[0:00–0:03] Welcome & Episode Setup
[0:03–0:04] Defining the Bottleneck Problem
[0:04–0:08] It’s Not the Algorithm, It’s You
[0:08–0:10] Decision Fatigue & Quick Decisions
[0:10–0:11] Leadership vs. Marketing
[0:11–0:12] Shifting from Technician to CEO
[0:12–0:13] Protecting Energy, Time & White Space
[0:13–0:14] Your Business Can Only Grow to Your Capacity
[0:14–0:16] VIP Elite Intensive Strategy Days & Call to Action
Hello there, and a very warm welcome back into your ears. I am so glad that you’re listening today, and I think this will be able to help you. This episode, so we’re up to episode 212. Oh my goodness! And you know, I think this is really fitting this episode because I think a lot of my listeners, you would have reached a certain point in your business already, and that’s how you found me.
And you also probably have become a bit of a bottleneck in your business. You’re the one that signs things off. You’re the one that says yay or nay, and I wanted to address that because I think you just keep adding more and more and more to your plate, and just think right. If I I’m just going to get heaps faster, and that will solve all the issues. And then you get a bit stuck. So aptly called you’re not stuck. You’re the bottleneck because you are. When you get to a certain level in your business, you become the bottleneck. Okay, and that’s not good because that’s not how we scale and that’s not how we grow.
So I think you hopefully you’re out on a walk or something like that, or you’re driving between appointments, or you know folding clothes or whatever it is that you do when you’re listening to the podcast. But I think, like for me, this is the place where I talk about really bold subjects, bold branding, strategic marketing, yes, and you know, building a profitable business that feels really good on the inside and the outside, and it looks good on the inside as well as the outside. Right?
We don’t want to just be looking good on the outside, but not on the inside, because that’s just bullshit. But I think this conversation might make you feel uncomfortable, and that’s okay because I think this is one of the reasons that I see businesses stop growing, and it’s not the algorithm. It’s not like because it’s not pushing your posts out to more people because of X, Y, and Z. I don’t think it’s AI at all. I don’t think it’s got anything to do with the economy.
I don’t even think it’s your marketing or how you sell. I think it’s something much closer. I think it actually might be you, hence you are the bottleneck. And I think that before you go, Hayley, I don’t think this episode is for me. I’m not going to criticize you, but I see it all the time. So I think we you need to listen. So I think one of the things that I really love most about the VIP strategy days, the elite intensive days I create is that I get to step inside someone else’s business.
Okay, so I’m not looking from the outside at their socials or their website. I get to see the whole picture: offers, marketing, messaging, what systems they’re using, goals, how they make decisions, how they got where they are, and how what got you where you are is not going to get you where you want to go. And almost every single time, there becomes a moment in the day where I can see exactly what’s happening, and it’s usually like around 1030 in the morning.
You have become the bottleneck, okay, and everything flows through you. Every client email proposal, like your invoices, social media posts, every single bloody decision, and every little thing waits for you. Oh, I just hit the microphone because I like to talk with my hands, and you know, I often find people sitting across the boardroom table from me in the beautiful setting that I host them at. I don’t know why I’m so exhausted, Hayley, and I do because you can’t grow your business when every single thing in your business depends on you. Okay, that’s not how it happens.
So why does this happen? It happens because you know you are really good at what you do. You care. You want everything done properly, meticulously. You have amazing experience. You haven’t got to where you are without doing what you’ve done. And there’s nothing wrong with that. There’s nothing wrong with you. It means that you know you’re. I’m. I’m passionate. You’re passionate. You’re committed.
I see that. I’m committed. We’re so invested in our businesses, and naturally, because of all those things-the passion, the commitment-that that that that there, we hold on to things, and that’s okay. I mean, I do it too, but we we think, and I’m guilty of this until I haven’t been, is nobody’s going to do it like me, okay, and that’s fine until it doesn’t work. Until you know business is growing, and you know you leading it like this is not going to help you grow past that, okay. And I think it comes a point where there becomes a. Like I’ve seen a lot of, I read a lot of things that make people successful are being able to make decisions fast, so they’re not ruminating on a decision.
They just have an option brought to them, A or B, and they go A, let’s move on, da da da next, and being able to make decisions fast determines like a level of success because you know you’re not holding something for six months deciding whether you’re going to do it or not. You just do it. I definitely know that that’s made my life easier. So a couple of months ago, I decided that I was a bit over filming in the gym, and I just like wanted a nice period of time where I didn’t have to think about taking content because I just wanted to train. And I there’s a videographer in the gym, and I was like, you know what? I made the decision there, and then I need to work with you. And I bailed him up, and I quickly like sat down. I was like, “Listen, I would love to work with you. Here’s my Instagram. What do you think? This is what I do. Yep, no worries. And then, literally within 10 days, we made it happen, and now I’ve got a bunch of content, and I don’t even have to worry about it. And that decision lasted all of five seconds for me because I knew that I needed to make a change in that area, and I wanted some help, and then we just did it, and it was done. And now that’s that’s it.
