26. Nobody Gave Us a Map When We Started. This Episode Is the Map. | Business Strategy

Most service business owners are working hard -- but not always on the right things. And it's not a motivation problem. It's an altitude problem. When you're doing Camp 3 work in a Camp 1 business, or spending money on tools designed for a team of twenty when you're still the only person answering the phone, the effort doesn't translate into forward movement.

In this episode, Ginny walks through the Outcome Academy Business Mountain Framework from start to finish -- the five stages every service business moves through: Base Camp (planning), Camp 1 (starting), Camp 2 (growing), Camp 3 (scaling), and Camp 4 (selling and legacy). She covers what each stage actually feels like from the inside, what the 16 business categories look like at each camp, and why the most expensive mistakes happen when business owners invest in the wrong things at the wrong time.

This episode is especially useful if you're in Camp 1 -- doing everything yourself, wearing every hat, and wondering why you can't get ahead. It's also a strong reference episode if you've been listening to this podcast for a while and want to understand the full framework behind everything Ginny teaches.

Come take a look at the map. It's going to make the climb a lot clearer.

Thanks for listening to The Outcome Academy Podcast.

If you enjoyed this episode and want to keep learning how to work ON your business with systems, strategy, and practical tools, here are a few ways to stay connected:

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Your outcome isn't a wish. It's a decision.

Transcript

Welcome to the Outcome Academy podcast. I'm Ginny Seeley. I'm a business strategist and longtime process improvement expert. I also co-own an appliance service business and a co-working space with my husband, Joe. So I understand what it looks like to juggle growth, leadership, family, and big dreams all at once.

If you're a service-based entrepreneur or executive who wants to stop putting out fires and work on your business and build momentum with systems, smart marketing, and practical tech, you are in exactly the right place.

Today, we are going to talk about something very near and dear to my heart lately. This year, we put a framework around everything that we've been teaching here at Outcome Academy over the past few years. It all stemmed from a business experience that I went to last year.

During that experience, my good friend Lydia, who I learn from all the time—I love her, she's amazing—shared with us a story about how having a business journey compares to climbing Mount Everest. The context that she shared it in was something not going right, falling apart, doubting ourselves, feeling exhausted, and feeling like we can't go on anymore. Sometimes, it really feels like you're going back to the beginning when you're in business.

The context that she shared this story in was about climbing Mount Everest and not even making it to the top, and all of the different points where you have to stop. You don't get to just go straight to the top. You have to go to different camps. At each camp, you have to acclimatize to the weather, the elevation, your body, and how you're feeling. You have to train. Before you even start climbing the mountain, you have to spend some time at the bottom at base camp.

From the very beginning at Outcome Academy, we have taught different stages of positive business growth. Of course, we all know there are negative stages where things don't go right, people close down, and there are all kinds of different viewpoints about the business journey.

What we teach here at Outcome Academy is that we have the pre-revenue stage, where you're planning, thinking about your business, and dreaming. Then we have the starting phase, the growing phase, the scaling phase, and the selling phase. The selling phase is where you're preparing to exit your business.

This can look different for all kinds of people. For some people, this could look like leaving a legacy to their children. For some people, this could look like leaving it to a very capable manager to run their business while they remain an investor and either a silent owner, or maybe they have some visionary responsibilities and contribute from time to time.

The point of the positive stages of business growth is that you're moving forward. You're continuing on your path in your business journey, and you're not just staying in one place. You have a very personal plan to exit your business, and it's something that you've thought about from the very beginning.

That is how we have viewed the business journey from the very beginning of Outcome Academy. We started working with people to understand who they are, who they serve, their ideal customer, and what sets them apart. We've been brainstorming through 16 different categories of all of the things that go on in your business for years and years in the context of the different stages of business that we're all going through.

When I heard this amazing story about climbing a mountain and how, when you fail and go backward down the mountain, that's not failing at all—that's just part of the process—I thought to myself, wow, if we take it a bit further, we could apply all of the stages of positive business growth that we work on in Outcome Academy and put them in the context of climbing a mountain.

And so the Outcome Academy Business Mountain Framework was born.

The whole point of me telling you this story is that all of the things we've been doing have evolved. I'm really excited now about how we have put this framework together because my science-minded, process-oriented, Lean Six Sigma Black Belt brain always wants to put a system or a process behind everything.

As you know, my very favorite quote by James Clear is: “You do not rise to the level of your goals. You fall to the level of your systems.”

The Business Mountain Framework and our 8000er Mastermind put a system behind working on your business, not just in your business.

There are tons of amazing resources out there for working in your business. A couple of my favorites are the StoryBrand Framework, which really helps you work on the marketing and messaging in your business, and Traction by Gino Wickman, which really helps you systematize the processes of running a team, running meetings, and strategic planning.

But the Outcome Academy Business Mountain Framework puts a structure around how to progress from the idea of thinking that you might want to go into business all the way to the end, where you step back and let somebody else run your business and you can retire because you've built something amazing that gives people jobs and helps them raise their families and buy their own homes.

