In a traditional business, hiring feels like the obvious next move when you're maxed out on customer work. In this episode, Tara explains why it often doesn't fix the real problem in an expert business: you hired help, and you're still the bottleneck. She shares the agency story that taught her why, and what has to happen before hiring can actually work.

IN THIS EPISODE:

• Why hiring help for customer fulfillment still keeps you at the center of every project
• Tara's agency story: top talent, real revenue, and still burning out
• Why you can't hire out your expertise until it's packaged and out of your head
• What happens when everyone on your team does things "their way"
• The one shift that has to happen before you bring on any help
• Why this is the real job of Engine 1: your Expert Authority System

CHAPTERS:

00:00 – Welcome

01:04 – The hiring advice every expert gets

01:59 – Hiring for fulfillment: Tara's agency story

03:42 – What she'd do differently, looking back

05:19 – Why hiring can't fix what's still stuck in your head

06:37 – The churn cycle: hiring before you've packaged your expertise

08:35 – Make it tangible: what your team and customers both need to see

10:45 – Engine 1: getting what only you know out of your head

13:04 – The Scalable Expert flip: hire to guide, not to create

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CONNECT WITH TARA:

Website: taralbryan.com

LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/tara-bryan/

YouTube: youtube.com/@taralbryan

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Tara Bryan is the creator of the Infinite Scale Method™ and host of The Scalable Expert podcast. She helps expert business owners, coaches, and consultants turn their expertise into a scalable business built on a signature framework and systems that deliver results without requiring more of their time.

Learn more at www.thescalable.expert and www.taralbryan.com

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Hey everybody.

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Welcome to season three of The

Scalable Expert Podcast, the show for

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established expert business owners

who are maxed out on time and ready to

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find the scalable impact of their work.

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I'm your host, Tara Bryan, founder

of The Scalable Expert and creator

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of the INFINITE SCALE™ Method.

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If you've built a business around

your expertise but feel stuck

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in the time for money trap, this

podcast is your path forward.

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Each week, I'll share stories and

strategies and shifts to help you

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step into a new scalable business

model by declaring your authority,

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packaging your expert framework, and

streamlining your offers and systems

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to ultimately become a Scalable Expert.

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Because it's not about working

harder, it's about building smarter.

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All you need is one signature expert

framework, and you can deliver an infinite

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amount of ways to be able to scale your

business, your impact, and your income.

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All right, let's get started.

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Hey, everybody.

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Welcome to today's episode.

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What I want to talk about today is

part of the expert conundrum that

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we all have as experts, and that

is traditional advice of just, you

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know, like hire someone to help you.

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So, typically what happens is you start

to get really busy with client work, and

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then you hire people to help fulfill on

the client projects, or you hire people

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to sort of help during the process.

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What happens when you hire people to

support you is that you still become

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the center, and then you've got all

these people who you've hired, who are

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still depending on you to be the kind

of the point person with that client.

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And so you're still sort of in charge

of all of the work that's happening,

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which if you've done this, you know that

that's a very challenging business model

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because you never get out of the center

of sort of running all of the things.

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And so the next level of hiring is really

like, how do you hire somebody who can

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actually do client fulfillment, right?

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So if you're maxed out on client

fulfillment and you're like,

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"Okay, I'm gonna hire some

people to help do client work."

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So in my agency I hired really top

designers to, to do the instructional

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design and in some cases, e-learning

development, and graphic design,

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and all the things, right?

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So I had to hire a specialist for

this, so it was a lot more expensive

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than hiring, more of a support role.

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But I needed the person I hired to

like go out and help these clients.

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I need you to, to, to do your thing and

go out there and make them happy, right?

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Like, make it match what we

do as an agency, use our…

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we had sort of a rough, methodology

that we used, but go and, and just,

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like, make the customers happy.

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And it sort of worked, right?

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I was able to hire some

very talented people.

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But the problem is, is that because the

expertise, because kind of the way that

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I approach things was slightly different,

and it was all in my head, I still had

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to package it in order to, to share it

with the people that I had hired, right?

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And so it was interesting when I first

went through this, this first iteration

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of, you know, okay, I have to package

my expertise and I have to put it into

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some sort of format that someone else

can see what's happening in this brain.

