How to Use Systems to Scale Past 6-Figures in Your Service Based Business
We bet you’re thinking that if you start using a certain software, tool, or marketing mechanism, that’s going to be the thing to soar you past 6 figures in your service-based business. (You can probably tell where we’re going with this, but…) In all actuality, it isn’t.
After working with 5-, 6-, even 7-figure clients who are charging anywhere from $750+ on retainer to $60k one-time projects, we know a thing or two about helping service providers scale past 6 figures without the stress, overwhelm, or taking up all of their precious time.
We know you’re so close to finally reaching that point in your business, too, but you just don’t think you have the time or capacity to make it happen. So, in our own experience working with these clients, here are the 3 things we’ve noticed are required for service-based business owners wanting to scale past 6 figures and beyond.
Know Your Numbers
By numbers, we mean the price of your offer and how long it takes you to complete client projects. If you don’t know how many hours you use to complete projects, especially if you have a team, then there’s (literally) no way for you to know what you should be charging. Way too often are we seeing service providers who are overdelivering with the value of what they offer versus the price they’re actually charging.
CRAFTING A HIGH-TOUCH SIGNATURE SERVICE
Making a couple of tweaks to this refinement area is really critical, and we’ve called it a High-Touch Signature Service™ (HTSS for short). In a nutshell, a HTSS is one that:
Is a premium offer in the value of the service and impact of the results you achieve for your clients
Is a premium experience for your clients in the way that they feel working with you due to personalized touchpoints, great communication, clear expectations, boundaries, etc.
Solves the whole problem completely because it doesn’t leave your clients hanging or needing to buy your next thing
Focuses on your expertise and not fluff in the sense that you’re only offering services that will solve the whole problem, and it isn’t stuffed with tons of extra services that have minimal to no impact on the results
Is clear who it’s best for, which also makes it easily referrable, and you’ll find yourself turning down clients who don’t fit the description versus running in feast or famine mode
HOW TO CALCULATE YOUR NUMBERS
We help our Incubator clients refine their offer into a HTSS with a specialized calculator that, by itself, will allow you to walk away with clear, realistic numbers for:
Client value (Lifetime Value and Annual Contract Value)
Profit amount and profit margin
Annual revenue goal and monthly revenue using your desired salary and profit margin
Growth rate percentage and projected revenue for the year
The percentage of income from each of your services, so you can identify which are pulling their weight, what you may need to scrap, where you need to readjust, and what can be simplified
Your hours, utilization, and available hours (if any) used on client work and fulfillment
What your actual package pricing should be, either solo or with a team, so you don’t underprice, overdeliver, or quickly burnout yourself or your team members
We also provide one-to-one feedback of your money goals vs. your offers and the amount you’re charging for them, and we help you tweak every part of that process to be custom to your business and goals. (Interested in joining? Learn more and apply here.)
Create a System for Your Client Experience
The key part of scaling past 6 figures, especially to get your time back, is to remove yourself from the processes that make sense. Now, we are not saying to remove yourself entirely from the process– as a service provider, that shouldn’t be your goal. What we are saying is that you shouldn’t be customizing and creating everything from scratch. Instead, how can you do the things you’re already doing manually, just faster?
HOW TO AUTOMATE AND STREAMLINE YOUR CLIENT EXPERIENCE
It is possible to achieve an automated and streamlined client experience while still being personable, customizable, and you. Because the client experience is so important for service providers, it’s often looked at as the one piece that should always have the most active attention, which is usually why it’s so manual.
However, when you feel the need to be so active in the experience, you also risk a varying experience from client to client because you realistically can’t uphold the same level of experience that way for all of your clients. (And if you can, even if you have a team to help, your and their time isn’t being spent correctly.) Clients who receive the same level of incredible experience will refer other clients.
This means you should be working things into your client experience that require minimal customization from you, like:
Canned emails for communication and responses, like sending contracts, replies for FAQs, sending the proposal, welcoming new clients, sending client homework, booking a discovery call, regular check-ins and updates, etc.
Utilizing workflows with your CRM (or heck, investing in a CRM like Dubsado if you haven’t already) that will allow you to automate processes like your inquiry/new lead process, onboarding, offboarding, checking in after the fact to ask for referrals, etc.
Templates that only need small changes, if any, to be sent to clients like the proposal, contract, questionnaires, results presentation, etc.
These things, though much more streamlined and automated, can still be personalized. You’ll have the bulk of everything you need, all you have to do is spend 1-2 minutes to add a little personalization to an email here or a form there.
Grow a System of Support
Once you’re empowered because you know that you’re charging adequately, that you’re getting paid for all of the hours you’re working on a client (not just the time you’re doing deliverables), that your price and requests for your team are ethical, and that your clients are all getting the same experience, then it simply comes down to the two levers of opportunity for scaling.
You can either 1. Charge more, so you can work with less clients while still making more money, or 2. Work with more clients, but in order to do that you need to grow your team. If that’s the opportunity you want, then you need a system of support.
WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT BUILDING A SYSTEM OF SUPPORT
The fact of the matter is that you don’t just want to build a team– You should be aiming to build a functional, healthy system of support. That means making sure you’re utilizing the key players on your team for growth, and not just getting tasks you don’t like off your plate (although that does play a part in it to allow you to focus on your zone of genius). In order to do that, you need to identify the solutions to the problems you’re facing in your business (lead gen, conversions, profit margin, etc.), and then hire to fulfill those solutions as they align with your short and long term goals. (Ex: “I have more leads flowing in than I can possibly convert by myself. I need to train someone else on my sales process, so they can be equipped to help.”)
In order to build a system of support that wants to stick around to support you, your mission, and your clients, then you also need to create an amazing company culture. This entails having systems around communicating with your team members to give feedback and reviews, giving the necessary room for team members to voice their thoughts and opinions on decisions, having a safe space that they can report incidents at work that isn’t just with you, allowing their role to shift and expand as you both uncover their strengths and weaknesses. In a sense, you are always investing in your team, even if it isn’t a monetary one.
Scaling Past 6-Figures Doesn’t Mean Pivoting to Digital Products
Scaling to 6-figures and beyond doesn’t have to mean giving up on your clients or switching to digital products or low-ticket offers. In fact, that shouldn’t be the next step for you, no matter what “guru” told you so. Don’t get distracted by those sexy phrases like “passive income” or “make money while you sleep” because we’ll be the first to assure you that, yes, they are BS if you don’t have the time or audience needed to make them work (no matter what type of elaborate funnel you’re convinced to set up).
Unless you have the means and budget to post consistently on Instagram, drop BIG bucks on ads, create freebies, publish blog posts consistently and Pin them, be active on every channel, and do all of this always to sell– because as soon as you stop, sales will plummet– then this isn’t the route you should take.
We know that, ultimately, all you care about is serving, and we want to help you get back to doing more of that. Which is why we created the Incubator.
The Real Way to “Work Less While Making More”
You can replace 2,400+ sales of your low-priced offer or digital product with just 12 clients of your High-Touch Signature Service™, you just need to tweak your offer and rework how you’re currently spending your time. We help you do all those things and more inside the Incubator. You’ll be able to confidently refine your offer, increase your clients’ packages, have a streamlined system of project management and client experience, build your 20-hour or less dream work week, grow a team with ethical leadership practices, and more.
INCREASE YOUR CLIENT CONTRACT VALUE
One of the first things you’ll do inside the Incubator after crafting your HTSS is reach out to your existing clients to increase their contracts and ask for referrals. Having the conversations can be super difficult if you’re an introvert or just don’t know what to say. One of our clients, Bonnie, was so worried that her clients wouldn’t be receptive to a price increase and that new leads wouldn’t want to pay so much money for her signature service.
What actually happened is, in just 6 weeks, she increased her client contracts by $60k, and the new leads she’d acquired in the weeks after that all signed on– that’s a 100% conversion rate. Three months after joining the Incubator, she took a 10-day laptop-free vacation to Costa Rica, which is something she never thought she’d be able to do.
“I ended up converting 100% of the clients I pitched my HTSS to, which is 2.33x my old price.”
BUILD YOUR DREAM WORK WEEK AND STICK TO IT
With our Dream Week Builder Template, you’ll be able to easily map out how you want to spend your time during the week, whether it be for personal time, family/life time, client meetings, team meetings, marketing, etc. Then, we help you stick to that by creating an efficient project management system and streamlined CRM. (We personally love and recommend Asana and Dubsado, but you have the freedom to recreate the lessons and templates in your preferred tools.) We give you the tech tutorials, one-click import templates, and walkthroughs to get all set up and running as you progress through the program.
“Gah! Ok… [Asana for Business through the Incubator] might be cheaper than hiring someone who doesn’t even know how to do it… Now I see what you’re saying!”
REFRAME YOUR MINDSET TO LET GO OF LIMITING BELIEFS
Some of the biggest hurdles our clients face are all related to mindset and the need to let go of limiting beliefs that are hindering their progression. As much as we know actionable steps and tangible work is helpful, so do we know the power of some good ol’ mindset training and reframing. That’s why we also work inside the program to help you bust the perfectionism, foster an experimental mindset, and see the realistic version of scenarios that seem to be the end all be all.
“Identifying my limiting beliefs and dismantling them is HUGE for me. I completely shifted my mindset and KNOW that I will go further than I anticipated”
“The mindset training is so good!! Literally made me cry, because it helped me let go of so much of the pressure I had put on myself… I keep forgetting that it’s okay to take things slow in my business right now, and that doesn’t mean that my business is failing or that I’m giving up.”
Create a Life-First Business with the Incubator
We know how gruesome the overworked and underpaid cycle can be, and we want to help you break out of that to finally reach the goals you’ve dreamt for your life and business all along. If you think the Incubator may be the next move for your business, then take 10 minutes to fill out our short application here. We have conversations with everyone who applies before they invest a penny to make sure your business and goals align with The Incubator to yield you the best results, so go ahead and fill out this short application. Not only so we can chat more, but so you can receive the invite to our advanced invite-only training where we’ll teach you how to double your income while working 20 hours a week or less.
Once you apply, DM us on Instagram @bossproject and let us know, so we can get the conversation started and move you to the top of the queue!
