SS G R OWTH REA ORD Th a t was a mi st ake . › I didn’t try to do it. It just happened. Nature creation. Sometimes in life that occurs. And sometimes it isn’t like that. S ome t i m e s yo u ’r e co ns ci o us ly t ryi ng to cr ea t e s o me t h i n g . It mi ght be beca use you really wan t to a chieve your goals. Because you want to provide for your family. Because you want freedom. Or because you want to impact those whom you really care about. Since I was 16, I’ve created dozens of 7+ figure businesses. Today I’m an investor, mentor, and advisor to a lot of people. Sometimes building a successful business comes down to being at the right place at the right time by mistake. A n d s o met imes it ’s ab o u t building the right time and place for m ag ic to h ap p en . In my book that I wrote in 2018-2019, The Nuclear Effect, I wrote about the six pillars of building a 7+ figure business. Today I’m writing this, for you, as an extension of that book. Or rather, to share what I’ve learned since then. When you’re an evolutionary human (as I suspect you are), you’re always learning a lot and building on top of yesterday’s knowledge. Since writing my book on building a successful online business, I’ve learned a lot more about what makes sense in the real world and not just what works on paper. 21 THINGS LEARNED SCALING 100’S OF 7+ FIGURE BUSINESSES SCOTTOLDFORD.COM DF I sca l e d my fi r s t seven-fi g ure b u sin e ss wh e n I w a s 1 6 . SCOTT O L L BUS I NE I’m talking about scaling your business in a way that creates harmony in all areas of your life. Because… the truth is… Building success in the eyes of others is radically easy. Building success that you can be proud of when you look in the mirror can be much more difficult. That’s why I wanted to create this quick guidebook for you. It contains prompts, lessons, and things I believe are important for you. As a st arting point: In what I write, I’m assuming that… • You already have an online business. • You already have some level of revenue, even if it might feel like a roller coaster ride. • You already have customers and clients that you can deliver a service or result for. • You have already used things like content marketing, or a funnel. Simply put… It’s likely if you’re reading this… You’ve been in the build stage of your business. And now it’s time to rebuild it, in order to be able to scale it. W h at d o es t h at m ean? What I’ve found is that most entrepreneurs build a business that isn’t ready to scale. However, they skip the stage in-between building and scaling. 21 THINGS LEARNED SCALING 100’S OF 7+ FIGURE BUSINESSES SCOTTOLDFORD.COM And when they do scale? They often lose money. They often experience stress. They often can’t create customer results. And in the end, they either lose it all… get burned out… or become depressed. I bel ieve it ’s eas ier t o b u ild the “ right” business than you could eve r i m ag in e. And of course, I’d say that. Because I’ve done it over and over again. Let’s get into this… because the future of your business may not hinge on a simple little guide that I put together… But this “simple little guide” WILL save you a lot of energy, time, money. I don’t want you to look back, at some point in the future, and be forced to admit to yourself… that it could have been a lot easier if you had just gotten the right guidance when you needed it. P.S. Some of these concepts will make more sense to you than others, some will resonate with you more than others, and that’s okay. Print this, save it, do whatever you need. I can almost guarantee you as you come back to this in the future, various sections will matter more (or less). > If you don’t know me that well, you can learn a little about my background in this video, along with what I do nowadays in this video. As well, you can find my entire “background” on ScottOldford.com or over on my Instagram at instagram.com/scottoldford THE 3 LANE MARKETING METHOD / SLOW LANE SCOTTOLDFORD.COM 21 THINGS I’VE LEARNED: 01 / THE HARMONY TRIANGLE I wish someone could have shared this with me at the beginning of me running businesses. If you don’t know much about my past, When I was 21, I ended up a million dollars in debt. In 2018, I built an 8-figure business that put me totally out of alignment in nearly every area of my life. In each of these cases, if I had known about this simple triangle, I would have been able to fix the root problem. Inside every entrepreneur's life, we have three core things that we must flow energy towards. > YOU > YOUR CUSTOMER > THE BUSINESS Now, the core problem and issue is that if these aren’t in alignment with each other, you’re going to create 1 (or 2) of 3 problems. If you don’t take care of yourself… you will burn out, feel depressed or you will feel like your business is a prison instead of an opportunity to create freedom. If you don’t take care of your customers… you won’t create results, it will be hard to sell and market your service or transformation, you won’t believe your business actually does anything and eventually, you will have to close your business. If you don’t take care of your business… you won’t make money, profits will disappear, your team won’t get the work done, and your business will come crumbling down. In most cases, people take care of their business first, themselves last. > The right order? You, Your Business, Your Customer. WAIT… WHY IS THE CUSTOMER LAST? Because if you aren’t taken care of… you can’t take care of the business. If you can’t take care of the business, the energetics of the business and the flow of the business will be off, and if that’s off… you can’t ever actually help your customer. But what happens when these 3 elements are in full alignment? The business and the energy of the business have the ability to quickly grow. 21 THINGS LEARNED SCALING 100’S OF 7+ FIGURE BUSINESSES SCOTTOLDFORD.COM YOUR EXERCISE: Simply take a moment to think about which of these three parts are out of alignment and how you could get them back into a state of alignment that feels better. YOUR RESOURCE: Balancing the triangle comes down to a variety of exercises and frameworks that I’ve put together in a masterclass called The Harmony Triangle. IF YOU FEEL LIKE YOU’RE OUT OF HARMONY and desire more balance… You can get this masterclass, on-demand, right here. I also talk about this in this video, along with this one, just so you know what I’m talking about… 21 THINGS LEARNED SCALING 100’S OF 7+ FIGURE BUSINESSES SCOTTOLDFORD.COM 21 THINGS I’VE LEARNED: 02 / THE SIX PILLARS In 2016, I created this strategy for one of my 1-on-1 clients… I started talking about it more and more and it ended up being the strategy that has helped thousands of Entrepreneurs effectively scale their business and the core framework of my book, The Nuclear Effect. The concept is really easy, yet very important. In every business, there are 6 core pillars that we must keep track of and continually pay attention to. 1 - Marketing 2 - Sales 3 - Operations/Team 4 - Delivery 5 - Finance 6 - Mindset Businesses are built on being able to solve other people’s problems. In order to solve problems, there is an opportunity. Inside of our business, we have opportunities for growth in these 6 areas and these 6 areas allow our business to either stand-still or grow. A major problem? We don’t pay attention to the things we need to. This leads to the problem becoming larger and larger. And