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What Is A Scalable Expert?
Episode 3667th January 2025 • The Scalable Expert • Tara Bryan
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In this episode, Tara explains the transformation from being an online business owner with some level of expertise, to a Scalable Expert—someone who leverages their expertise and experience to build systems, frameworks, and products that grow their business beyond the limits of their personal time and effort.

If you feel like you’re constantly juggling client work, stretched thin across multiple projects, and wondering how you can expand your reach without burning out, this episode will help you understand how to escape the bottleneck of delivering services directly and move toward a model where your expertise works for you, not the other way around. If you're ready to stop being the bottleneck in your business, this episode is for you.

Key Takeaways:

  • The difference between being an expert and building a scalable business.
  • Why packaging your expertise into a proprietary framework is essential for growth.
  • How to identify and develop your own Authority Strategy.
  • The power of creating scalable assets like courses, memberships, and certification programs.
  • How automation allows you to serve more people without increasing your workload.

⏱️ Chapters:

00:00 – Introduction to Becoming a Scalable Expert

00:38 – The Value of Expertise and Why You’re Already Ahead

01:29 – The Challenge of Scaling Beyond One-on-One Client Delivery

02:36 – Bridging the Gap: Moving from Expert to Business Owner

06:13 – Developing a Proprietary Approach and Packaging Your IP

08:45 – How to Create Consistent Client Results with a Framework

10:51 – Scaling Through Systems, Automation, and Team Building

14:33 – The Power of Packaging: Unlocking Time and Freedom

19:31 – Building a Business That Lives Beyond You

💡 Ready to scale your expertise and grow your business? Hit that Subscribe button, leave a review, and share this episode with others looking to create scalable online businesses.

🔗 Explore the resources and tools mentioned in this episode to kickstart your journey to becoming a scalable expert today!

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?

Download our free 50 Ways to Engage Your Customers guide or Schedule a 30 minute call with Tara to talk about our offers that will help you master the game.

Thanks for listening!

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Do you have some feedback or questions about this episode? Leave a comment in the section below!

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Mentioned in this episode:

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

Transcripts

Tara Bryan:

Hey everybody, welcome to the podcast.

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To kick off the Scalable Expert Podcast

season number one, I want to just talk a

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little bit about what it means to be an

expert and how we position ourselves using

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our expertise to become a business owner

that has a thriving, scalable business.

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So let's just break this down because

this is a unique skill set that you have

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as an expert that will help you actually

grow a business that scales beyond

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you, saves you time when everything is

working, and and you really get out of

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kind of being the center of everything

that's going on in your business.

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So, so let's talk through that.

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So first of all, One of the greatest

gifts that you have is that you have

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been able to develop an expertise.

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So first, I congratulate you on that.

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Whether or not it is what you have been

doing in your career, whatever that looked

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like before, You've built that expertise

within the business that you have created.

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Maybe it's an agency model, a

service model, or you just have

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a passion for something and you

want to help other people with it.

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So however you have developed your

expertise, I just applaud you for not only

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developing that expertise, putting the

reps in to get really good at whatever

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it is that you are an expert in, but

you also have seen the value of how

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your expertise can help other people.

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So kudos to you because

that is the first step.

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And so what happens is we become an

expert and, and if it's about something

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that we have been doing, right, like

our body of work that we have created,

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so often that something starts because

someone's like, hey, you're really good

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at this, this is something that's natural

for you, can you help me with solving

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this thing that I'm trying to solve or

do this thing that I'm trying to do?

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And, and it's great.

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You're like, yes, I can do that.

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So you dig in and you help them, and

that usually looks like you know,

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helping them one-on-one when you are

starting to kind of bridge the gap

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between having this expertise and

monetizing the expertise that you have.

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And that's awesome.

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And that's a great place to start.

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The problem comes into play when like

you're a really good expert, right?

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Like you're really good at what you do.

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And so you're drawing more and more

people to you so that you have a lot

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of people who are coming in, a lot of a

lot of people who want your expertise.

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And that is where the challenge starts

to happen, is that you're helping

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so many people, or trying to help so

many people, that you're maxed out,

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and you don't have any more capacity,

and you don't have any more time.

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So the question becomes, how

do you help more people without

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maxing out your time, right?

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You, you love what you do, you love that

you are an expert, and that you can help

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people with it, but you've kind of gotten

to that place where you're like, okay this

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is great, but now what's the next step?

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And I'm going to tell you that like,

you know, this is the path that I

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traveled and I got to that point and

I was like, okay, well guess what?

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Everyone is telling me that the

next step is to build an agency with

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employees and then I'm going to own

the business and lead all these people

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and do and keep doing the thing.

