I Built A 7-Figure Business – Now What?

Yeah,

Going on guys, Greg Hickman here with all agency@allagency.com. And like I said, in this video, I want to tell you what it feels like. And really what's going through my mind now that we've built a seven figure business here at all agency. Now I'm not recording this video to brag in any way I'm sharing it because it has been a goal of mine to build a seven figure business. And I'm going to do another video as to why that's an important goal and how you can kind of define success for yourself in the coming weeks. But for me, that was something that I was chasing. Maybe it's something that you're, that you're chasing. And so I had tons of thoughts as I was building this business up to, to this point where I wasn't really sure why I was chasing it or what it would feel like, or what would be different, or if like my life would be all that different.

And it wasn't until, uh, I did a live stream in our free Facebook group for digital and creative agency owners would, you can visit by hitting the link below or visiting all agency.com forward slash group, where someone asked me, Greg, now that you've hit the elusive seven figure goal, what's different about how you're approaching things and your mindset. And it was interesting question because honestly, I think I hit the goal and I just kept going, which probably in and of itself tells you how much is actually different now. And it really got me thinking, because, you know, you hear the statistics about, you know, the number of businesses that actually ever achieved this goal and, and all of that great stuff. Um, but it doesn't actually really mean anything until you actually get there. At least that was for, for me. And so there was a study from the census Bureau in SBA office of 2020, and this was us annual sales for full-time businesses.

Only 7% hit a million in sales and 50% are actually making less than 75 K a year. So that kind of put it in perspective. And if you look not just 2020, and kind of years past, it's actually smaller than 7% of businesses, small businesses that actually cross seven figures in sales. And I think a key point in just that graph alone is the fact that most report on sales, they don't report on profit. So there's a lot of businesses that do seven figures in sales, but they still have nothing to show for it. And that's not a great business. You you'd want a business that has a healthier profit margin, even if it's doing less in sales than having seven figures in revenue and nothing to show for it. So anyway, that question got me thinking. And so I thought I'd just share a quick video because I actually looked around on the internet and there were a lot of other videos on YouTube about like how to hit seven figures, but nothing really around like what happens when you get there.

And so I wanted to, to share that now, if you're new here, go ahead and click that subscribe button and that notification bell, because we share videos like this each and every week, tips, training, things that are, I think, real, that you should know about behind the scenes of growing an online business. So the question again is, well, what is different and how has your mindset changed, changed? And the answer really comes down to, so what changed nothing and everything at the same time. And I know that sounds kind of like a fake answer, but I've distilled this down into a few things that I wanted to share with you about hitting this goal, because if this is your goal for better or for worse, if it's the right goal for you or not, I kind of want to let you see around the corner as to some things that are probably going to go through your mind because they're going through mind and to validate my thoughts, I went and talked to a handful of my own coaches, mentors, and peers that I've been on this journey with, that have also crossed this milestone in the last couple of years to see if I was abnormal in thinking these things and or not.

And moral of the story is if you hit this goal, you're likely going to be thinking around the exact same things that I am at least some of them. So if you've crossed the seven figure, Mark, I'd love to know in the comments of what else you would add to this list. So let's just jump right in thing. Number one is it's not automatic. Now. I think some people, and maybe this is just me, I'll expose myself on this one. You scroll through Facebook or you scroll through Instagram and you see these other people that are hitting these goals or seven figure business, eight figure business. And it's like, they hit it. And it's just, okay, well now automatically they're going to have their businesses is always going to do seven figures. No, if we stopped doing what we were doing, we wouldn't just automatically make seven figures.

Again. That's not how most businesses are designed. Yes, you want to have, you know, revenue streams that are recurring and you want to have some predictability in that, but you still need to do all of the things that allows you to generate that business. You need to be attracting new leads. You need to be converting. Those leads into prospects. You need to be converting those prospects into clients, and then you need to be serving those clients and helping those clients get results and helping them upgrade and spend more money with you and buy other things and have your team help you and not work nights and weekends, and be a slave to your business. Like there's a lot of things that go into running, building and maintaining this, especially if you want to keep growing, which we would like to. So just because someone made seven figures in one year, doesn't mean they're automatically going to do it again.

So you got to get back to work thing. Number two is it's not about doing new things. This is the kind of the mantra that I've been sharing with our team, because if we run the numbers, uh, and do all of our projections, we don't really need to learn tons of new stuff and, or implement tons of new strategies to even double our business. We actually just need to do more of the things that we're working and cut out the stuff that wasn't and make those small incremental improvements. What's amazing about this is that sweet. I don't need to worry about the latest shiny object because I have a system and a structure that is scalable from acquisition to fulfillment, to all the things. And it's really about the F the subtle little tweaks, the adjustments to make each of those areas 1% better each and every day, and we'll hit the goal.

So that was refreshing in, in one way. But on the flip side, when you think about it, when you don't get to do new things, if it's not about doing new things, that means you got to keep doing a lot of the same things over and over again. And for some people, I think that's boring. I definitely go through waves of man. Like I'm kind of bored, but then I have to kind of reorient myself into the other areas of growth that I need to grow in which I'll be talking about leadership and vision and helping internal team members grow versus me doing everything and helping other people become the best version of themselves. So you could be super excited that there's not a lot of new things that you need to do, but you could also kind of go into a spiral of trying to experiment with new things, because it might start to feel boring for you.

