Grow Without Hiring

[00:00:00] Ken: I don't wanna get too historical starting out our conversation today, but a lot of what you're still doing. Your business is based on the industrial revolution, which for the kind of business that we have as knowledge workers, simply doesn't make sense. Let me give you a little context here, and we'll go back to 20 years ago when I was earlier in my career, had to get up in the morning, had to get dressed in.
[00:00:29] Ken: Business casual. If I was going on client site, I'd have to wear a tie and I would spend, in certain cases, two hours commuting to the office or to the client site. And we're talking about hard, hard commuting, right? The kind of commuting that by the time you got to the office you hated. Your life. I know some of you relate to this and some of you are back having to do this today.
[00:00:51] Ken: Through that time, I then spent all day sitting on the client site, in certain cases, being stuck in meetings, being [00:01:00] stuck in a world where the nine to five was really based on the standards of the industrial complex. By the way, I'm not opposed to some of the benefits that came out of this, which is economic engines, but in terms of that.
[00:01:16] Ken: Get to work on time, go through the horrible commute, spend time staring at each other in meetings, not actually getting any work done. This came from the years of showing up to the factory on time, making sure your boss knew that you were there and everyone hitting their spot in the assembly line. But if you think back to.
[00:01:35] Ken: The days of what are called the cottage industry or the cottage age, it actually looks more similar to what the remote world looks like, where people worked out of their homes. They were able to focus on their craft. They didn't have to get somewhere. I know they had chores. I know they had things to do around the house, but I'm also positive that they had time to [00:02:00] enjoy their breakfast, spend some time with the family, some work done, do the same thing around lunchtime and so forth.
[00:02:06] Ken: Yet as much as 2020 changed the fact that we now don't have to go into the office all the time, and I again, was someone who did that way before that was popular at least 10, 15 years before. You still are embracing that you have to be at your quote unquote desk at a certain time being available for meetings, and you're not really benefiting from what is referred to as a non-linear workday where you can shift your focus and get work done independent of it being 9:00 AM or 9:00 PM.
[00:02:39] Ken: Now, obviously, I'm not suggesting that you should work. Overnight or never be accessible to your clients. And a lot of the people I work with, they have customers and clients. They're in professional services or coaching or agency work, but especially during the agency days when, let's say the mega agencies that would be based in a city and you had to go [00:03:00] meet at their office for a pitch or a presentation or they'd have to go onsite with the client to do those things, we are really moved quite a bit away from that world.
[00:03:09] Ken: It just wasn't a great way to work. It wasn't a great thing to disappear for weeks or months at a time and then pop back up and say, surprise client, hope this worked out well. So as an example, there are plenty of times that I might kick out early on a Thursday. In fact, last Thursday after I got done with my final thing to do on that day, I went to my club, I sat in the sauna.
[00:03:33] Ken: I was doing some. Just relaxation. But I was also texting a client. I also told that client, I was texting them from the saw and I said, this is the way we do things in a world that is constructed around what works for us. And then on the flip side of that, I might also do some work on a Saturday morning.
[00:03:50] Ken: When my kids are in a lesson or at a sporting activity, in between their activity, I might actually pop open my laptop, [00:04:00] have a hotspot, and get some work done. And actually I love that. I love being able to work when I wanna work, especially actually, it's ironic that I like to get some of those things done.
[00:04:09] Ken: When the world is not working and I like to actually relax in certain cases when the world is, it's actually something about the psychology of that. That's interesting because it's working on your own terms. So again, I understand that a lot of you today are working remotely. Increasingly, people have decided to move away from the world of being employed and getting promoted and receiving a cost of living adjustment, and they're working for themselves with the rise of entrepreneurship.
[00:04:38] Ken: We didn't call it that back then, by the way, but the rise of being able to step away from the payroll. W2 world to, I'm gonna just go do this for myself because I'm making you a lot of money and instead I want to make myself a lot of money. But what you really haven't embraced is this non-linear workday.
[00:04:55] Ken: And I don't mean that you could take an hour lunch break 'cause you were provided [00:05:00] that and we all looked forward to our lunch break when you had a nine to five job that was in corporate. I can recall all the way back then, by the way, talking to my coworkers through. Our cubicle walls, we'd hear someone get a call like, oh, you're getting that call again?
[00:05:14] Ken: How did that go? Well, you heard it wasn't that great? Definitely heard it. And we would all just wait for the ability to leave and we wait in certain cases to 4 59 or were like, let's get out the door, because we weren't excited about what we were doing. So if you're excited about what you are doing today, you are excited about remote work, but you're also not benefiting from.
[00:05:34] Ken: Not being tied to the nine to five, you haven't released that part of the industrial complex. Wow. It's great for you, Ken, that you get to, you know, text from Asana and kick out early on a Thursday. And really for me, I actually protect my Mondays and Fridays. So if I want to not have to do anything on a Friday, I just do nothing on a Friday.
[00:05:53] Ken: But I often will get things done for my business on those days. But I don't take meetings, so it's not about just me having that [00:06:00] thing. Part of the conversation is to help you be aware of this and provide you with some guidance on what you should be doing instead. And it doesn't just mean don't sit at your desk and not showing you the tactical tips there.