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And, and so that was the first thing.

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So I- I have to create SOPs, I have

to create, this methodology and this

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project management system and all

these things so that I could hire these

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people and then put them into my system.

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First of all, if I would've known that

I could've just bypassed hiring all the

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people and just created my methodology and

packaged it right, then my life would've

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been completely different, than, you know,

eventually sitting on my couch in tears

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because I was so burnt out and overwhelmed

by running my agency at the time.

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But I didn't know that, right?

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So I, I went through and I did all of

that, but I still hired really top talent.

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And so of course when you hire top

talent, you know, they've got their own

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way of doing things and so they would

adopt my, my approach, but it just never

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quite exactly worked because, it still

wasn't, it still didn't match, right?

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Like I had, I would hire, in some

cases I had employees, in other cases

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I had contractors, so it was just

slightly different every single time.

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And so it was very difficult

to scale because, just of the

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way that it was structured.

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But the irony of the whole deal, like I

said, is that, I had to capture and get

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my methodology out of my head for my team,

and we needed to apply it consistently

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to all the clients so they knew what was

happening project to project, employee to

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employee, and everything was consistent.

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We were working on very large projects, so

in most cases it took up to five people,

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maybe more, to work on all these projects.

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So we didn't really have the

ability to have one person be

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working on a full client project.

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So we had, we had to all agree

on how we were gonna run things.

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But the challenge is, is like you can't

hire, you can't hire the work out to

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somebody without actually spending

the time getting it out of your head

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and into some sort of methodology.

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And if you could get it out of your

head and in some methodology to hire

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a team, you can actually use it to

package it in a different way so that

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when you hire a team, obviously it's

easier, but you can deliver it to your

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clients in a way that may not need

all of that overhead in your business.

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Because what happens is as you grow

overhead and you grow clients, right,

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you've gotta maintain that, and you

don't ever really leapfrog from a

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profitability standpoint because the more

projects you get, the more complexity

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you have because you need more team.

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And in my case, because of the agency that

I had, I needed more, high caliber talent.

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So you kinda get into that, that

business model cycle where you're

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not leapfrogging outside of that

because it's still too complicated.

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Plus, if you have everyone in your

business doing their own thing with your

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clients, it's very hard to then, provide

your clients with a consistent, experience

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so you know they're getting results.

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Okay, so that's a very typical scenario

that a lot of people find themselves in.

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If you're an expert and you found

yourself in that position of like you've

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gotten busy and now you start to hire

people, 'cause that's the traditional

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advice, and you hire someone and you're

like, "Okay, go, go and take care

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of this," and they're like, "What?

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What do I do?"

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And so you have to spend time

training them, and you have to spend

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time managing them, and you have to

spend time doing all of the things.

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If you are doing that and you have

not yet gotten your methodology out of

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your head into something that someone

else can consume, then you're gonna

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continuously churn through people

because it's just gonna be frustrating

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for everyone, and they're never gonna

meet your expectations because you

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haven't defined what they are, right?

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I mean, let's be honest.

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But this is, this is a

normal part of what happens.

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Because we're the experts,

we don't necessarily wanna

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outsource our expertise, right?

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What we wanna do is we wanna help

clients at the highest level and be

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able to grow our business at the same

time, and that doesn't actually require

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you to outsource your expertise.

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It requires you to do things a little

bit differently in your business and

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start to build some systems, and a

scalable business model, that may or

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may not have employees or, team to it.

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And so what I wanna do is just like spend

this time just sort of shifting your

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thinking on this, that regardless of

whether or not you're gonna hire people

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or you're gonna take on more clients

or you're trying to figure out how to

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get all of this out of your head into

something that can be packaged into a

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product or a book or a certification or

an online program, or even a one-on-one

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service, you have to go through the

activity of getting your expertise into

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a format that other people can see.

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It has to be tangible, it has to be

visual, it has to be something that

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people can look at and be able to see

how to go from point A to point B, right?

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The problem they have to the result that

they desire without you being in the room.

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If you can do that, then you

know that you are able to start

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to grow and scale your business

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. Otherwise, it's gonna be like pushing

a boulder up a hill, which is what I

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felt almost every day of the agency was

I was like, "Why isn't this working?"

