9 Proven Ways to Scale Your Business as a Solopreneur

making money can ruin your life

In 2013, I was running my online fitness business Turbulence Training as an (almost) solopreneur.

We were already generating 7-figures in revenue and gearing up for one of my biggest product launches ever.

I had my HUGE idea. I had a fantastic product. I had an engaged audience.

But there was a problem…

My revenue was flatlining.

Even with the new product launch, I was on pace for “only” $1 million (which was less than I’d made the year before) and I knew we could do better.

So I reached out to my network of mentors and asked for their advice on how I could scale faster.

With their guidance I decided to hire two gentlemen, Jeff and Gary to improve the copy on our offer, build out high converting Facebook ads, and create a “Free Workout Funnel”.

And the results were nothing short of incredible.

Not only was the new product ROI positive from Day 1, but we quickly scaled the offer, investing more than $5,000 in Facebook ads and, as a result, generating more than $5.5 million in one year.

I also had my first 7-figure month in the fitness industry.

But hiring Jeff and Gary was only one part of the puzzle that helped me 5X my business’s revenue in 12 months.

There were 9 other tactics I’m going to share with you today that allowed me to scale so quickly without a huge team of employees.

And by implementing the following 9 lessons into your company, you can quickly scale your business as a solopreneur and create the freedom, income, and impact you’ve always wanted.

1. Create Your “Treasure Map”

“A genius without a roadmap will get lost in any country. But even an average person, with a roadmap, will find their destination anywhere” ~Brian Tracy

To quickly scale your business as a solopreneur, you must have a plan.

More specifically, you must have a proven and detailed plan tied to specific deadlines and vetted by outside eyes (more on that point later).

When most solopreneurs set out to grow their business, they take a scattered and haphazard approach.

Instead of taking the time to identify the proven “profit levers” that will provide a disproportionate ROI (things like referrals, Instagram marketing, sales scripts, etc), they throw stuff at the wall and hope that something will stick.

For example, when I first started working with my now superstar client Frank Den Blanken, he was making $10,000 a month working 70+ hours a week.

He had built his life around his business and had no idea how to escape from the golden handcuffs of success. Not only was he doing everything in his business, but he was wasting 10+ hours a week on projects that didn’t need to be done in the first place.

I gave him a simple exercise called the 90-Day “Reality Maker Blueprint” (and my Billionaire Time Matrix which I’ll share later) and helped him create a proven 12-week plan to grow his business while working less.

Within 90-days, Frank had doubled his revenue.

Within 12 months, he more than 20X’d his revenue while working fewer hours, traveling the world with his wife and making time for weekly date nights.

Listen…

Success isn’t easy. But it is simple…when you have the right plan in place.

To help you create your own proven plan and scale your business fast, click here to download my 90-Day reality maker blueprint and watch the video below where I walk you through how to fill it out step-by-step.

2. Ruthlessly Test and Optimize Your Offer

As a solopreneur, having the right offer–and refining the particular articulation of that offer–is everything.

And the single fastest way to scale your income without working more hours is to ruthlessly refine, optimize, and test the marketing behind your product.

Earlier this year, I launched my new case study group coaching program, “2X 10 Less”, what I believe to be the best course on the market for entrepreneurs who want to double their income while working 10 fewer hours each week

(Pssst… If you want to learn more about the program and how you can 2-5X your income while working 10 fewer hours a week, click here) .

But there was a problem.

Even though my team and I poured hundreds of hours into developing the product, refining our email marketing, and getting our audience hyped for the launch…

…We didn’t put the same effort into optimizing our message and crafting a killer sales page.

As a result, our first launch was a spectacular flop and we didn’t sell a single seat in the program.

After closing it down and going back to the drawing board, I recognized the problem and invested in a great copywriter and sales page designer to improve our message and branding.

When we launched again, the program generated nearly $30,000 in revenue in only 48 hours.

The product didn’t change. Our email list didn’t change. But the way we positioned our offer did.

