, I want to tell you something that you need to grasp if you want to scale your business. And here's what it is, it's not the money that makes you a seven-figure CEO. It's the seven-figure CEO-level business and mindset shifts that make you the money. There are a lot of entrepreneurs who are struggling to scale their businesses because they haven't made the right shift in their mindset, their strategy, and execution. And after working with business owners for more than 15 years, I can tell you that there are a few shifts that are the differences between six and seven-figure CEOs. I'm going to share five of those with you. And I want you to really soak these in, come back, and re-listen to this if you need to. It takes hearing them and implementing them at different layers, sometimes for them to really, like settle in and for you to breakthrough. The first shift is from working hard on many things to working less on the right things. And at this point your business, you've heard others say it. Sometimes you hear things so frequently that you start to dismiss it. And you say I haven't heard and you start to say I've heard this before and tune out your brain tunes out, I want you to really listen, the first shift is going from working hard on many things to working less on the right things, a few things about this seven-figure entrepreneurs got to where they are because they understood that you can work less by doing more of what works and cutting out the rest. They got there because they focused on what really drove the majority of results. They got there because they simplified. They got there because they understood and dropped all of the beliefs that you have to work harder to earn more. And that takes a lot of mindset work just to make that shift. 

I had a client of mine and this was maybe just a couple of months ago. And she was telling me that she's just working so hard in her business. She's working so many hours, and she was ready to see a shift, and when we started to talk about how her business operates, we got into a conversation of values and asked she had values and she did and I was like great, "Can you share with me what your values are so we can really start to manage the business around those values?", and it was such an eye-opener for her because when she revisited the values, she noticed that in the wording. It talked about how they are a company who works hard. And she realized that she had built her business and the culture of her team around this value to work hard and there was more to that value, but just those two words she was living out. So I really want you to take a look at your values, your beliefs, your strategy, and simplify, reframe, and really make sure that you're aligned in a way that allows you the autonomy that you want. 

Shift number two is going from decisions based on feelings to data-driven decision-making data before decisions, my friend. In order to do more of what works and to cut out the stuff that's not working. You've got to know what's working sounds obvious, right? But a lot of six-figure entrepreneurs are guessing at what working or they're doing things because they're guessing that it is working, you need to know you need to know that exactly what you're spending your time on what you're asking your team to spend your time on is delivering an ROI. It's not enough to know that some of what you're doing is working and have no idea which part of it you know, it's easy to know when nothing that you're doing is working. This is the hard part. You are successful. Your business is growing, you reached six figures, but now's the time to really dive in and figure out okay, what's the part that's working and what's the part that's not and keep doing what's working and cut the stuff that isn't we don't want to cut out the wrong things and the way that you make sure that you're cutting the right things, spending your time on the right things is by looking at data. Seven-figure entrepreneurs are seven-figure entrepreneurs because they're looking at and making decisions based on key performance indicators. They're making decisions based on data. 

Shift number three is going from solopreneur to CEO. This isn't simply about hiring. It's about the mindset that comes with that. The mindset to let go, we've talked about how you need to let go and lead. Six-Figure entrepreneurs often grow their businesses, by doing things themselves, they just take on more, they build their businesses with them in this center, only to track themselves in the day-to-day hustle, but not seven-figure entrepreneurs. If you want to reach seven figures, then you're going to need to realize that hustling and working hard actually results in burnout. Again, this isn't something you haven't heard before, but don't tune out. I've heard too many stories of entrepreneurs who've reached their breaking point, and then finally figured out that in order to scale, they needed to build a team. That was the thing that maybe they were avoiding, it sounded like more work, there is again, the mindset around their value and their business around the quality of the work that they are handing off instead of doing it themselves around wondering what they're going to do. If they hand off the work, it's time for you to step into your CEO role and learn how to let go and lead. 

Shift number four is going from the mindset of getting clients to building a company, the journey to six figures is often one of really just focusing on where to get that next client, and how to get that next client. There's so much focus on marketing and sales and yeah, those are critical skills to master but focusing on marketing and sales alone, leaves you with some pretty big blind spots that will hold you back from seven figures if not addressed. So yeah, it's important to get clients, it's important to know where that comes from. That's really only one aspect of your business, I'm going to repeat that it's only one aspect of your business. Marketing and sales isn't everything. It's important, but it's not everything. Seven-figure entrepreneurs ensure that they have a strategy to bring in consistent clients, but they're also thinking bigger, they're also focused on everything else required to build a company that means there are multiple departments in the business. 

Shift number five is going from "me" to "we." I've met so many six-figure entrepreneurs who have goals and plans in mind that are all about them. Even as they add team members, they're still very focused on their own feelings, their own frustrations, their own goals. My clients come to me, and they are welcome to always come to me to share their feelings, their frustrations, and their goals. But once they are in a leadership role, I often have to remind them to take a step back, if you're feeling this way, what do you think your team is feeling? Or remember when the same situation happened in your business early on? How did you feel then? What is your team experiencing? What are they thinking right now? How can you go and coach them and help them? Seven-figure entrepreneurs understand the importance of having a "we" mindset, and that means the business is bigger than them alone. I want you to hear this for you, that business, your business is bigger than you alone. And that means growth is no longer only about you, it's also about your team. You've been so focused on you and your audience, now you're really shifting and you're focusing on growth for your team, their personal development, and their ability to impact the growth of your business. Impact is about so much more than you, it's about so much more than your team. It's helping them even understand that the work that they're doing can not only help them in their life but also so many lives that can change because of the work they're doing. 

Leadership is about more than leading your own company. It's about leading and advancing the industry that you're in. It's about changing lives inside of your company outside of your company. It's about shifting from "me" to "we." So I'm curious, have you made these shifts? Have you made these shifts? I believe that every entrepreneur can scale from six to seven figures, but these shifts are required to get there. These are just the top five that I see quite often. There are definitely others. And if you want to learn more about all of the shifts and all of the different elements required to scale from six to seven figures, I invite you to visit kathrynbinkley.com/ and watch our Free Scalability Factor Training. It's gonna walk through all nine elements and give you that big picture focus of what you need to be looking at and paying attention to as a CEO in your business if you want to scale. I'm going to close out this podcast exactly the way that I started with a reminder that it's not the money that makes you a seven-figure CEO. It's the seven-figure CEO-level business and mindset shifts that make you the money.

Hey, if you're ready to Scale to Seven®, I want to invite you to join the Scale to Seven® Mastermind. It's my coaching program designed to turn your online business into a self-sustaining scalable business that can generate millions. Just head over to kathrynbinkley.com/scale-to-seven. We'll see you inside!