the core thing we do as Entrepreneurs? Solve problems. When an Entrepreneur comes to me to go from $50K/month to $200K/month. I can easily tell them how to do it based on these 6 pillars. YOUR EXERCISE: On a piece of paper put down these 6 pillars and then start outlining every problem under each pillar inside of your business. From there select what problems you will fix in the next 30 and 90 days and then revisit every 30 days. YOUR RESOURCE: My book, The Nuclear Effect is built on this framework and you can pick it up here for $1. It’s 278 pages and goes deep into all of this. Click here to check it out. If you simply want to do the exercise today, watch this free video from YouTube or read the article on Entrepreneur.com 21 THINGS LEARNED SCALING 100’S OF 7+ FIGURE BUSINESSES SCOTTOLDFORD.COM 21 THINGS I’VE LEARNED: 03 / MIN D V. HEART V. SOUL V. BODY Inside of every Entrepreneur is a place that we can call “True North”... And how it can easily explain what may be out of "balance" or "harmony". Here's what I mean... Our mind (and sometimes our wounded ego) might want the goal... it might want the big month... it might want to go from mountain top to mountain top... And it might want to go, go, go... Do, do, do. It's keeping track. It's counting the numbers. Our heart? Well, this is the part of us that really would like to help others. It's care and deep compassion for those who we work with... It's the feeling I get after getting off an amazing mentorship session... Or feeling so connected with those that you work with. The heart isn't counting. It doesn't keep tabs. It's simply present with care & compassion. Our body? Well... This is what makes or breaks so many Entrepreneurs. Because if our business is out of alignment. Not so fun things can happen. 21 THINGS LEARNED SCALING 100’S OF 7+ FIGURE BUSINESSES SCOTTOLDFORD.COM Our body keeps track of the 5 AM mornings. It keeps track of not doing things to take care of yourself. It remembers when you slept in. It remembers when you pushed through. It remembers when you went on vacation. It remembers when you ate food that felt good. And it gives you the energy or doesn't based on what you do for it. Our soul? It's the source of our alignment. It's the source of our purpose and passion. Our soul knows what we're meant to do on the planet. Our soul doesn't judge, it simply desires to take us on the best path to destiny. Our soul allows us to know what’s for us. What business model is the best. What makes us feel good, or not. I t ' s w h at en s u res t h at we have a life of fun and fulfillment. It's pretty easy to think of these and quickly realize that if any of these are out of balance... Harmony is difficult to achieve. See... If your mind and body aren't aligned. It'll be difficult to put in the work or you'll burn out. If your mind and soul aren't aligned. You'll build the wrong business. If your heart and mind aren't aligned You'll have a great launch and spend all the money on useless things that your mind (ego) might want that will never bring you happiness. When I work with and mentor Entrepreneurs it's really easy to see what is needed in their business based on which of these 4 are not aligned. Because... while I help a lot of Entrepreneurs with strategy... A strategy without using these 4 elements of who someone is won't bring them to True North. 21 THINGS LEARNED SCALING 100’S OF 7+ FIGURE BUSINESSES SCOTTOLDFORD.COM And I believe the more people who are fully bought into their true North? T h e m o re o u r p lan et will b ecome better and better. YOUR EXERCISE: On a piece of paper, simply map out these on a grid. Look at your life and your business and see where things may make sense that you aren’t doing, or where you are doing things that don’t make sense. 21 THINGS I’VE LEARNED: 04 / HUMAN-BEING VS. HUMAN-DOING It’s funny, we are called Human Beings, yet, most of our society is so stuck in the doing. That’s not the end of the world. However, doing is one of the core reasons that Entrepreneurs can’t get to that “next level”. What do I mean by that? Simply put… If you are in front of the computer, always. If you are on the phone, always. Then you aren’t going to allow your mind to sit and wonder. After having been mentored by multiple Billionaires, one of the best pieces of advice that multiple of them gave me? Their big ideas and problem solving didn’t come from meeting after meeting. It came when they let their mind wander. When they went on vacation. When they allowed themselves to relax. Being a human being is important. Getting out of the day-to-day. Changing your perspective. It’s some of the highest revenue generating activities you can do. A single moment during meditation can be far more effective than any “doing” moment during your week. I remember once, on a phone call, I told one of my clients at the time, Alicia… “Go on a vacation, for at least 5 days… don’t talk to me until you go do it”. She was at $20K/month at the time. And she had neglected the “being” part (and the play, too!) 21 THINGS LEARNED SCALING 100’S OF 7+ FIGURE BUSINESSES SCOTTOLDFORD.COM W h en w e d o n ’t h ave t h at b alance, sc ale is diffic ult. YOUR EXERCISE: Start taking more time for yourself. Perhaps, take a vacation. A day without your phone or creating a ritual around having more time to “be” vs. “do. 21 THINGS I’VE LEARNED: 05 / LEVELS OF CONSCIOUSNESS Throughout my time on the planet, as well as an Entrepreneur I realized that we all live inside of certain levels of consciousness. In business, there are 3 core levels of consciousness that we use on a day-to-day basis. > Willful > Intellectual > Intuitive I believe the best Entrepreneurs don’t live in one single one of these, rather, they use all 3. When they don't, major problems happen in their life. IF YOU’RE ALWAYS WILLFUL. You’ll burn out and never take the path to success. IF YOU’RE ALWAYS INTELLECTUAL. You’ll have a great plan (And even great success), however, you’ll never be able to listen to your gut when it tells you your truth. IF YOU’RE ALWAYS INTUITIVE. You’ll never be able to translate what you feel into reality and while manifesting is beautiful, you do have to come down from the mountain at some point. 21 THINGS LEARNED SCALING 100’S OF 7+ FIGURE BUSINESSES SCOTTOLDFORD.COM See, I believe it’s important to know your intuitive self so you can have the plan that is for you and who you are. I believe then it’s important to use your intellectual nature to build the plan, the strategy and understand how to make it happen. And then your willful nature to be able to make that plan happen while checking in on the other levels of consciousness regularly. Fu r t h er, each elemen t o f yo ur business will require different el em en t s o f yo u r co n s cio u s ness. You don’t want to bring your intuitive consciousness to a meeting with your accountant. And you likely don’t want to bring your willful nature to a webinar meeting to enroll your next group of clients. When you understand your level of consciousness and use the right type, at the right time while being able to notice what level you're at, at what time. You not only have incredible power inside of your business, but inside of your entire life. When it comes to marketing and sales, understanding this concept is one of the most important that I’ve found. For example: A sales page or process that is oriented for someone in intellectual consciousness, however, your