The difference between running a 7-figure business and a floundering 5-figure business is rarely the quality of the product itself. You already know that your product needs to be top-notch and I have no doubt that you’ve done your part to make it one of the best in your industry.

The difference is almost always in the particular articulation of what you have to offer.

To scale your business faster, you must become obsessed with maximizing your message and dialing in your offer.

Aggressively split test your sales copy and page designs. Test out VSLs and written copy. Hire experts to critique and improve your offer.

The faster you optimize your offer and discover the exact messaging and positioning that convinces your audience to buy, the faster you can scale and make your first 7-figures.

3. Remember Mark Ford’s Million Dollar Advice

My mentor Mark Ford, the original Founder of Early to Rise, once told me that,

“Until you hit $1,000,000/year in revenue or more, 80% of your time needs to be spent selling.”

And he’s right.

Once you have a proven system for acquiring new leads, 80% of your time should be spent converting those leads into buyers and raving fans.

To do this effectively, you must do three things…

1. Have a Proven Sales Script

Only novices get on the phone without a proven script to convert leads into buyers. When I helped my client Ron Mourra implement and refine his sales script, his conversion rate went from 40-50% to more than 80% and his business went from the verge of bankruptcy to 6-figures in a matter of months.

2. Learn from the Best

Study the greats of the sales industry. Watch videos from Grant Cardone, Jordan Belfort, Zig Ziglar, and Brian Tracy. The better you can sell, the faster your business will grow and the only shortcut to improving your sales game is to learn from people who have already put in the time and money to discover what works.

3. Make More Indirect Offers

Too many entrepreneurs think that “sales” are something that only happens on a specific page or over the phone. But the truth is, you should be selling all the time. Promote your products inside of your blog, pitch them on Instagram, talk about them in the introduction of your podcast.

Give people more opportunities to buy from you and you’ll scale 10X faster

4. Eliminate the Trivialities and Hack Away at the Nonessential

I’m not talking about delegation of work-related activities (but I will in my next point), I’m referring to the trivial work and obligations that bog down your personal life.

Listen…

As much as you might like to believe otherwise, you cannot be an effective solopreneur, super-parent, triathlete, and housekeeper.

If you want to keep your sanity and avoid burnout, something has to give.

To scale faster while making more time for the things that matter most (your health, hobbies, and relationships), you must eliminate the trivial stuff.

Hire a housekeeper to come and clean your home for $75 a week. Use Instacart and pay someone else to do your grocery shopping. Pay your neighbor’s teenage son $20 to cut your grass and pull the weeds. Invest in a pre-made meal service so you don’t have to think about meal prep or clean up.

Stop wasting your time on $10/hour tasks and accept that you cannot build a 7-figure lifestyle with 5-figure habits.

And for those of you who are worried about what other people will think (e.g. your nosy mother-in-law who believes that you must cook your own meals to be a good parent), realize that prioritizing your vision is actually one of the most selfless things you can do.

You have value to offer the world. You have a message to share and lives to change…

…And every time you spend an hour cleaning the house or cooking your own meals, you are stealing an hour from your family and clients that could have been used to increase your impact.

Just imagine if Oprah had allowed stacks of laundry and dirty dishes stand in the way of her mission and prevent her from impacting millions of lives.

Let someone else take care of the things you don’t need to do and invest your extra time into your vision and family.

As a bonus tip, I also encourage all of my clients to stop working out so much. Three days of intense exercise is plenty. Unless your business depends on your physique there’s no reason to spend 6-10 hours in the gym every week. Use that extra time energy to grow your business and reconnect with the people you love. I promise you’ll be better for it.

5. Delegate Like a Billionaire

The word “solopreneur” is a bit of a misnomer. After coaching more than 200+ 7-figure entrepreneurs, I have yet to meet one person who successfully built a million-dollar business by themselves.

You don’t need to have a big team or even a single full-time employee. But if you want to scale your business quickly and effectively, you must become a master of strategic delegation.

