If you’ve ever felt like the way you’re “supposed” to grow your business just doesn’t fit - you’re not wrong.

In this episode, I’m sharing a behind-the-scenes look at my own journey from corporate to freelancing to building an agency… and ultimately realizing that the traditional business model wasn’t designed for the way experts actually want to work.

Because here’s the truth:

Scaling your business shouldn’t require you to step away from your expertise, your clients, or the part of the work you love most.

But that’s exactly what the traditional model pushes you to do.

Inside this episode, I break down:

• Why the traditional business model breaks down for expert-led businesses
• The moment I realized I was building something that didn’t align
• What happens when you try to scale by removing yourself from your zone of genius
• Why hiring a team didn’t solve the real problem
• The shift from being an “expert operator” to a Scalable Expert
• A different way to grow - without maxing out your calendar or walking away from your work

I also introduce the concept of building a business around your expertise in a way that allows you to scale your impact and income - without losing the very thing that made your business successful in the first place.

If you’ve been feeling like something is off… like you don’t quite fit the traditional path… this episode will help you see why - and what to do instead.

🎯 Key Takeaway:

You don’t need to step away from your expertise to scale. You need a better model.

💬 Let’s Continue the Conversation:

Have you ever felt like the traditional business advice just didn’t fit how you want to work?

Send me a message or share your biggest takeaway - I’d love to hear what resonated with you.

🚀 Ready to Go Deeper?

If you’re ready to turn your expertise into a scalable business without burning out or stepping away from the work you love, this is exactly what I help you do.

👉 Book a free strategy call here.

About Me:

Hey, it’s your host, Tara Bryan. And I am on a mission to help more business owners learn to infinitely scale their businesses by leveraging the power of online without sacrificing the customer experience or results.

I like to geek out on all things business strategy, marketing, interactive digital and user experience. This podcast is all about what is working, lessons learned and actionable tips to create and grow a thriving online business.

Join us each week as we dive into different strategies, tactics and tips you can apply immediately to your business.

To learn more:

Find us at https://www.taralbryan.com

Here are two ways we can help you create, grow and scale your business:

1. Want to package your expertise or become a Scalable Expert? Take our free quick assessment to see how close you are to creating a scalable business.

The Scalable Expert Assessment

2. ALREADY HAVE AN ONLINE BUSINESS & READY TO INFINITELY SCALE?

Schedule a 30 minute call with Tara to talk about our offers that will help you master the game.

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Mentioned in this episode:

https://taralbryan.com/step/15-learn-to-scale-call

Hey everybody.

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Welcome to season three of the

Scalable Expert™ Podcast, the show

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for 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, because it's not about working

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harder, it's about building smarter.

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All you need is one signature

expert framework and you can

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deliver an infinite amount of ways

to be able to scale your business.

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Alright, let's get started.

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Hey everybody, welcome to today's episode.

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I am thrilled that you're here.

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Hey, in this one I wanna talk about

a little bit of my journey around

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moving into the Scalable IP Business

model and why it's different than the

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traditional model that's out there.

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And I think I've talked a little

bit about this before, but this

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is a really big insight that I

have had around my own expertise.

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So when I started my business, a long

time ago now, I, the model that I

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knew was I went from my corporate job

to going out and freelancing and and

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contracting, and then from there very

quickly shifted into owning an agency.

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And I went into the sort of that

business ownership mindset because that's

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the direction that I was headed in.

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I didn't necessarily just want to

contract or freelance meaning, do

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hours for dollars work or take on, you

know, hourly projects for companies.

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And if you're in that model, that's great.

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If you're happy, that's wonderful.

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But that wasn't for me.

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I knew I wanted to actually grow

something beyond just the amount of

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time that I could put into companies.

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That was why I left corporate.

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That was why and how I was

leading how I was doing things.

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And, and so that was great.

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I was very clear on that.

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In fact, I remember over the years

being like, well, why, why am I

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different than my colleagues who

are contracting and freelancing?

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Like, why do I think differently?

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And it's only like actually in

hindsight, right, that you, that you

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realize what was actually happening.

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But overall what I did was, I went

out on my own and I said, okay,

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great, i'm now a business owner.