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Like, we have clients, I have

great people on my team, I have

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the right level of support.

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I have, 20-some years of experience

being the expert at doing this, but

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yet we're still sort of rolling that

hill, or that, the boulder up the hill.

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And it was because I wasn't able to

make that, my methodology, as tactical

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and tangible and physical as it

needed to be so it could be completely

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done, we talked about this on the

last one, the, the journey, right?

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Like a consistent journey

for every single customer.

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I wasn't able to articulate that, like

get it out of my brain enough that I was

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able to create that journey that somebody

else could then walk somebody through

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that journey from point A to point B.

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And so it never quite took off and

scaled without all of the effort

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from me and from the rest of the

team, which led to burnout, right?

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Like, we were doing great.

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The agency was doing great.

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If you were to look at it from the

outside, you'd be like, "She's got

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the revenue, she's got the profit,

she's got the customers, she's

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got a team, she's got a, an office

building," like all the things.

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But inside the agency itself, I was trying

to figure out how to make it, at the

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level that everyone could be successful.

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And, and it was that journey piece that

was missing, that consistent journey

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of what are all the things that need to

happen so that, at the end of the day,

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we were creating that amazing product,

and experience for our customers.

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So very first thing with that expert

authority system is really, really getting

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that methodology out of your head because

even if you wanna hire, you can't hire

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until it's out of your head appropriately.

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And then you have choice, right?

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You can look at it and say, "Well, do I

wanna hire this and focus on a different

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part of my business, or do I want to

live in the expert role in my business,

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and I want the help in marketing or the

help in sales or the help in something

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bookkeeping or something else," right?

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Where are you gonna land in the business

so that you are able to keep your

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expertise role but be in a position

where your business is growing and

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scaling beyond your time and attention?

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Because that is the magic, and that's

the game that we're trying to play

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as experts in a business, is that

it is just slightly different than,

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traditional businesses that are just

trying to grow and scale and exit.

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And so, I invite you to just think

about that for a moment, because you

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may be in that position where you've

hired people to help you do the work

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because you've got so much work, right?

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If you're a graphic designer and you have

so many clients who want graphic design

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that you now have hired other graphic

designers, and, you're kinda challenged

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with like, "Yep, they're good," or,

"They're fine, but they're not doing it

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the way that I want it done or the way

that I know that my clients feel that it

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matches their brand," or whatever, right?

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There's just something that's just not

working exactly right, and it's because

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you're trying to outsource your expertise.

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You're trying to outsource something

that is, your intellectual capital, and

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kinda you just have a nuance, a different

way, a different approach of doing it

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that's very difficult to outsource.

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And so one, make it tangible.

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Make it possible for not only your team

but your customers to be able to see the

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journey, to see the path, and to be able

to go through it, but also for your team.

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And then, you know, determine when you

hire a team, what makes the most sense

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'cause it may not just be hiring helpers

to help you fulfill on-client projects.

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And that is the flip that we make

as Scalable Experts, is we're

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actually looking beyond the service.

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And so instead of hiring people to fulfill

on the work, we're gonna, we're gonna

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build a different kind of business that

allows us to do scalable delivery and

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then show up and provide amazing guidance

and resources and tools and, and whatnot

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for our customers so that when we do the

fulfillment, it's a lot easier because

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all of the things are already there.

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So you're hiring people to help guide them

on the journey, not to make up new stuff.

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So that is the job of engine number

one, system number one, Expert Authority

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System, which allows you to get your

methodology out of your head, name it, put

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it into some sort of package or tangible

structure that helps people be able to

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see it even when you're not in the room.

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Once that happens, the game starts to

change, and you have something that you

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can take and then give that out, give

that to team, give that to your clients,

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or use it for growing your business.

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So once that happens, you start

to change the way that you're

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showing up in your business.

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All right.

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So if you love this episode, give me a

rating, share it with your friends and

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colleagues, would love to hear from you.

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In the show notes is my information so

if this is a journey you're on, if you're

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struggling with this, if you're just

like, "Ah, I just wish somebody would

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open my head and get all the stuff and

make it make sense," give me a shout,

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would love to talk to you about that.

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And, until next time, enjoy.