So, like, I think decision fatigue is a real thing, and I know that we make hundreds of decisions every day. Should I post this? Should I update my website? Should I work with that person? We sit and we sit and we sit. Should I hire this person? Should I get some coaching? Should I spend a VIP day with Hayley? Is it going to help me? And we sit and we wait and we sit and we wait and then you know six months goes by and you still find yourself in the same place that you were six months ago, and that is not healthy and that’s not how you scale.
Okay, should I reply tonight? We sit on a message. What am I going to respond to? This person’s commented on my LinkedIn, blah blah blah. By the end of the day, you’re smoked, and that’s true. And I don’t think like when I’m not talking about like doing physical work and like smashing yourself in the gym or whatever, whatever. But you have been making decisions from the moment that you wake wake up. So I also make decisions around my small humans, getting them dressed, doing the things, and here’s what starts to happen: is that the important decisions get delayed.
Okay, they’re growth decisions, and they get delayed, and that’s not good because that is like real bottlenecking in your business. And I don’t think it’s because you don’t know what to do. I think it’s because we don’t have the mental capacity anymore, and I don’t think it marketing isn’t the problem. Okay, and this is why I smile a little bit when someone says to me, “I need better marketing. Like you might, but you also might not. Okay, marketing amplifies whatever is already existing in your business. Okay, if your messaging is unclear, marketing amplifies confusion. How if you don’t know who you are and what you do very clearly, and how you help other people, those other people aren’t going to know that that you’re the person to be like that.
You are the person to choose that they need what you have to offer, and that you’re the person that’s going to help them, okay. And if you’re overwhelmed and you don’t know what you’re saying, the marketing becomes very clear, and your audience feels the same way, overwhelmed, and they don’t know what you’re saying. So I don’t think marketing isn’t usually the thing that holds businesses back. I think it’s your leadership, and that’s why you become the bottle, the bottleneck in your business.
So I think there becomes a point in every business owner’s journey where you have to stop thinking like you are the technician, you’re the doer in your business, and start thinking more like you’re the boss, you’re the CEO. I think that means asking different questions as well, instead of like how much can I possibly fit into today, instead of what actually needs me today, and I think they’re two completely different questions, because I think just because you can do it doesn’t mean you should. I’m going to repeat that. Just because you can do it doesn’t mean you should, and you should be able to like you can not should you can do everything inside your business because that’s how what got you here, but doesn’t mean you should, okay? And one of the most massive shifts I’ve made around the last couple of months, well, the last probably 12 months actually, is protecting my energy, protect my calendar like it’s gold. I make decisions fast, big ones, like the example I showed you or told you earlier. There’s plenty of like that. There’s plenty of examples like that. I trust my instincts, like you would never believe, and I trust myself to lead with that as well as strategy. Yes, and I think that I do a really great job of creating a bit more white space. And that exists for the weekends too, so I can’t overcommit myself on the weekends. Otherwise, I’m smoked come the beginning of the week, and that sucks. And I want to lead better. I want to be a better business owner. I want to be a better CEO. And the better I lead, the better the business performs, and that’s true.
So I want to leave you with this today because it’s important that your your business is only going to grow to the capacity of you, all right? To the capacity of the person leading it. Okay, doesn’t matter about your marketing, doesn’t matter about your Instagram, doesn’t matter about your website. It’s you, all right. So instead of asking yourself, how do I work harder next year? I think the question that you need to ask yourself as you level up and as you grow is what kind of CEO-that’s the energy we’re talking about-does my business need me to become?
And that’s where the real growth begins. Okay, and if today’s episode felt like I was describing your business, which it might have, and that’s okay. These are like I want to be able to hit home with you. That’s my job. I want you to know that you don’t have to figure it out all on your own. All right, and that’s exactly why I created my VIP Elite Intensive Strategy Days because they’re designed to be able to get the weeds out of your business and to get you into that CEO seat to get you into a world of immersion of an up level, and it’s a beautiful setting. And so I think when you’re in that, you like lean into that, and you you you step up.
Okay, you surround yourself with how you want to be, and then you turn into that person. And we do step back and look at the bigger picture, and we unpack your positioning, we unpack your offers, your messaging, your marketing, your website, your client journey, your visibility, your funnel, your growth strategy, everything. And together, what we do is identify exactly the parts that are keeping your business stuck. Because I think that it’s not another strategy. It’s not another social media strategy. Okay, it’s removing the bottlenecks in your business that’s been slowing everything down, and you might have to take five steps back to take 25 steps forward. But what you’ll do is have a plan on how to get there and know exactly what you need to do to focus on next.
All right, but you don’t need to carry the weight yourself and trying to figure it all out. So if that sounds exactly like what you need, I would love to spend a day with you. DM me, okay, or lean into my emails, which you can get over on my website, and let’s have a conversation, all right? And thank you so much for being in your ears today. Thank you so much for your time, all right, for listening in. And I hope that you’ve learned something. If you’ve loved this episode, I would be so so grateful if you’d share it with somebody who you think might need to hear it, because you know, I think knowledge is power, and sharing is also very kind. So that’s all from me. I’ll see you next week for another episode of the Hayley Osborne Show.
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