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And there's a huge shift from, being

the expert, to being able to build

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a business around your expertise.

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So if you're in that place, you

know what I'm talking about.

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If you've passed that place, you also

know what I'm talking about, but if

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you haven't gone there yet, like you

have to go through the, through the

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shift, like identify for yourself,

like do you love to do the work?

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Do you want to keep doing the work

or do you want to build a business

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by having other people do the work?

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And then you're kind of leading and

managing the work where honestly you

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start, you know, having to add different

skills into your, into your skillset,

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which means you may not actually be

doing that thing that you're an expert

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at anymore because now you're kind

of operating at a different level.

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And so that's the first point is

just like, really identify it.

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Like what do you like,

what do you not like?

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What do you want to be doing?

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What do you not want to be doing?

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And can you use your expertise

as kind of that starting point?

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So, so that's the direction that

I went as I was like, great, like

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I, I am going to own an agency.

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I'm going to grow this agency.

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I'm super passionate about what

we do and I'm going to have a

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lot of other people be doing it.

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And that worked for a

while until it didn't.

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But that was the first sort of

look at how to take your expertise

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and skill into a business.

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But there's another way, which

is really looking at like, you

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know, look at your proprietary

approach for how you do something.

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So within every industry, there's

sort of a set of, of rules or

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guidelines that people follow,

especially when they're new.

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So there's like a model or methodology

for how things work, right?

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Like a kind of a step by

step path in most industries.

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So if you go and look at marketing,

marketing has an approach.

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Sales has an approach.

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Design has an approach.

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Everybody, you know, project

management has an approach, right?

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So there's kind of ways that you, when

you're getting started, you sort of take

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somebody else's framework and then you

you start working on that framework.

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Well, when you become an expert, you

start to have your own way that you

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are doing the thing that you're doing.

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And whether it's defined or not,

you have an approach that you're

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using that's unique to you.

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It's why people are drawn to you.

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It's why you have complete sort of

control over your expertise, right?

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That makes you an expert.

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And so we call that your

proprietary approach, right?

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That's your IP, your

intellectual property.

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That's what you have sort of created

in, in order to go out and help people.

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So if you're in that place where

you're like, well, I'm kind of just

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using someone else's framework.

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I'm, I'm certified in somebody's approach.

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Like, that's great.

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That's a great place to start, but I

guarantee that you have a unique view

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in terms of how to apply that framework.

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Or if you don't yet, keep working

with people one-on-one until

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you've figured out, like, what's

your unique way of delivering that

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that process or that methodology.

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Cause it's there I promise.

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And and so you'll develop

your own approach.

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So for example you know, in the agency

model, we did a lot of instructional

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design for large corporations.

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And so what that is, is we would design

and develop large online learning

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programs, and we would come in and we

would kind of figure out like, what

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is it that that we need to create in

order to teach people how to do the

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thing that they needed to have done?

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That's it.

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Instructional design in a nutshell.

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But in the instructional design space,

there is a model, it's called the ADDIE

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model, and it's a traditional model.

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It's the one you learn in school.

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It's the one that everyone

kind of starts with.

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And it's A D D I E.

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And so each one of those stands

for you know, something like

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analysis and design and development

implementation and evaluation.

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And, and so, so the ADDIE model

is the one that everyone follows

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when they are first in the space.

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And then there's been a number of people

over the years who have sort of created

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their own iteration of the model.

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So now there's a SAM model, there's

a a LLAMA model, there's different

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approaches, but basically it's, it's

underlining like you're, you know, you're

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starting with kind of an analysis, right?

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Like kind of trying to figure out

what the problem is, and then you're

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evaluating whether or not you've

been able to solve the problem.

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So if you kind of look at like

every single approach out there,

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it kind of starts, starts there,

and then there's some stuff in the

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middle, and then there's an outcome.

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Again, there's one for marketing,

there's one for project management,

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there's one for sales, everyone

has a model that they're following.

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And so when we were in the agency, I

was like, okay, well, we kind of are

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using a lot of different approaches.

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We're using our own proprietary method

that we know works for the work that

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we're doing, the unique way that we

show up and what our clients expect.

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And so our approach was the 5D model.

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And so we just created our own

methodology, our own step by step

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path that was around the five D's.

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And for us, that took all the

different models, it took our unique

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IP and and packaged it together, and

that's how we served our clients.

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And then we could get really, really good

at, at serving our clients consistently,

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getting consistent results and being able

to really measure what we're doing, right?

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So that's an example of packaging

your intellectual property

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in order to help customers.

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So the reason I'm spending some time

talking about this is this is one of

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the cornerstone pieces of the INFINITE

SCALE model, which is to really

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define your own Authority Strategy.