traffic (ads, partners, organic, etc) is optimized for willful consciousness. It won’t perform. Ho w d o yo u kn o w wh at leve l of consc iousness your lead is inside o f yo u r market in g ? “How many spots are left” > Willful Consciousness (Level 1) "What's my deadline?" > Willful Consciousness (Level 1) "How long are the group calls" > Willful Consciousness (Level 1) "I need to watch the webinar 2 more times" > Reactive Consciousness (Level 1) "Is there going to be a lot of new content, or how does delivery work?" > Intellect Consciousness (Level 2) "What other type of people are in the program?" > Intellect Consciousness (Level 2) "Do you have anyone else who is a that has been successful?" > Intellect Consciousness (Level 2) "I trust you and know your stuff is good I just don't know if " > Intellect Consciousness (Level 2) "This is clear, I'm directed towards doing this. I will sign up in 2 days" > Intuitive Consciousness (Level 3) "I'm excited for all of the ROI I'm going to be able to get from this, can I pay in full?" > Intuitive Consciousness (Level 3) "I actually bought your program because I know I want to work with you, 1 on 1. How does working with you at that capacity work - my budget is $50,000." > Intuitive Consciousness (Level 3) 21 THINGS LEARNED SCALING 100’S OF 7+ FIGURE BUSINESSES SCOTTOLDFORD.COM All humans can access all states at any time. Most don't. Know what someone will say... who you're marketing to... and what your product is... And you unleash "god-mode" in your marketing and sales. L et ’s d ig d eep in t o each g roup so you c an understand what works fo r eac h level o f co n s cio u s ness. WILLFUL/REACTIVE people are people who react to what they’re presented with very quickly without considering the facts most of the time. People in this group have their lives run by external forces. They don’t control their emotions, and they’re triggered faster. Willful people are those in the “hustle” culture, though to be honest, I don’t like that term. Let’s say they’re in the “get more done” culture. That’s why if your messaging to people in the willful consciousness doesn’t underscore the importance of hard work, or perhaps a to-do list they’re going to disengage from what you’re saying. If your messaging is more about hacks and tricks without putting in enough effort, you’re not going to resonate with those people. You need to make the messaging and offer in a way that tells them that they’re going to be able to do more with their willfulness and they’ll be able to hustle or “get more done,” as I already said, and they’ll feel more secure inside that type of message because it makes them feel like they’re following the right methodology and are getting the right tools so they can hustle in the right direction. As I said, most people in any given community are in the willful/reactive mindset. That’s why most marketing is directed towards those people. Further, because this level of consciousness is easier to emotionally stimulate, it’s easier for marketers to be able to use phrasing and imagery that allures an emotional reaction which can, in turn, allow for purchase. For most of these people to take action, you need to give them a deadline or scarcity, or a reason to evoke their pain so they react and get your products. If you just tell them you have to buy this to solve your problem, then they’re not going to do it easily. That’s why most online marketing teaching is based on manipulation of emotionality: because the primal and reactive consciousness has to be manipulated in order to take action. Again, this has nothing to do with how smart somebody is. It’s more about how much energy they’re dedicating to their level of consciousness. No person is intrinsically better than the other. They’re just accessing a different level of energy inside of their body. INTELLECTUAL people are the more analytical people who start calculating things before deciding how they’re going to do things. 21 THINGS LEARNED SCALING 100’S OF 7+ FIGURE BUSINESSES SCOTTOLDFORD.COM If you go to the intellectual person and you don’t show them the stats and analytics and break it down to them by numbers, they’re not going to buy. And if you go to this type of person with a scarcity tactic but then you don’t give them a good reason for why the offer is going away, they’re not going to buy. This type of person loves a case study, analysis of how something works along with frameworks and methods. Being able to understand the 3-D world and how it works and the observation of it ensures that this person feels secure to make a choice. This leaves us with the last group. INTUITIVE: As the name suggests, this is more along the lines of following your gut in all of the things that you do. Not a lot of people on this earth fall into this group. Many people talk about following their guts, but they end up being reactive due to the fear of missing out, or they start worrying more about the numbers and stop to make sure it makes sense before they make a decision. The thing about the intuitive person is that they’re not going to buy for any type of scarcity-related reason. They don’t care about the timer or a discount. There’s nothing that’s inside them that will intuitively make that purchase decision quicker. The reason is very simple, they follow their gut, and if it says yes, they’ll do it, if not, then they won’t. It’s that simple. A quick note: You won’t be able to sell to the intuitive person until you become you. You need to trust yourself completely. In fact, you need to trust your mind, your heart, and your gut and get all these parts to work together. Once you do so, you’ll be able to attract the intellectual group, too. As you can see, not many people think about this when they do their marketing. But it’s a complete game-changer once you become aware of it. When you know the level of consciousness you’re after, that changes the type of offer you create, the type of delivery, the whole sales process, and so on. If I’m after the intellectual group, for example, having a case study as my opt-in and going deep into the data and why this works and why that doesn’t, that’s what’s going to produce results. Let’s dive deep into how to make your marketing relevant to the people you’re targeting. 21 THINGS LEARNED SCALING 100’S OF 7+ FIGURE BUSINESSES SCOTTOLDFORD.COM So m e t hin g I n o t iced … led me to understand this from bac k in 2017.. . To show you how the level of consciousness impacts your marketing, I want to ask you this question: Have you ever noticed that landing pages and lead magnets that are sexy convert less than those that aren’t? I’m sure you’ve had those moments in your business where you’re scratching your head after going the “professional” route and spending thousands of dollars on your design only to find that it performed worse. At the beginning, I thought it was because sexy pages have more coding, photos, etc., which increases loading time, but when I started digging deeper, I found that the difference in loading time wasn't that much. Once I understood the levels of consciousness, that’s when I knew why sexy pages convert better for some businesses while for others the non-sexy pages and marketing do well. When something is nicely branded and it's sexy, it often attracts a higher level of consciousness and a higher level of frequency, however, there are LESS of those people who MAY bring you fewer customers (or a lower conversion). The problem is that the collective frequency for a customer is more than likely not at that level, and that’s because we all have self-worth/self-love issues. So if someone lands on a beautiful page and they don’t love themselves and they don’t feel worthy, they’ll automatically disengage from that page that they’re visiting or the lead magnet that they’re reading about, and so on. People align to the beliefs in their subconscious almost all of the time, and they’ll continue to make the exact same decisions unless something changes or unless they are made aware of those beliefs. So, if you’re targeting people who are at a lower level of consciousness and who are in the willful/reactive group and want to bring up that level of consciousness, whether it’s with regards to their health or their relationship, or business, you need to match their current level of consciousness to not make them feel insecure about it. So, if your stuff is not sexy, don’t feel bad about it. It might actually allow you to connect with more people. But if you’re targeting intellectual people, it needs to be highly polished to make them feel like it is worth it for them to invest their money into your product. Intuitive people, on the other hand, don’t require things to be highly polished as long as it's in alignment with their frequency to make it easy for them to say yes intuitively to it. That doesn’t mean that it shouldn’t be polished at all, but it doesn’t need to be highly polished like with intellectuals. That’s why I started to focus on having polished content to attract people at higher levels of consciousness, because they get the most value from the work I do, and I love hanging out with them. I kn o w wh at I ju s t s aid s eems counterintuitive, but once you apply it an d st art lo o kin g at t h e data, you’ll see the difference. 21 THINGS LEARNED SCALING 100’S OF 7+ FIGURE BUSINESSES SCOTTOLDFORD.COM HOW TO SELL AND LEVELS OF CONSCIOUSNESS What makes you get the sale based on every level of consciousness? To get a person in the wilful consciousness level to buy your product is completely different from what it takes to sell to the intuitive person. Here are the details for each level. If you’re talking with people in the wilful/reactive consciousness level, you’ll need to focus on fear, desire, sex, survival, riches, repetition, persuasion, threat, danger, and urgency. They buy something because it relieves their emotional triggers. They want to feel relief from responsibility. So if you’re selling a car, for example, you’ll say something like, "This car will only be this cheap today. Prices are going up. This car is much more badass than anyone else's. It's a must-have.” If you want to close a deal with someone in the intellectual consciousness, you’ll need to focus on the reasons, proof, demonstration (of service/product), and how your product compares to others. Intellectual people will buy from you because they know you’ll help them do “x”. They just want to be able to get that outcome from what they’re buying. So if you’re selling a car, for example, you’ll say something like, "This car has 25 features that make it better than that one. It has the best ratings in fuel consumption.” But if you’re talking with a person in the intuitive consciousness, you’ll need to focus on what resonates with them, their values, principles, education, and the uniqueness of your product. They care about aesthetics and exclusivity. Intuitive people buy a specific product because it just feels right, for who they are. So if you’re selling a car for them, you wouldn’t talk them much into buying a specific car, you need to ask them a question like, "What car would reflect the type of person you are?" Selling to intuitive people is simple, but there is no way to convince them to buy a product that they don’t feel is in alignment with themselves. Combining the appropriate level of consciousness with relevancy and everything else you’ve learned so far in this book will make your business “peerless,” that is to say, without any real competitors. It’s hard to be relevant to a group of people, as you’ve already learned. But once you’re relevant to someone’s level of consciousness, that makes you ultra-relevant to that person, and it helps you get their attention. That’s why they’ll do business with you and not even look at your competitors. Levels of consciousness can be incorporated into every part of your life, but when applied specifically to marketing and sales, it takes your relevancy to a whole new level and makes you able to architect the moment of “OMG, I need to work with this person” much easier in your marketing. Skipping the pitch becomes an easier process after implementing this in your marketing. YOUR EXERCISE: What level do you spend the money time in your business? When should you be in order levels on a daily basis? How does this change your marketing and sales strategy or even the strategy of WHO you have as customers? 21 THINGS LEARNED SCALING 100’S OF 7+ FIGURE BUSINESSES SCOTTOLDFORD.COM 21 THINGS I’VE LEARNED: 06 / ENERGY & MONEY After making tens of millions of dollars and being a multi-millionaire, I’ve learned a lot about money. I’ve come to realize that you can understand money the best if you see it as energy. I’ve also realized that money comes to those who both have a plan for that money and those who flow that money. While I could create a whole book on money. I want you to realize a few things about money as you grow. > If money doesn’t move, it doesn’t grow. > If money doesn’t know where it’s going, it’ll go away, by itself. > If you want more money, you have to create more energy. > Energy can be helping someone, serving someone, solving a problem. In essence, people pay you with their energy, for either saving, making, or optimizing energy. In those clients I work with, I regularly create energy maps of Entrepreneurs and their businesses. Want more profit? Optimize your energy. Want to make more revenue? You have to create the ability for more energy to flow inside of your business. YOUR EXERCISE: How can you expand your mindset to see money not as a finite thing but rather as energy? 3 LANE MARKETING METHOD / SLOW LANE SCOTTOLDFORD.COM 21 THINGS I’VE LEARNED: 07 / WHY DO YOU WANT TO SCALE & GROW? We generally become Entrepreneurs either out of the pursuit of freedom, by mistake, or because we didn’t have a choice. Knowing WHY you want to scale and grow… will radically help you stay motivated, inspired, and building and scaling. It’ll also help you know when it’s time to pivot. I’ve defined a few core levels that drive us as Entrepreneurs: Level #1: Safety Level #2: Possessions Level #3: Goals Level #4: Certainty Level #5: Ripple Level #6: Legacy LEVEL #1 is all about being able to have enough money to take care of the basic expenses. It’s not about going beyond or even massive scale. LEVEL #2 is all about being able to get what you’ve likely always wanted. It could be the car you wanted, the house, or even the ability to travel the way you want. LEVEL #3 is all about a specific goal, this sometimes is driven purely by our ego, however, it could be, for example, hitting your first multiple 7-figure year. LEVEL #4 is generally about wealth and it’s knowing that you’ll never have to work again, your family is always taken care of, and that in the future you can do what you want. LEVEL #5 is about having a ripple effect in your industry or niche and doing something that hasn’t been done, largely ruled by an inner desire to change something that should be changed. LEVEL #6 is about leaving a lasting impression on the planet before you die, allowing you to leave it better than you found it. Now, why is it important to know which level(s) are motivating to you? Further, which level are you on? When I was on Necker Island, I was sitting across from Sir Richard Branson. As I was doing that. I looked at him and saw him in his Level #6. Through our conversation, I realized… You can’t “bypass” a level. 