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Great.

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Like, what does that look like?

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It's sort of like when you have kids

and you're like, great, now I'm a mom.

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Now what?

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There's no instruction manual that tells

you exactly how to do, to do it right.

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And so I went out and I'm like, okay

great, so I'm gonna read all the books.

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I'm gonna join all the groups.

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I had an MBA, so I had the business

acumen around like, okay, here

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are the five core parts of the

business and dah, dah, dah, dah.

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I had all of that, right?

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And, and so I'm like, this is great.

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Like, I have the experience,

I'm following the models.

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I've joined the groups.

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I was in some sort of high level

business groups and I am like, awesome.

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But what happened was, I would get

into these groups and they would all be

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talking about how they were running their

businesses and I was like, interesting,

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i'm running my business totally different.

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My business looks different.

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It's doing different things.

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I'm more immersed and involved in my

business and I'm not exactly sure how to

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take what I was doing and apply what I

was hearing from the groups that I was in.

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I remember sitting in one of, one of

kind of my high level mastermind groups

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and there was like six of us in a small

group, and one guy was talking about

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how, as he had grown his business, he was

able to build this like enormous house

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with, it had like a race track behind it.

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And it was fascinating.

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And he was talking about how the

business had done so well, and the,

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this house that he had and da dah, dah.

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And then another guy was talking

about kind of the same thing,

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just a little bit different.

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He owned a product business and so he

talked about expanding his product line

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and how that it had increased the volume

to a certain level and dah, dah, dah, dah.

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And so then he was able to do X, Y, and Z.

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And then there was a couple of other

people there and they were in different,

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different sort of, levels of business.

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But all of them were in a place

where they were starting to

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shift out of their business.

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We had all kind of gotten to a specific

level of business, and so they were

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thinking about shifting out of their

business or, you know, really going

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into a leadership, role with their

team, exiting, all these different

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kind of places that people were in.

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And I just kept saying

that, that's not my model.

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Like I, it's not working in the way

that, that they're talking about.

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And I really struggled with that

because I thought, well, I'm doing

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something wrong or I need to be

shifting to do it in that same way.

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And so it never really fit and I always

just felt like, okay, well I'm, I'm

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revenue-wise at the same level that they

are, but something is different around

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what I'm doing versus what they're doing.

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How do I adopt that?

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How do I start doing that?

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But I couldn't really articulate

how or why or what was going on.

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So I don't know if, if you've ever

felt like that, you probably are

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nodding along with me, like yeah,

like something was different you

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just didn't really know what it was.

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And the challenge I had was that I was

so involved in the business, so involved

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with my customers and my clients and

the projects, and pitching the projects

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and working on the projects and closing

the projects and building long-term

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strategic partnerships with other people

and building partnerships with my clients

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that, that I was like, how do I extract

myself and continue to build profit around

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all this revenue that we were making,

and still serve in the way that I wanted

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to as the expert in the business, right?

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I would do the conferences where I

was speaking about our methodology.

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I was serving the clients.

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I was building relationships with

new customers, with new clients, with

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part, like I was doing all the things.

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And I was like, okay, so I can't

imagine not doing these, these things.

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And so I, I went down the traditional

business model route, right?

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I hired a team, I hired salespeople,

I da, da, da, all the things.

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And then, I'll never forget we were in

my office and my whole team was in the

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conference room working on, working on

a new client, like kind of the beginning

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of a project that we would work on.

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And to be honest, it's like my

favorite part about all of it, right?

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Because I'm more of a strategist,

so I like to uncover the big

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picture, the problem, and then kind

of work on what's a good solution.

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So to me, that's my favorite

part of the whole process.

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But I was, I was watching my team and

they were going through and doing this

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process, and they're like, Tara, like you

are good, go and do business owner stuff.

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You don't need to be in here anymore

because you hired us and we've got

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this and we can take care of it.

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And I was like, great, that's awesome.

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I trust them.

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They were doing awesome.

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They were doing great things.

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But I stood outside of that

conference room and I was like, huh?

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Like, I don't, I wanna be involved, right?

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I, this is my passion.

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This is, I love what I was doing,

and it was my expertise, my passion,

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my love for the work that created

and drove and ultimately allowed

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for the success of the business.