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What makes you stand out?

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What makes you unique?

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And what's the approach that you

take all of your customers through

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or you can take all of your customers

through to go from point A to point B.

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What's that standard approach?

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What's that framework that you use

every single time to to go from from

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the problem that they have to the

result that they're looking for?

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That is the very first piece of this

puzzle because if you can do that, then

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you can deliver a consistent experience.

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So back when I said, like, it's great

when you're doing one-on-one work, right?

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It's a lot easier to be able to

take on custom work or ad hoc work

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or just do something different for

every single customer that you have.

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But when you have ten, when you have a

hundred, when you have a thousand or more

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customers, you can't do that anymore.

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Even, I don't even care, like, you

could have a hundred employees,

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but you still can't do that.

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You still can't bring in a completely

custom random project that has nothing to

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do with your proprietary methodology or

your standard approach that you use and

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and be able to build a scalable business.

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So at the end of the day, once you

can develop kind of a, a standardized

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way in which you help get your, your

customers from point A to point B,

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then you know, you can start adding

more and more people into it and start

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to deliver and serve in a different

way versus just one-on-one custom.

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So that is the, like the very first

thing to becoming a scalable expert

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is that you are able to really own and

identify your proprietary methodology,

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which we call your Authority Strategy.

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And once you have that, then you can

start consistently serving the people

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that you want to help and there's lots

of steps of course in in there to help

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you identify that but that's the very

first piece is to be able to do that.

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Here's the challenge is you've done

that now you can consistently help

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people so you can bring a lot more

people in at the same time, right?

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So instead of just being able to help

one person or try and help, you know,

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as many people as you can fit in into

the hours of the day that you have, then

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now you have a system that you can put

them through that's fairly consistent.

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Then you could hire a team and they

could run through a consistent system.

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You could start to package your

signature framework, your methodology

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into something that can be delivered

outside of you doing one-on-one work.

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That, my friends, is where the power and

the magic shows up, and that's what we're

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super, super passionate about helping

people do, is let's package up what you're

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doing so that you can help more people

without the chaos of just manually trying

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to figure it out, ad hoc you know, kind of

questions and problems and whatever else.

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It becomes the way that you take your

expertise, all of the wonderful, like,

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you know, knowledge and skills that

you've acquired over the years by

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doing the reps, by doing the work, and

getting it out to a broader audience

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that allows you to increase your

impact, your income, and build something

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that is going to live beyond you.

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And so that's how you start

to become The Scalable Expert.

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And then what starts to happen is once

you can package it into something that's

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consistent, then you can get super

creative and and, you know, kind of

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put some ninja tricks in, in terms of

like, how do you actually deliver what

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your expertise is to your customers

because that's when the INFINITE SCALE

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Method really becomes powerful is once

you have it packaged, you can deliver

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it in a million different ways, right?

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So it, then it becomes the match between

like, how do you want to show up?

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Like how, what do you need

in the relationship, right?

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And how your customers need you to

show up so that they can get results.

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And you match that together and you

create a super engaging yet scalable

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experience that helps your people get

results and then you get to come in

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during the time that they need you.

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Instead of like pre scheduled or you know,

just assuming it has to be one-on-one,

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assuming that they're not going to

do the things that they want to do to

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solve their own problems, you get to

come in and solve the obstacles and

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challenges that they're having along

the way versus reteaching things or

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re-explaining things or redoing things

over and over and over and over again.

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And if you have done this in

your business, you know exactly

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what I'm talking about, right?

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Like, you get to that place of

critical mass when you've helped enough

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one-on-one customers where you're

like, I feel like I'm saying the same

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thing over and over and over and again.

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Right?

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And that is when you know that you

are onto something and you have

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that framework inside of you that's

just ready to start to be packaged.

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Because wouldn't you rather, instead

of just repeating yourself over

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and over again, wouldn't you rather

come in and have really meaningful

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coaching or strategy conversations

with your customers that helps keep

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them on the path and moving forward?

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I don't know about you, but that is

a much more fulfilling way to share

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my expertise than just repeating kind

of the basics over and over again.

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Early in my career, I had my very first

job out of college was was so much fun.

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I should say my first corporate job out

of college since I have an undergrad in

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education, was with Kinko's Corporation.

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At that time Kinko's Corporation, which is

that they do I don't know what the proper

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term is, but at the time they were doing a

you know photocopies and printing and and

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binding and all of those kinds of things.

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They're a little bit different now.

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Well now they're not around, but, but back

in the day I worked in their corporate

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office, which happened to be in my town.

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And my job was to do onboarding

training with all of the

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new hires every single week.

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And it was a, it was a great job.