21 THINGS LEARNED SCALING 100’S OF 7+ FIGURE BUSINESSES SCOTTOLDFORD.COM It won’t work. If you don’t have the safety of having food, shelter, and enough to take care of your family… You can’t make the choices needed to have a massive ripple effect in your industry. You should be spending time building money, so you can spend more time working on building bigger things. Further, if you bought your dream car and you feel good in Level #2, it’s important that you start to change your motivations to Level #3. I know when I bought my Mclaren. Buying another doesn’t motivate me. I know when I bought my dream home. Another doesn’t motivate me. You have to transition from level or level, or you won’t know why you’re doing what you’re doing. By the way... Only at Level #4 Do you truly have the ability to serve others without requiring it to benefit you... While I believe in value-first and human-first. The sooner you can get at Level #4, the more you can be selfless on a daily basis and be unattached to outcomes, allowing for a deeper impact. YOUR EXERCISE: Understand what level you’re on and ensure you know exactly why you want to scale the business. Scaling for the sake of scaling will burn you out and longer-term will cause depression and a lack of happiness as you build your business. Further, by understanding what is motivating, it allows you to play into that. If you are motivated by material things, accept that truth and start test-driving the car, visiting Zillow for your dream home, or envisioning exactly what you would do on vacation. If you are motivated by certainty, start understanding what you would invest in, what your dream life would look like, what school would your kids attend, how would you take care of your family? 21 THINGS I’VE LEARNED: 08 / THE 4 MINDSETS FOR BUSINESS When building a business, realizing that there are 4 core different minds will make a massive difference when dealing with different parts of growing. 21 THINGS LEARNED SCALING 100’S OF 7+ FIGURE BUSINESSES SCOTTOLDFORD.COM There are 4 core “mindsets” I’ve found that are useful when scaling: > The Entrepreneur > The Investor > The Business Owner > The CEO As you grow and as your business progresses, you have to become better and better at bringing the right personality out, when it makes the most sense. Most Entrepreneurs go into everything as an Entrepreneur and that’s generally not the right approach. So, what does it mean to have these 4 mindsets? When you go into a finance meeting… looking at it from the lenses of an investor or a CEO is the smartest. When you’re hiring, a business owner or CEO mentality will make the most sense. When you’re designing a customer onboarding sequence, the Entrepreneur will yell “We just want it to be awesome!”, the Investor will want to ensure it maximizes lifetime value and the CEO will ensure that it fulfills the vision of the future. As you grow this part of yourself, you’ll notice that your business will become more stable, less fragile, and more “grown-up” (in a good way). 21 THINGS LEARNED SCALING 100’S OF 7+ FIGURE BUSINESSES SCOTTOLDFORD.COM Why? Because the inner-Entrepreneur doesn’t care about finances… However, if you don’t, you’ll never run a profitable business. The investor cares more about profit than a great customer experience or even results. So, if the business owner or CEO isn’t in the room, you’ll have a profit-rich business that doesn’t survive in the long run. Integration of all 4 builds the best business. YOUR EXERCISE: Map out what parts of these 4 personalities you need to develop more and how you’re going to build them into your week-to-week and month-by-month strategy to ensure making better choices in your business. 21 THINGS I’VE LEARNED: 09 / THE CORE HUMAN DESIRE Once you know what other humans desire the most, it’s really easy to build your business (including your marketing and sales) to give that. I’ve found the most desirable thing that others want is the ability to relax. > Why do you want to be a millionaire? So you can relax. > Why do you want to have a great relationship? So you can relax. > Why do you want to feel inner peace? So you can relax. > Why do you want ? Almost always related to relaxing. How does this help us grow our business? Every pillar of our business should be based on helping someone relax. Marketing? You’re making someone feel as if they can be relaxed. Onboarding a new client? It’s about helping them feel relaxed and taken care of. Sending an invoice? You guessed it, using a frame and messaging of relaxation and care will increase faster bills being paid. Taking care of your team? How do you get them more motivated? By helping them relax. Relaxing is very close to freedom in the desires of a human being. Bring someone closer to this and you’ll reap the rewards. YOUR EXERCISE: How are you able to ensure that your leads, clients, and team are more relaxed and how can you ensure that your messaging relates to this core desire? 21 THINGS LEARNED SCALING 100’S OF 7+ FIGURE BUSINESSES SCOTTOLDFORD.COM 21 THINGS I’VE LEARNED: 10 / LON G TERM & SHORT TERM DECISION MAKING At the beginning of scaling, you have to focus mostly on short term investments of both your time and money. However, as you scale, the issue that I see so many Entrepreneurs face? They keep investing in the “right now”... And those investments are not only the ones that have the smallest return. They are investments that will stop you from growing. One great example is the team. As you grow, you have to start hiring for a position that you will need 3-6 months in advance. Someone stuck in short-term thinking might think… I can’t hire until it hurts. The long-term thinking will understand what “hurt” means (loss of profitability and scale). Another example, in this tune, is investing in advertising and marketing that only brings a return in the immediate. Yes, there is a return. However, your best customers don’t always come this way. Further, you may turn down a 20X return for a 3X return. The best way to scale? Make long AND short term choices for your business. Sometimes, the short-term ones will keep cash in the bank and things rolling, so you can invest in things long-term. Sometimes, the long-term bets won't work. Sometimes, the short ones won’t either. However, only focusing on one will make it difficult to grow and scale. YOUR EXERCISE: How are you making choices inside of your business? Are they aligned for both the short-term and the long-term? 21 THINGS LEARNED SCALING 100’S OF 7+ FIGURE BUSINESSES SCOTTOLDFORD.COM 21 THINGS I’VE LEARNED: 11 / ENTREPRENEURIAL FINANCIAL MANAGEMENT I’m currently working on an entire series for Entrepreneurs based on managing finances, however, I’m just going to say this here… How you manage your finances… use credit & debt… And how you invest… Will be entirely different than almost all of society. When you have exponential growth potential, what works for *most* people will stop you. For example: If you can use $50K and know you can get a return of $100K within 6 months… Would it stop you from putting that $50K on a credit card that would only cost you $5K of interest? Of course not. Yet, why are so many people so afraid of debt? Further, as you generate more cash flow, you’ll start to realize that having money sitting in your bank account is quite literally vanishing with inflation by itself. Further, you’ll also have to manage your finances, projections, and negotiation differently than what your parents likely taught you. Updating your Financial IQ as an Entrepreneur & Investor, instead of a 9-5’er is one of the most important things you can do that will have a massive impact on your business. YOUR EXERCISE: Honestly, it’s mostly about looking at your belief patterns around money, investing, and savings. Most of us don’t have an updated view of the world, how money works or how to use leverage to help us scale and profit. 