To help you with this, I want to share a free tool I call the “Billionaire Time Matrix” and it goes like this…

First, you’re going to pull out a sheet of paper and draw two lines, separating the page into four boxes.

Inside of these boxes you’re going to write the questions:

  • What Do I Hate Doing?
  • What is Not My Job?
  • What Doesn’t Need to Be Done?
  • What Are My Distractions?

In the first box, you’re going to identify something in your schedule each week that you hate doing. For me, I used to spend 30-90 minutes each morning on phone calls that, important as they may have been, were not a good use of my time.

When I realized this I had my assistant close off my calendar from ALL meetings until after 10 am. Not only did this save my magic time (and allow me to focus on the biggest profit driver in my business), but it actually reduced the number of calls I have to complete each week.

In the second box, you’re going to identify something you’re currently doing that is not worth your time at all. My example is small podcasts.

In the past, I would do any and every podcast interview that came my way–even if they only got 500 downloads a month.

When I completed this exercise, I realized that doing these podcasts drained my mental energy and completely wasted my time. They drove almost no profits and reduced my ability to focus on the most important profit-driving activities. Today, I never agree to podcast interviews unless the podcast in question generates a certain number of downloads per episode.

In the third box, you’re going to write out all of the things you’re currently doing that are not your job. Things that need to be done but do not need to be done by you.

My examples were uploading videos and completing sales calls, but this can be anything that is outside of your “area of genius.” For example, my buddy Bedros Keuilian doesn’t write any of his own blog articles or emails. He shares the message with his copywriter and then trusts them to put his words down and share it with his audience.

And finally, you’re going to identify your biggest distractions during the week.

For example, I used to upload videos and stories to my Instagram in the afternoon and, without fail, as soon as I hit “publish” I would get sucked into the vortex of new content from the people I follow and waste 30-60 minutes a day scrolling through my feed. After outsourcing this task to my social media manager, I was able to eliminate one of my biggest distractions without sacrificing the quality of consistency of my content.

Over to you.

Fill out the four boxes above and then find freelancers on Upwork, FreeUp, or Facebook who can do your dirty work for you and let you focus on the things that will drive real growth inside of your business.

6. Automate (Technology is Your Friend)

If you’re just starting out as a solopreneur, you’ll likely be tempted to try and find the cheapest ways to run your business.

Instead of paying $140/month for ClickFunnels, you’ll try building your sales pages by hand.

Instead of using a more expensive email service provider (ESP), you’ll try and find the cheapest option–even if it adds an extra 3 hours of unnecessary work to your schedule each week.

But to scale quickly, you must stop tripping over dollars to save dimes and leverage software and technology that will make your life easier and help your business grow faster.

Create automated Facebook ads to generate leads while you sleep. Invest in a high-quality ESP that allows you to create automated funnels to convert your new leads into paying customers. Use an app like Calendly so clients and prospects can schedule phone calls without needing to contact you directly.

By effectively leveraging technology to automate your business, you can scale faster and work less.

7. Build Your Profit Pyramid

One of the biggest mistakes I see first-time entrepreneurs making is that they only have one offer.

Listen…

Inside of every business, there will always be 5-20% of your customer base who actually want to pay more and get exclusive products and services.

It’s like buying a new car. Two people can go to the same dealership and leave with the exact same make and model…but one person will pay $30,000 and another will pay $60,000 because they want all of the extra bells and whistles.

To take advantage of this, you need to build what I call your “profit pyramid” by creating ultra high-end offers that you only sell to your best customers.

For example, in my business, I have a low end (under $500) offers like my books, Instagram course, and Morning Routine Course. Mid-range offers like my 2X-10 Less program ($1,500). High end offers like my group coaching workshops ($7,500). And ultra-high-end offers like my $25,000/day 1-on-1 coaching and my $25,000/year mastermind.

These ultra-high-end offers give me something to sell to the top 5% of my customer base and provide a disproportionate return on my time and energy.

But what about your business?

How can you build your profit pyramid?