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I had a ton of fun.

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I got to meet a ton of people.

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And so we would teach them how to

make notepads and how to make bound

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documents and how to make photocopies

and how to do graphic design and like

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all the things that we used to do in

the Kinko's offices back in the day.

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But here's the deal my job

was to deliver onboarding the

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orientation, the onboarding training.

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It was a week long.

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I would go into all of the

stores and train all of the

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people and all the machines.

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So, and if you see me in person, do not

ask me to do any of that 'cause I don't

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remember any of that, but like how to

change the toner and all of the things,

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and of course we did customer service and

all the other kind of training that, that

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needed to be done, but, of course, in my

mind, I just remember all the fun we had

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with all of the machines that were there.

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But my point is, I did that

training every week for, I

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don't know, maybe a year or two.

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I can't remember how

long I actually did that.

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It seemed like it was forever.

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But by the end, I literally

could be planning my weekend.

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I could be like doing all sorts

of other things in my head and

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still delivering the training.

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And I was just like, ah, you know, there's

got to be a better way to of doing this

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than my just repeating myself every single

week to the point where I don't even

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need to think about what I'm delivering

anymore because it's so automatic for me.

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I could like literally read the

script without even thinking about it.

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It's kind of like when you, you know,

are either driving your kids to school

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or you're driving to the office or

you're driving to a store that you go to

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all the time or whatever, and all of a

sudden you get there and you're like, oh!

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I didn't even like, I wasn't

even paying attention.

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Like, how did I get here already?

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That feeling, that was how it was.

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And so I could be doing other things.

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And that was the moment honestly, and

maybe at some time I'll tell you my full

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backstory, but that was a moment for

me that I was like, all right, listen,

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like, we got to get this e-learning

thing going, because there's no reason

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why we need to be delivering this every

single week, the same exact thing.

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We need to package it

and get it out there.

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And that was like before

e-learning was really a big thing.

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And I was thinking about

packaging back then.

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But that is the problem that you are

going to run into either you or your

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team or other people is once you

standardize what you're doing and you

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really package it and go, oh, well,

this is how I helped solve this problem.

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Right?

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Like we, we start here and we go here and

this is the step by step path which is

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great, that's what they're getting from

your expertise is that simplified step by

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step path for them, you're going to have

that moment where you're like, oh my gosh,

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like, I don't think I can deliver this

again because it's the same thing, right?

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Like, especially those of us who

are entrepreneurial in nature where

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we have a million different ideas.

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And that's when you know, like,

that the power of packaging can do

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so much for you and your business.

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That it unlocks unlimited

potential for how you can scale.

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So you can do a book, you can do a

kind of a worksheet or a workbook or

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a kit or something like where it's

all kind of packaged with templates

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and all the different things.

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You can create a course, you can create a

mastermind, you could create a membership,

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you could create a certification program.

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You could create a live event.

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You could create a recorded event.

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Sky's the limit, right?

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Like there's a million different ways

that you can deliver to, to provide

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value for your customers, to put

out different offers that, that your

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customers can interact with you or

your proprietary approach once you

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have it in as a packageable asset.

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And that is so powerful when that

happens because then you have

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choice in when you are showing up.

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You have choice to be able to come

in at a high level and help people.

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You have choice to be able to

deliver it in whatever way you

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want to show up and deliver it.

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And you have choice in helping

people be able to, to get that

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proprietary system on demand so they

can access it whenever they need it.

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And that is when instead of creating

like random offers or different

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things that are going on all over your

business, you're starting with your

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proprietary approach, packaging it,

and then that's how you're growing

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is by offering it in different ways.

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So that, my friends, is the beginning of

the journey of becoming a scalable expert.

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Once you become a scalable

expert, then you start unlocking

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the power of your expertise.

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So instead of

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only being able to deliver it one-on-one

and not be able to get your message

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out to impact more people, to be able

to help more people solve the problem

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that you uniquely are able to solve, you

are able to package into an asset that

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lives and breathes outside of you and

your time so you can help people at the

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highest level in different areas than

you probably even have imagined up until

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this point, and it puts you in a position

where your expertise becomes scalable.

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So I welcome you in.

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Hopefully this is something that you start

to think about, like, how do I do this?

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How do I show up as an expert and scale

a business that not only provides you

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with the income that you want, the

impact that you want, but also gives

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you a little bit of time to reap the

rewards of all of the work that you

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have put into becoming an expert.

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There you go, my friends.

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Until next time, enjoy working on

how do you package your expertise.

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If you love this episode, I would love

it if you were to give it a review,

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:

share it with your friends, and check

out all of the other resources that

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:

we have for you out on taralbryan.com.

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All right, take care.

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