21 THINGS I’VE LEARNED: 12 / WHY YOUR MIND WILL STOP YOU & STRATEGY WON’T As you grow and build your business, you’ll realize that your mind and the belief system you have will stop you far more than anything else. > When someone hasn’t launched a funnel… > Doesn’t want to scale… > Doesn’t want to hire a team member… > Doesn’t believe investing will make sense… 21 THINGS LEARNED SCALING 100’S OF 7+ FIGURE BUSINESSES SCOTTOLDFORD.COM Or the million other reasons that make an Entrepreneur not grow their business… It generally comes down to what they believe (or don’t). It’s why I can give 2 Entrepreneurs that have the same business and business potential, the same plan… one becomes a multi-millionaire and the other doesn’t. In time, you’ll realize… being evolutionary and a leader (an Entrepreneur) requires that you update what you believe, on a constant basis. Do in g t h at in n er wo rk will create a better business externally. YOUR RESOURCE: A while ago, I built a guide that went through the 12 mindset blocks of an Entrepreneur. I’ve linked it directly for you to download right here. While it’s only the “iceberg” of the potential. 21 THINGS I’VE LEARNED: 13 / BUILDING THE 4 CURRENCIES Most people think of money as the core currency that is useful in our society. I believe it’s one of four core currencies and that your business should give you the ability to generate all four. See, money is by far the cheapest of the currencies. It has the highest rate of inflation and it’s also one of the most difficult to multiply by itself. The four currencies? > Time > Money > Influence > Audience What do most Entrepreneurs do? They use their time to generate money. And then later, use that money to generate wealth by investing it. And… There's nothing wrong with doing this. I simply see that we can build a business that has a faster rate of multiplication if we use all four currencies inside of our business (and life). See… I believe our business should be able to help us build influence… That could be via press… relationships… investors… partners… Or whatever it is that is relevant to you. And further, I believe that our business has an asset that is overlooked as being extremely valuable. T h at as s et ? A u d ien ce 21 THINGS LEARNED SCALING 100’S OF 7+ FIGURE BUSINESSES SCOTTOLDFORD.COM This is why I believe that as much as we want to build more customers in our business, building lead flow and an audience is equally as important. As you continue building your business in the future, the more you build more currency, the easier it is to convert to another currency. The more audience you have? The more money you can create. The more influence you have, the easier it is to build an audience. Further, the more of the currencies of money you have, the less time you need to work, giving you ultimate freedom. While I’m a big believer in investing outside of your business, for most Entrepreneurs, it’s about reinvesting into their own business first, expanding all four currencies, and then being able to create even more energy (and profit). YOUR EXERCISE: Are you thinking of your business inside of the context of being able to build these currencies? If not, what would your investment strategy and even business strategy look like if you did? THE 3 LANE MARKETING METHOD / SLOW LANE SCOTTOLDFORD.COM 21 THINGS I’VE LEARNED: 14 / MARKETING & SALES (THAT WILL NEVER EXPIRE & ALWAYS WORK) Most people who know me, know my work inside of the marketing and sales of so many successful businesses. Here’s the thing. If you don’t figure out your marketing and sales systems, you can’t scale your business. It’ll be a house of cards, at best. Even more important than this, it’s important that you build your marketing based not solely on hacks, tips, tricks and tactics. “What’s hot” can work for a limited amount of time, however going “viral” or hoping that a single strategy is… Well, not really a business model. The strengths of effective marketing? Diversity of traffic sources… Having multiple funnels that work together… Ensuring that you lock in your relevancy, omnipresence, and intimacy… And more than anything… That you combine automation & intimacy to leverage the fact that you can have total strangers and turn them into customers. YOUR RESOURCES: Without me saying much more, here’s my suggestion… > > If you really want to dive into marketing and sales that work, get my 5-Day Marketing & Sales workshop here. Ensure you get in on my “4 Frameworks” (3 of 4 of them are marketing/sales related) > Here’s a direct link to my R.O.I Method (that has helped 10’s of thousands w/ this) > Here’s a direct link to my 3-Lane Changer Method (it really helps with being at the right time and the right place). 21 THINGS LEARNED SCALING 100’S OF 7+ FIGURE BUSINESSES Tr uth i s… 6 0 % o f tho se w ho I w o r k w i th, co m e to m e to he l p the m fi x thi s p a r t o f the i r b usi ne ssa a nd o nce tha t’s fi xe d … w e c a n tr ul y b ui l d a 7 + fi g ur e b usi ne ss, w i tho ut i t? It’s S U P E R ha r d . SCOTTOLDFORD.COM 21 THINGS I’VE LEARNED: 15 / NEVER HAVING TO *SELL* WHAT YOU SELL… Since 2019, as a company, we don’t do sales calls. Truth is… Selling is required when marketing isn’t doing its job. Or… when marketing to the “wrong” people at the “wrong time”. See, if you have the right marketing… Along with the right brand… Over time, you can eliminate sales calls, high commissions, having to pitch, and a lot of the added costs that this brings. From higher conversions, to lower (or no-commissions), when you build a business that allows for you to “Skip the Pitch” it benefits the business greatly. And… It also benefits your customers. They don’t have to waste their time or energy. They know exactly why they want to work with you. And… they are your best customers. So, how do you implement this? The first thing you have to realize is… Your business and the strategy you have, don’t have to be the way it is. You don’t have to do a bunch of sales calls or have a massive sales team. From there, it’s realizing that marketing as a sales strategy, is a for-sure way to profit. YOUR RESOURCE: Recently, I held an entire 5-day workshop on this Skip the Pitch format and it was one of my highest rated workshops I’ve ever created. You can dive into all of it, right here. 21 THINGS LEARNED SCALING 100’S OF 7+ FIGURE BUSINESSES