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And so when I hired people, it was

great 'cause I thought, okay, great.

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Like I have help now to do that.

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I'm not doing it by myself.

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But that moment shifted something in me

because I was relieved and happy that

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I had all these great people to help me

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but I had just replaced the part of

the work that I loved and put myself

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in a position of doing things that

weren't necessarily in my zone of genius

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and, and weren't things that I loved.

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And so I felt, in that moment,

I felt a little disconnected.

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But moving forward I realized that there

was like, what was left of the business

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for me to do were things I didn't enjoy.

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And fast forward I ended up actually just

getting so burnt out in that business,

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with the things that were happening

in, and you've probably heard the story

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throughout the podcast, or if you haven't,

I will share it another time 'cause it's

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a long story, but ultimately at the end of

the day, ended up dissolving the agency.

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I didn't even sell it because I was

just at the point where I was, um, I

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was ready to do something different.

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But I think in hindsight it was really

trying to shove myself into a traditional

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business model and do the things that I

was supposed to do as a business owner,

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and not stepping into actually owning

and growing my own scalable IP business

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and taking my expertise and being able

to package it in a way that allowed

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me to make a bigger impact without

exiting my business, without outsourcing

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my expertise to a team or without it

maxing out my calendar where I had so

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many things going on that I couldn't

actually serve my customers at the level

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that I wanted to serve them, right?

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Like, I, I couldn't

figure out how to do that.

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And so that's when I realized that

there's a different business model

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for experts who want to scale their

expertise beyond their calendar, right?

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There's, that's a different business

model than trying to fit yourself

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into a traditional business model.

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And so as I started to grow that

new concept, as I started to step

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into building that for myself,

everything started to shift.

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I was able to stay in my zone of

genius and make a bigger impact and

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make a bigger income without losing

the very thing that I came into

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the business in the first place.

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And that changed the game.

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So if you are in that position where

you're like, golly, you know, I just,

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something isn't working or I don't

actually really want to become the

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manager of all of the things, I wanna stay

connected to my customers and to my body

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of work and the things that I do, but I'm

not sure how to do that without actually

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losing my mind because I am need to be

in all of the different places, I gotcha.

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There's a new business model, it's

called a Scalable Expert Business

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model, and it is the way to go from

being an expert operator to a Scalable

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Expert, so you're able to take your

expertise and exponentially and

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infinitely grow it beyond your calendar.

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It is possible.

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It is the way that

businesses are growing today.

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For people who have an expertise, think

about Donald Miller and StoryBrand.

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Think about Mike Michalowicz

and Profit First.

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Think about Brene Brown and Dare to Lead.

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There's lots and lots and lots and

lots of different examples of people

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who have an expertise, they've come

up with a way to package it, and then

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they grow it into a brand, a business

that lives beyond them, but allows them

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to show up and still be the expert.

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They are not looking

to exit their business.

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They're not looking to become the CEO

and sit in an office and do business

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owner CEO activities all of the time.

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Right?

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They are growing their

business in a different way.

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They're leveraging their expertise

and exponentially being able to offer

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different experiences so people can get

the result that their framework provides.

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So if you resonate with this,

I would love to hear from you.

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Sometimes I feel, you know, back, baby

entrepreneur Tara, or even part of going

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through this journey that it was a journey

I was going on all by myself, right?

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I don't know if you ever feel

like that, but I was just like,

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why do I think differently?

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What is happening around the way

that I think about growing and, and

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how I grew my business that was just

a slightly different than the other

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people that I was working around.

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And so if you feel like that, I see you,

and it's probably a pretty good indication

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that you are on the right track.

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So I'd love to help you through that.

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Give me a shout, but definitely let me

know have you been in that experience?

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Have you felt that, because

you are not alone in that?

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And, and so I hope that

this episode serves you.

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It just gives you a little glimpse of

the fact that, as experts we can actually

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grow a business differently that serves

us, our expertise and our passion, and

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also allows us to build something without

maxing out our calendar and burning

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out and doing all of the things right.

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So it allows us to scale our

business and not our calendar.

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All right, there you go.

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Until next time, I hope

you have a great week.