As business owners, the journey is hard. We're responsible for payroll, which is a really big thing. We're responsible for hiring, training, understanding all the laws around business ownership, training our people, understanding things ourselves, paying taxes, making sure that we're profitable, setting up a safe space for everybody to work in, getting our team engaged with each other, understanding how to sell, and creating offers that solve problems for people so that we can stay in business.

When we solve problems for people, that is what people pay for. They pay for the solutions that we provide. They have choices.

Our marketing, sales operations, customer satisfaction, and all of the other elements that are part of the 16 pieces we look at throughout the different camps are all things that we are responsible for as business owners.

It's not easy. It's stressful.

Sometimes you find yourself wondering how to keep up with everything, how to stay on track, and how to know what to work on next.

Then there's the dark side, which is some predatory marketing targeted toward business owners. They'll tell a very brand-new business owner that they need to spend $10,000 on a website or they're not going to show up. Or they need to spend thousands of dollars on SEO, truck wraps, or various other things.

I'm not saying any of those things are bad, but depending on where you are in your journey in business, they are not always the right thing at the right time.

That is the really important piece that we talk about here in the Business Mountain Framework. We focus on doing the right things at the right time in your journey up the mountain of business ownership.

I want to take a few minutes today and talk about the different camps and what it means to be in the various camps so that you can start thinking about what camp you're in and some of the priorities you may have.

In the 8000er Mastermind, we go through a whole onboarding process. Once we figure out where you are and what camp you're in, we do a big audit. We look at the camps before you.

When you're in Camp One, you're doing everything by yourself. In Camp Two, you start to grow your team.

Each of the 16 areas of business looks different at each camp along the journey of business ownership.

At Base Camp, everything is about planning. The identity you have at Base Camp is that of a dreamer. You're thinking about all the different things you might do in your business. Maybe you're working for somebody else and your values don't align with theirs. Maybe you're working for somebody else and they're amazing, but you're planning a big move for your family, which is what happened with us.

We decided we were going to move our family to a different state and a different city. We needed to think about what needed to happen so that we could open our business on the right foot.

That would be Base Camp.

In Base Camp, you're doing all the things you need to do before you make your first dollar and before you serve your first client. You're setting up your legal entity. You're making sure you have all your bank accounts open. All of those planning activities are Base Camp.

In Camp One, you're starting to serve people. It's super exciting. You get your first customers and start to build awesome word-of-mouth.

At this stage, you're working through one of the products we have in Outcome Academy called Brand Builder Blueprint. You're establishing, sometimes through trial and error, who you want to serve, what kind of offers you're going to have, what you love doing most when you're serving people, and what kind of work you don't want to do.

At this stage, you're the sole service provider in your business. You answer the phone. You deliver the service. You handle the bookkeeping. You set aside money for taxes. You monitor whether you're making ends meet.

You're thinking about who you are, who you want to serve, what kind of offers you're going to have, what problems you're solving, and what sets you apart from others doing the same thing.

If you know me by now, you know I don't really believe in competition. I think it's okay if there are other awesome people doing the same thing you do.

First, it means there's a need for what you're offering. If nobody is doing it at all, maybe it isn't needed in your area. If somebody else is doing what you're doing, that's a good thing.

But they're not going to do it exactly the same way you do.

Even in the appliance world, there are people who work in healthcare settings fixing medical equipment. There are people who focus mostly on commercial appliances. There are people who do residential appliances but don't like refrigerators or dishwashers. Some work on everything except high-end appliances. Others focus on marine appliances and RV appliances because that's a specialized niche.

That is all part of Camp One.

You're figuring it out. You're trying things. You're learning.

By the end of Camp One, you're exhausted. The phone is ringing, you're doing everything, and you're tired. You can't keep up. Sometimes you make mistakes, and it's time to hire your first person.

Once you hire your first person—and I like to say the first person who doesn't work for pizza and beer, who isn't family helping out, and isn't a friend helping you out—once you hire your first real employee who is a W-2 team member, you're in Camp Two and the growing stage.

In Camp One, you're starting and have the identity of a service provider.

In Camp Two, you're growing and start to take on the identity of a manager.

Now, in addition to doing all the work you've been doing, you're creating policies and procedures. You're putting together checklists and documenting the way you like things done. You're sharing that information with somebody else on your team.

That person may answer the phone or care for clients, or you may have multiple people on your team, including someone delivering services just like you.

You may be training someone from scratch.

That's a whole different set of challenges.

The different areas of your business look different in Camp Two.

Camp Three is the scaling phase.

In Camp Three, you're adding a lot more people to your team. You have so many people that you need help managing them, and you're building out your leadership tier.

You may have multiple locations. You may have five, ten, or fifteen trucks on the road if you're a trade business. You may have multiple bookkeepers if you're a bookkeeping business.