[00:06:13] Ken: There are a few reasons I'm able to do this. The first one is that I have really dialed into what I call a lighthouse client. You've probably heard the term ICP before Ideal. Client profile or persona, but having a way to target a specific kind of client and without getting deeply into the specifics on a lighthouse client, which we will absolutely do in a further conversation, I have a lot of scalability in my business because I have replicated my best clients of all time.
[00:06:42] Ken: So if you wanna just understand or you do understand the concept of an ICP, just for today's conversation, at least imagine. It's replicating that best ICP of all time By doing that, my marketing, my sales, and my client delivery are all. Hyper scalable. [00:07:00] In my agency, we would have, you know, 20 to 50 clients.
[00:07:03] Ken: I have more than double those numbers today, and I'm actually doing less work. I'm not managing people, not managing a team. I'm not stressing out about which client is gonna be ringing me up next and walking away and losing 20 to 30% of my income, which would not be a good thing, by the way, it's not a good trait and something that I generally try to prevent.
[00:07:26] Ken: In certain cases, I'd have those bigger clients. I call them anchor clients, so I'd much rather you have a bunch of lighthouse clients who are paying you less money. That gives you diversity in the business and gives you scalability in attracting that exact same client over and over again, which is what makes the marketing scalable, makes it easier to close from the sales side because you have scalability inside.
[00:07:47] Ken: the sales process, you're not writing custom proposals or jumping around through a bidding process, and then all of your delivery on the back end of that is catered because you have sold a specific kind of transformation, [00:08:00] not just more widgets and more things to get paid, more to make more, but instead to focus on a client that wants the expertise.
[00:08:08] Ken: Wants that transformation wants you to help solve a specific pain point or challenge inside the business. And then instead of focusing on people first, people always do this, pun intended. People throw people at people problems, or what they believe are people problems that are actually systems problems.
[00:08:25] Ken: So if you're making 10, 20, or 30 KA month. You shouldn't be running to go hire someone. You should focus on building systems into the business that replicate you. I talk about it as a fleet of me. How can I build a team of me working for me? And the thing that's really neat today, another topic for another time as well, is that we are even moving beyond AI to AG agentic.
[00:08:50] Ken: AI that operates around the clock or whatever parameters you give it once you provide the initial guidance and input. So instead of saying, I have a fleet of me just with [00:09:00] systems, I can help create agents that actually are versions of myself that operate in these different parts of the business, but I haven't even used or really scratch the surface on that transparently.
[00:09:10] Ken: And I've been able to build another seven figure business without almost any help to date. That is because of the focus on a lighthouse client and replicating and using fleets of me. I call it this idea of documenting templating and automating, but only automating when something works really well and you need to automate it.
[00:09:30] Ken: So certain emails that I've sent to people at certain times. Through the buying journey, I initially did so manually at some point I then added that as an automation. We're having a keyboard snippet shortcut that allows me to say something to someone who has just reached out and is interested in my services.
[00:09:48] Ken: Really basic, trivial examples, but when done at scale, allows you to move away from worrying about the nine to five, which is again, the conversation today. And why you are still tied [00:10:00] to having to work in a model where you're always just available working in those normal traditional hours. The final piece though, that unlocks all this is moving away from I have to meet with client to give client value to async client delivery, which means that you don't have to be in front of the client live.
[00:10:18] Ken: You don't have to add meetings to the calendar in order to get things done with the client. And this is a position of strength because if you are selling to someone who is time strapped and most executives and leaders are, they're stuck in 20 to 30 hours a week of meetings, you begin to focus on, Hey, miss client or Mr.
[00:10:37] Ken: Client, why don't you work with me? Because I'm not gonna add more to your plate. I'm not gonna need to be babysat. You're not gonna also pay the exorbitant rates you would with an agency, but you work with essentially the senior partner of. The agency and I don't have to meet with you frequently. We have a couple systems in place to get work done and then they say, that's amazing.
[00:10:57] Ken: Where do I sign up? Can you switch to this [00:11:00] overnight? No, and I don't recommend it. You have to have the lighthouse client in place first. You have to have some of the sales in marketing systems in place, and then eventually you get into the client delivery. A lot of people will say, I want to get straight to.
[00:11:13] Ken: Having that model where I don't have to meet with my clients to get paid, and you have to first focus on the Lighthouse client and have an offer that resonates with them. But this is where I want you to go, and this is why I'm having these conversations with you. To be able to grow without hiring, you need these foundations in the business to walk away from things that have existed.
[00:11:33] Ken: For hundreds of years now, but I don't want you to continue to do something in the business simply because it was done that way before. Especially when you are a knowledge worker. You work with your mind, you work with expertise, not with your hands, and I'm not knocking those industries. Those industries are also changing, but that's just.
[00:11:50] Ken: Not who we are and not the people that are listening to this conversation. So that's gonna be where we end this one today. Continue to look across your business. Give [00:12:00] yourself the ability to challenge the status quo. If you've been in business for more than a minute, you might have, I. Never believe that you could be sitting at your house or at a coffee shop and working and have high speed bandwidth that connects you with the clients around the world, and that's commonplace.
[00:12:15] Ken: Now today, what are other things that are legacy parts of your business that you're just simply doing because you were told that's the way to do it? As usual, love to have your feedback. If this was helpful, if this gave you a new perspective, feel free to write in ratings and reviews are super helpful.
[00:12:29] Ken: Let me know when I'm doing a good job. And also give me insights into what I should be covering for you going forward. So thanks as always. Look forward to our next conversation on how to grow without hiring.
[00:12:39]