A month or so ago, I told you about our trip to Italy [click here to read].  We were in Tuscany and decided to get the full Euro experience and take the train from the small quaint town we were staying in, to Florence…a quintessential city with its art, Duomo, and David (the statue – not some guy we met).  The ride there was sweet: bought our tickets from the ONE machine, followed the ONE schedule displayed behind glass, and jumped on the ONE train that stopped to load and unload its passengers.  Just over an hour later we got off and poured into the sweltering streets.  It was calm.  It was easy.

 The return, not so much.  At 6 pm the train station was now littered with strung out backpackers.  We’ve walked in 38o weather and are beyond overheated, dehydrated and want nothing more than to get back to the villa, jump in the pool and escape the heat, hurriedness and harem of merchants of Florence.  But now we’re not in a quaint, one-stop train station.  Here there are dozens of trains, going to hundreds of destinations, one-line digital train boards with just one end point, a sea of trains with NO markings identifying the train number or destination, and my ultimate favorite, no one in sight to help us confused Canadians get home.  I. Hated. It.

 One guy we finally found assured us that if we got on the train beside him, we’d get to our stop.  Amazing! We found it! NOT.

 Three hours and 3 trains later, we FINALLY made it back to our cars.  Exhausted, irritated, dehydrated, hungry.  I am NEVER taking the train again.  Which isn’t actually true, but at that moment, in the after math of this ordeal, I felt like tracking down that “helpful” porter in Florence and taking him for a three-hour tour.

 A month or two later, I think I got over the stress of it all and will concede that if we had taken our time and figured out the boards, tracks and schedules, we could have figured it out.  But it was big.  And Big can be scary and intimidating, and overwhelming.  There’s more to do, more moving parts, more demands of you and your time and seemingly less time to do it in.

 We all want our businesses to be big behemoths like Florence, but hot damn, its SOOO much easier to be the cute and quaint one-stop town. Easier, but it doesn’t’ necessarily allow us to rise to our full potential or take our businesses as far as we want them to go.  You can only do so much from a one-stop station, and eventually you have to move on to grow. 

 How do you know, though, if you’re ready to move to the next station?  Here’s my not-so-scientific test you can you to see where you’re at.

Do you know how much you’re making?

 Not just your sales, but also how much you (really!) spend – aka your profit.  This isn’t really a numbers question, and there’s no magical profit threshold that says “yes, you’re ready to grow”, but what we do want to make sure is that you know where you’re at.  Well, know and understand.

 Before you start committing to and investing in “more”, you really need to have a clear picture of where you’re at and where you’re going.  Driving sales is great, but if those sales are costing you twice as much, you’re no further ahead than where you are today!  Don’t get stuck in the growth trap; make sure a) your numbers are current, accurate, and maintained, and b) you understand WTF those numbers are telling you.

Do you feel like you have to “relearn” how to do things each time you do them?

Every time you go to ship packages, pull reports, post new items, or update your website, are you having to basically start at the beginning and try to remember how the heck you do it?  Or do you get halfway through and realize you forgot something and have to restart? Or you go to do it and realize you don’t have some of the products/content you need?  It’s frustrating and you often feel like your spinning your wheels – one step forward, two steps back – how are you EVER going to get things done!?

As lame as it sounds, having every single action in your business documented is a GAME CHANGER to not only getting things done quickly and efficiently, but it’s the KEY to getting help and delegating.

Are you doing things that you know you’re not the best at?

 Bootstrapping our businesses is real – and most of the time, necessary as we get going.  But as you start making money and getting busy, your time has to be prioritized.  And there’s no need to hide or be ashamed…we always prioritize the things we love to do and are good at.  Me – I can’t stand social media.  So when I’m staring down the barrel of a 14 hour day, want to know what is ALWAYS at the bottom of my list? You got it – social media.  Now I’m not an idiot; I know that social is important to my business growth, but it is so out of my comfort zone that I seriously get anxiety attacks posting.  My current solution is to batch all my social media stuff on one day, and I dose myself with CBD oil so that I don’t get inside my own head while I do it…seriously, I drug myself.  Its insane.  Needless to say, I’m not condoning that solution, and in an attempt to remove this insanity from my world all together, I’ve taken the plunge and hired someone to take ALL this off my plate.  There – that’s the point of all this – take the plunge.  There are people out there that actually LOVE the things you hate (look at me? I love budgets, numbers, and processes – most people think I’M insane), so find them! And dump what you hate onto them ;P

Are you able to keep up with the orders/sales/clients you currently have?

Ok, let’s not answer this one thinking of today…you’re likely in the eye of the holiday storm and going moderately insane trying to prep for markets, get orders out, or finish up projects before YOU can actually get a holiday.  Think of this question during a “non-holiday rush”.  Are you keeping up easily? Or just barely? Or maybe failing miserably?

 If things are running smooth like clockwork, making the decision to grow or expand could be great!  Struggling to the point of burnout?? Well maybe we need to tackle some of the areas above before adding MORE to your plate.  Its not to say never, but you will want to get some more processes and people in place before you take the next steps – or risk complete burnout – and really, what’s the point of having the “freedom” of being your own boss if it’s just going to send you to the emergency room trying to keep up.

Take a look at where you’re at.  Check your gut.  Are you ready?  It’s OK to be scared – remember we’ve got our big girl panties on now <3

 **if the resounding answer is “no” you’re not ready but man oh man you want to be, shoot me an email and let’s talk about how we can help to get you there!!