SCOTTOLDFORD.COM 21 THINGS I’VE LEARNED: 16 / THE INVISIBLE R.O.I. (AND THE TRUTH ABOUT RETURN ON INVESTMENT) I’ve spoken about long-term and short-term choices earlier. However, I can’t stress this enough. As an investor, one of the things I’ve learned is that the Entrepreneur who can see into the future the most is the one with the highest level of success. Almost all strategies for business before your first million, or even beyond are focused on being able to “win quickly” or get “fast” results. It makes sense. I mean, when you don’t have a lot of financial runways, the choices you make do need to be able to pay-off, sooner than later. However, a lot of Entrepreneurs focus on the short-term return. Their 14 days return on ad spend… What a new team member can do in the next 30 days… How a strategy will work throughout the next week… Instead of realizing that all true returns both take a long time and that a lot of the investment you put inside of your business won’t always be able to be tracked. In my now-famous Omnipresence strategy, it’s difficult to track just how much return you get from it. However, when Entrepreneurs implement it for at least 90 days they see incredible returns directly oriented with how much cash is in their bank account. The intellectual mind is always going to want to have an equation such as… If I do X, I get Y. The truth is that the highest returns come from investments that may never be able to be tracked and sometimes the only reason you can say you’re doing is that you believe in yourself, you trust yourself or you know it’s the right thing to do. THE 3 LANE MARKETING METHOD / SLOW LANE SCOTTOLDFORD.COM How do you g rap p le wit h this? What I’ve found is the easiest way is to picture your business, your brand, who you are in 5 years. For the example of Omnipresence. What’s the effect of sharing valuable content with your audience… for five years? What’s the chance that it will increase your revenue and profit… Even if you couldn’t see it on a spreadsheet. Pretty high, right? Exactly. Another example. If you hire a coach, a mentor, or a consultant, they help you in the business. What’s the actual return? Is it the time in which they helped you? Is it for the rest of your life? Or is it the accumulation of all those people you’ve helped as well? YOUR EXERCISE: Start seeing where your short-sighted business moves may stop you from growing a business or your brand to the highest extent. YOUR RESOURCE: This video is old, however, it gives a great overview of this concept. 21 THINGS I’VE LEARNED: 17 / YOUR BUSINESS BRAND & YOUR PERSONAL BRAND When starting your business, the easiest, fastest, and most profitable way to grow it, is with a personal brand. Not only does this allow you to gain an audience and influence easily. It allows you to connect and increase intimacy and intimacy creates the fastest growth for a business. As you grow and expand, you’ll realize that your personal brand has limitations, which means at some point you will need to separate your personal brand and the brand of the business. Many Entrepreneurs never get to this crossroads and while generally, it doesn’t make sense until you’re generating at least $3M+ in annual, the ability to build a sellable business, without this, is nearly impossible. W h en I m en t o r E n t rep ren eurs and they want to sc ale into t h e 7 + - 8-f ig u re ran g e, t his is c ritic al. 21 THINGS LEARNED SCALING 100’S OF 7+ FIGURE BUSINESSES SCOTTOLDFORD.COM It’s also critical if you want the business to become less you-centric. At the beginning, your personal brand is one of the best investments. As time continues, investing in both allows you to create more of all 4 currencies. YOUR EXERCISE Are you investing enough into your personal brand? Do you see it as an asset for your business? If your business is growing and scaling slower than you’d like, can you use your personal brand to expand and increase the growth more quickly? 21 THINGS I’VE LEARNED: 1 8 / THE 4 WAYS ENTREPRENEURS BECOME WEALTHY If you run your own business, for your life, you’ll likely stay on the Hamster Wheel. I’ve found that most Entrepreneurs become wealthy, not directly from their business, rather, from what they do with the excess energy (profit). The core ways to get wealthy as an Entrepreneur? 1. Do what you do for a long period of time (10-20+ years) 2. Build your business and sell it for a high multiple to someone else 3. Extract profit and invest elsewhere 4. Have a multitude of businesses that you don’t run Each way has its own pros and cons. However, what you didn’t see here is… Run my business for 3 years and be wealthy. Wealth takers year after year of growing, building, and investing. No matter if you’re investing in yourself, your business, or other things. It’s important that you realize this, so you understand how you go from having a successful business to having the level of wealth (and freedom) that you desire. THE 3 LANE MARKETING METHOD / SLOW LANE SCOTTOLDFORD.COM 21 THINGS I’VE LEARNED: 19 / GROWTH MODE VS. PROFIT MODE VS. INVEST MODE In all businesses (like our lives) there are phases and seasons. I see these as 3 core seasons (or modes) and are integrated with the vision of our business along with the season that we’re in. Inside of GROWTH/SCALE MODE, we’re optimizing to build a customer base, leads, scaling products, team and delivery. Generally, at this time we’re not going to generate a lot of profit inside of the business, rather, we’re building the infrastructure for future profitability (or the ability to sell the business). Inside of the PROFIT MODE, we’re generally keeping profits from having stabilized our business, or the optimization of our business. It’s at this phase that we’re able to keep the highest amount of cash inside of our business, have increased profitability, and have the ability to understand what “level” we want our business to be at. Most businesses have a threshold in which putting more profit into the business will actually decrease the amount of returns. For example, if you don’t have the capacity for more people in your programs and you spend more money on marketing, it will simply eat your cash flow. Or, if you scale simply because you have lots of people who want to work with you, yet, it won’t be profitable to do so. Based on this, at scale, every business will generally hit “INVEST-MODE” which is essentially saying “I won’t grow the business more than 25% per year and I will divert profits to my other businesses or external investments”. This has happened to many of my clients. For me, it happened in both 2017 and more recently in 2020. I generated a very sizable profit inside of my business and because of the infrastructure, I ran out of the ability to take on new clients. This created the ability for me to extra over 50% of the profit of the business to invest in other businesses, along with giving me the ability to launch Modern Business Academy allowing me to build a model that could scale 3-5x more than my 2020 revenue (and profit). YOUR EXERCISE: Knowing what mode you’re in and why is important as it will guide when to invest, where to invest and how to invest to scale and grow your business. 