Is it a mastermind? A hands-on coaching experience? Live retreat? Done-for-you services?

Let me know in the comments below.

8. Dial-In Your Community

Almost ten years ago, I met a young man (now a long-time friend and coaching client…and a speaker at our upcoming Perfect Life Retreat), named Jason Capital at my friend Yanik Silver’s Underground Online digital marketing seminar in Washington, DC.

At the time, Jason was just getting started as an entrepreneur and he asked me to help him refine his marketing strategy for his new business.

I sat down with him for an hour, drew up a business plan on a napkin, and encouraged him to use his new connections from the event to run affiliate promotions for his new product.

He took my advice and, within 30-days built a $20,000/month business using the connections he made at that event. That is the power of having the right community.

To scale your business as fast as possible, you need to surround yourself with people who have already “been there, done that” and build 6-figure connections with people who can help you grow faster.

The right connection can mean the difference between struggling to grow your business for years and 10X’ing your income in 12 months.

Go to live events. Join masterminds.

Do whatever you need to do to surround yourself with the right people and you will scale 10X faster than you currently think is possible.

9. Ruthlessly and Continuously Review and Reflect

To quickly scale your business, you must commit to ruthless and continuous reflection and course correction.

Listen. It doesn’t matter how great your business is or how amazing you are. You are going to make mistakes. You’re going to waste time on projects that will never pan out (like that time I lost $200,000 with my Turbulence Training cookbook…facepalm). You are going to spend a few months moving in the wrong direction.

It’s part of the price you pay for success.

The key is to recognize when you’re going down a dead end and correct course as fast as humanly possible.

Spend at least one day a month looking at the numbers in your business to see what’s working and what isn’t. Review your 90-day plan on a weekly basis to make sure you’re on track to hit your goals. Always ask yourself, “What am I not seeing that is standing between me and my goals?”

The faster you can find the problems in your business (and solve them) the faster you’ll scale. And when you find something that is working, you can double down and make it work even faster.

Bonus: Get Objective Eyes and High-Level Mentoring

While I was writing this, I came up with a new saying:

“The lone wolf looks fierce but sleeps hungry at night. The pack of lions eat well.”

Now…I have no idea if that’s true and I don’t have the patience to watch an episode of Animal Planet to try and find out. But I can tell you from personal experience, if you try and build your business without the help of a coach or mentor who can provide objective eyes and ruthless feedback…you will go to sleep hungry each night.

In my life, I have a whole team of coaches that include everyone from Mark Ford to Bedros Keuilian to Sharran Srivatssa to Simon Black. Even though many of these people are my friends, I still pay them to work with me and help me recognize the blind spots that are holding me back from my goals.

And I can say without any reservations that I owe my success to these men and women.

To reach the next level in your life and business, you must enlist the help of a coach or mentor. You need to have someone who has already achieved what you want to achieve and can help you navigate the road ahead of you faster and more effectively.

One piece of advice from the right coach can make you millions. And trying to be the “lone wolf” and thinking that you know it all can and will cost you millions.

If you want to scale your business as fast as possible, you need a coach.

It doesn’t have to be me. But you need someone in your corner who can look at your life and business objectively and give you the feedback, accountability, and constructive criticism you can’t get anywhere else.

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Want to Achieve Your 12-Month Goals in the Next 12 Weeks?

Then click here to get free access to my “90-Day Reality Maker Blueprint”–the exact tool I use with my $25k/day coaching clients–where I’ll show you how to achieve your biggest goals in only 90-days or less.

Craig Ballantyne

If you want to double your income, work less, and become the ambitious millionaire you've always wanted to be... Craig Ballantyne is the coach who will help you do it. With more than 20-years of experience as an entrepreneur and five 7-figure businesses under his belt, he specializes in helping "struckling" entrepreneurs get out of the mud and build the business of their dreams. To see if you qualify for Craig's "Millionaire Coaching Program" send an email to support@earlytorise.com with the subject line "Millionaire".