So thing number three is now I'm focused on developing leaders to replace me. Um, you know, our sales team is growing. Our client success team is growing. Uh, we're in the process of hiring for help in and around marketing to make my life easier. So the focus now is how do I double our business or keep growing our business without Greg having to do all the things. And that means getting the appropriate team members in place. Now, you don't need a massive team to grow to seven figures and beyond, but you're going to have to have some help. And you're probably going to have some dedicated help, like full-time employees. And you're probably going to work with some contractors and things like that to be in a position to maintain and keep growing your business without you being the bottleneck. So your focus of, Hey, being maybe the sales person or being a key piece of fulfillment needs to shift to, I need to help these other people replace me.

And that means developing other people and coaching internally versus just externally. So I thought that was a really interesting thing now is I am now focused way more on my team and making them better than necessarily me going to acquire a ton more skills and in doing so, I'm up upleveling myself, the leader thing. Number four is really optimizing for three things. I'm up optimizing for self care, product and profit. Um, I don't really care what other people are doing. We know our numbers and we know the numbers that we want to grow too. And I know how many hours I want to be working. I don't care how many hours you work or the next guru or whatever. I'm focused on us and our clients. And I know that I have a set number of hours that I'm able to work on projects because I have two kids.

I have hobbies and interests, and I don't, I want to not sacrifice my lifestyle while making a Mark and helping tons of other people build a business that they enjoy too. So I'm very optimizing my business for self care. My routines, my rituals, my hobbies, like mountain biking on optimizing for continuing to make our product and our programs and our services better. And that all of those are delivered with really strong profit margins. So we can continue to have a healthy business. And I would encourage you to do the same thing. Thing. Number five is really being more focused on our client's needs versus competition. I think this is a big one. We have a saying it's like emulate and then innovate. And some people call it R and D replicate and duplicate. And in the early stages, when it comes to funnels and structure of your services and programs, yeah, it makes a lot of sense to model other people that are ahead of you, but as you start gaining traction, and, and I feel like for the black of a better milestone, seven figures is it for us, it's, I'm way less focused on what other people are doing now.

Now then how I can make the tweaks that are optimized for me and my team and also our clients. So instead of going to see, Hey, here's what other coach or mentor or agency is doing, I'm saying, Hey, clients, would this be useful? What do you think about this is, do you value this more than this? And I'm making the adjustments you are offering based on the clients we actually have, because we want more people like them. So it's not necessarily about modeling what other people are doing. It's about working with the people that are already paying you to design what they need and in a way that you want to deliver it, that gives all of the things, uh, to you that you hoped to get out of running your own business. So I thought that was kind of an interesting tipping point is I'm way more interested on the feedback from clients, uh, to take this thing to the next level, then maybe the next guru thing.

Number six is to design for the desire zone, AKA fun, and done. Look, we have a big mission to help a lot of people, a lot of digital and creative agency owners to build a business that serves them and not the other way around, but I don't want to be a slave to my business. And I don't want our clients to be a slave to their business. And that's kind of why we're here. So we need to build a business so gets to spend more time. And the team gets to spend more time on the things that is in their desire zone, which for me, it's creating training and content like this and having fun, developing YouTube videos and packaging up my IP. And then also the fun stuff, which is like, Hey, I want to take off Fridays and go mountain biking early, and then be able to pick my kids up from school early.

So I want to work less, make more and only spend the time on the things that I'm really good at. And I want to spend my time on, and you need to keep making tweaks to your business to get more and more of your time as the owner, as the leader into that desire zone. And this year and beyond are really about those subtle tweaks and adjustments and hiring the right people to allow me to pull that off. And lastly, number seven is you set the vision and lead the team. So as you cross the seven figure milestone, um, it's gonna, in order to keep growing, it's going to have way less to do with you and way more to do with everybody else. And so you need to be clear as to where you're going and why and what it's going to look like and get the team behind that vision, and then help them get you there.

So it's not necessarily about, Hey guys, here's the vision. Here's how I'm going to do it. It's Hey guys, here's the vision, get us there. And then leading them and coaching them to helping you achieve that goal, because that's going to help you stay in kind of that desire zone for yourself. Build them up as leaders, get more skin in the game and probably get way more fulfillment out of their job day in and day out so that you can hit all of the goals that you guys have for yourselves. So that's, what's going through my mind. That's, what's changed now that we've built a seven figure business. And as the time of recording this, you know, we just finished Q1 of this year and we're on pace to surpass the goal from last year. So I'm really excited about where things are going. We're not slowing down, but it's not about doing new things.

And hopefully if this is a goal that you've been chasing, these thoughts and these things might give you some insight into what it might feel like when you get there. And if those are things that you even want to be experiencing and having to deal with once you've gotten there, because I feel like as entrepreneurs, one, you'll never exceed the business will never exceed your own capacity to grow as an entrepreneur. So you always have to keep growing if you're not growing, you're dying. And so if at some point you want to stop, like, I don't necessarily think that that's going to be what most like most agency owners are probably going to try to sell their business if it's even sellable at that end, or they just shut the doors. So I feel like you have to, there's a certain mentality of person that wants to grow past a seven figure Mark, and you have to be growth oriented, not just your own growth, but your team's growth.

And I think really disciplined. Hopefully this insight is helpful to you on your journey. If that is your goal, by the way, I think that hitting seven figures has to be your goal at all. It's just for some of you. It is, and it was for me. And that's why I wanted to share this. So I hope this video finds you well, if you want to get more free training about systematizing and all of the things that lead to a healthy, sustainable repeatable business, then make sure you're in our free Facebook group, all agency.com/group. The link is in the description below. If you have a seven figure business, I want to know in the comment section, what things would you add to this list to share with the person who's on this journey, uh, trying to hit this elusive goal that less than 7% of businesses in the United States hit. Other than that will be, you guys enjoy this, I'll see you in the next one.