No matter what type of business you have, you've taught other people how to deliver your services.

At this point, you're definitely growing and maturing your library of policies and procedures.

You face management challenges around operations and scaling service delivery. How do you manage all these people? How do you keep them engaged? Are you hosting team parties, contests, and other activities?

When you look at the team aspect, it looks very different.

At Base Camp, you don't have a team.

In Camp One, you are the team.

In Camp Two, you're building your team.

In Camp Three, you have a sizable team you're managing. You may even have a training center.

Camp Three looks very different from the earlier camps, and you're constantly adjusting.

You have a whole new set of expectations and about a hundred things you need to make sure are firmly in place before moving into Camp Four, which is the selling camp.

In Camp Three, your identity becomes that of a CEO. You have managers beneath you.

In Camp Two, you are the manager.

That doesn't mean you stop managing people. The moment you hire your first person, you're a leader.

Camp Four is all about positioning your business for sale.

When we look at the team aspect in Camp Four, we want a complete HR department. We want excellent onboarding and offboarding processes, IT systems, uniforms, and all the structures needed to manage your team.

The goal is for the business to operate without your daily involvement.

This is a muscle you should be practicing in Camp Three.

You should be stepping away from your business and giving your team opportunities to make decisions and solve problems without you.

That way, in Camp Four, you're focused on making your business sellable.

You're essentially turning your business into a franchise.

Imagine a giant binder with 16 departments documented and organized. You're preparing to hand that over to a new owner.

If you haven't been building these assets along the way as you move from Base Camp to Camp Four, then when it's time to sell, all you really have is a phone number list.

As much as I hate to break it to you, that's something Dean Landers teaches often when speaking at conferences. He owned the business Joe worked for for 33 years.

One thing he emphasizes is that business owners often have an inflated view of what their business is worth because it's their baby.

You need to think about your business from the perspective of the buyer.

If every decision depends on you and you have to do everything, then it isn't worth much to them.

You're really only selling an email list and a phone number list.

Those have value, but not nearly as much value as a business with documented processes, systems, and a well-oiled machine that can operate independently.

That kind of business is far more valuable.

That's what we're doing in Camp Four.

In Camp Four, the identity you're working toward is that of an owner, so you can either own the business as an asset or sell it and become an investor.

That is the whole journey up the mountain in the Business Mountain Framework.

We work through each phase as part of the 8000er Mastermind in the Outcome Academy Business Mountain Framework.

We have loads of assets inside the program to help you through each of the 16 categories within each camp so you can work through everything one step at a time.

I know it sounds overwhelming, but Outcome Academy doesn't serve people who are building software and hoping to sell it in six months for $10 million.

We serve people who are building meaningful businesses that create jobs in their communities.

They are systematically growing their businesses from an idea all the way to a sellable asset.

That doesn't happen in six months.

That happens over years of dedicated hard work.

When we think about climbing Mount Everest, if we simply ran to the top, we would die. Literally.

Businesses that try to rush to the top while skipping important steps are building on sand.

We know what happens when you build a house on sand.

It falls apart.

We see that happening here on the coast of North Carolina. Houses are literally falling into the water because they're built on sand.

You want to build your business on rock.

That is what the Outcome Academy Business Mountain Framework does.

It helps you work through every piece of your business and ensures you're ready to move to the next camp so you don't go crashing down the mountain.

I wanted to give you a deep dive into the Business Mountain Framework.

We're super excited about this, and I can't wait to enroll people into Camp One, especially for the Mastermind program.

When you're in Camp One, doing everything yourself, it can feel overwhelming.

That is one of the biggest risks to your business because suddenly everyone starts telling you they're going to solve all your problems. Before you know it, you're out of money and can't continue climbing the mountain.

I hate that for you, and I want better for you.

If that is you, or if you know someone in Camp One who is at their wits' end, ready to hire their first team member, and doesn't know what to do, I would love to help them climb that mountain so they're not doing it alone.

We have group programs, individual programs, and group programs that sometimes begin as individual programs.

Please share the word about the Business Mountain Framework. Share the word about Outcome Academy.

You could literally help somebody save their business because if they're skipping steps along the way, it will catch up to them.

If you're that person, it will catch up to you.

The price of this program is the lowest it's ever going to be, and it is set at a very attainable price for people in Camp One.

If that is a struggle for you right now, this podcast is a great place to start.

We also have a page on our website at outcomeacademy.com/freebies. There are resources there, and the blog contains tons of links, downloads, and resources that can help you.

I'm here to help you.

I'm here to serve you because when good, ethical people who care about their communities succeed in business, everybody wins.

All right, that's all for today.

I'll see you next time.

Thank you so much for joining me on the Outcome Academy podcast, and I can't wait to see you next week.

As you move through this week, notice where this shows up in your own business.

If you want to go deeper into this work, including the Mastermind and other ways we support service-based business owners, you can explore everything at outcomeacademy.com.

Thanks for listening, and I'll see you in the next episode.