21 THINGS LEARNED SCALING 100’S OF 7+ FIGURE BUSINESSES SCOTTOLDFORD.COM 21 THINGS I’VE LEARNED: 20 / THE BORING (SUCCESSFUL & PROFITABLE) BUSINESS I hate to tell you this because you likely enjoy dopamine hits from a fast-paced business… But… A bo r in g b u s in es s is g o in g to be the most profitable one. Back a long time ago, I was mentored by a pretty eccentric billionaire. At the time we were at a nightclub in LA. Without going into detail, what did I get from that time with him? Well… he said to me. “While my other billions got made by innovation, my first one? It got made by repetition. A very boring repetition” While he no longer would be defined by this… I got a lot of truth and I realized. A boring business is a profitable and a sustainable one. Sometimes, we try to get our excitement out of our business. While this is okay, I always suggest... Let’s get the business boring, profitable, sustainable, and then go get excitement out of life… OR at least a different business (or venture)... YOUR EXERCISE: What is dopamine-rich or exciting that ISN’T actually helping you deliver value and results to your customers and build your business? 21 THINGS LEARNED SCALING 100’S OF 7+ FIGURE BUSINESSES SCOTTOLDFORD.COM 21 THINGS I’VE LEARNED: 21 / THE 4-PART BUSINESS MODEL After helping so many businesses grow and scale, I’ve seen what works and what doesn’t and what’s optimized for hyper-growth vs. sustainable growth. In doing this, I’ve found that there are 4 parts of the business model that creates success. I do want to say, building this model may take a couple of years, however, when you do this, it really works, in building growth, scale and sustainability (3 words, generally not said together). It’s also likely that you have 1 or 2 of these, however, they may not be in full alignment for the Harmony of your business, or optimize the way we want for a business that works well. PART #1: INTIMACY OFFER This is your 1-on-1, Mastermind, or super high-end offer. It’s where you get super profitable revenue, where you get to sharpen your skills, your best results and testimonials and test new strategies. It’s also where you can use this cash flow to either fuel the growth of the business, allow for this money to pay for your lifestyle (so the business doesn’t have to sustain your costs) or you can extract it and invest it elsewhere. Depending on the stage of your business, this may be “your main thing”, however, as you scale, it should be a small amount of time that generates a super high profit that can be used for either of those 3 things (while also helping you stay sharp at what you do). PART #2: CORE OFFER The core offer is your group program, your main product, and what really drives the business. The point of your business is to sell this and generally, this is the part of the business that has the highest ability to be scaled. Without it, you’re trading time for money. And without it, you can’t scale. The core offer should produce profit for the business and is generally where you focus the majority of your attention on the business both on marketing/sales along with delivery/operations/team. PART #3: AUDIENCE OFFER An audience offers (or sometimes, even offers) are offers that are small that introduce people into your world and over-deliver value for the price paid. 21 THINGS LEARNED SCALING 100’S OF 7+ FIGURE BUSINESSES SCOTTOLDFORD.COM The point of these offers i generally to make it so you can build a larger audience by not having to reinvest your core offer profits to generate leads. This also supercharges your lead generation as if your monthly marketing budget is $25K, however, your audience offer brings you back $10K, you can now spend $35K. Its entire point is to introduce you to a larger audience. Increase the number of people who become “fast laners” And increase your profitability (or how much you can spend on new customers). PART #4: FREEDOM OFFER Finally, the freedom offer is a mastermind, membership or continuity. Generally, the last part of the business model, the point of this is for you to be able to serve those fans who want to pay you, however, aren’t ready for your core offer OR have already purchased your core offer. This offer generally has a very high-profit margin and can pay for the expenses of your business, which is why I call it the freedom offer. Having your business expenses paid every month? That’s going to make you feel really good :) YOUR EXERCISE: How are you able to structure your business and the future growth of your business to resemble this 4-tier approach? SO... WHAT’S NEXT, FRIEND? :) I wrote this for those who are scaling 6 - 7+ figure businesses... I’ve written about this, recorded videos, podcasts, and everything in-between for over 5 years now. And I’m glad I was able to give you a few things that I’ve noticed really help build successful businesses… WHY WE SHOULD WORK TOGETHER When it comes to scaling an Online Business, I’m one of the best in the world to mentor you. If you’re here and you have the… “wow, this all makes sense” moment… Or the “I need this guy to help me” moment… I’D LOVE TO HELP YOU. While my Mom thinks I’m just a child prodigy… the truth is, I’m a born Entrepreneur, I’ve been doing this for most of my life and I’m really really really good and helping businesses scale. I’LL NEVER STOP DOING THIS. I believe my purpose on the planet is to inform others on how to do things in an easier and more aligned way. > IF YOU’RE READY TO SCALE I HAVE MULTIPLE WAYS TO WORK WITH ME, NO MATTER IF YOU’RE MAKING LESS THAN $10K/MONTH, $50K/MONTH, OR EVEN $500K/MONTH... YOU CAN LOOK AT IT RIGHT HERE. And if you don’t really know what programs make the most sense… simply fill in this application form and I’ll hit you back and let you know what makes the most sense for helping you scale your business and ensuring you have an EPIC (and fun) journey along the way. (Also: If you want to see some of the Entrepreneurs I’ve helped, results are on the individual program pages, or you can look at the YouTube playlist here). 21 THINGS LEARNED SCALING 100’S OF 7+ FIGURE BUSINESSES SCOTTOLDFORD.COM > 2 M O RE RE S OURC E S TH AT MIGHT HELP YOU: Truth is, I’ve been doing this for a long time. What I put inside of this guide is a small taste of both what I can help you with, along with a high-level overview of what you need to be thinking of. I wanted to share a few more resources with you, depending on where you are in your journey. THE FIRST: If you want to dive into my 6 pillars of 7+ figures you can buy my book ‘The Nuclear Effect’ here. GET THE BOOK THE SECOND: My 4 Frameworks video series, If you want to go deeper on my 4 core frameworks for scaling you can get it right here. Inside of this, you’ll also find countless articles, videos and other resources that I believe are going to help you even more in your journey. GET THE FREE VIDEO SERIES OF COURSE, ON TOP OF THIS, ENSURE YOU TAKE A LOOK AT MY WEBSITE, INSTAGRAM AND YOUTUBE SO YOU SEE THE LATEST STUFF FOR SCALING. Okay. Talk soon, sending love your way. Excited for your journey, wherever it may take you. - Scott THE 3 LANE MARKETING METHOD / SLOW LANE SCOTTOLDFORD.COM M O D E R N BUSINESS ACADEMY P.S. If you have this, you’ll get emails from me along with retargeted ads with even more on growing your business. If you don’t know where to “start” with my help (and don’t want to apply for us to help you decide), my suggestion is to pay to get into Modern Business Academy. It’s extremely valuable, includes Q&A calls with me, all of my past, current, and future content along with 100x more value than anything I’ve ever found in the online niche :) LET’S GO SCOTT OLDFORD