Most business owners think that scaling looks like this straight, smooth line up and to the right, but the truth, scaling isn't a line. It's more like a staircase. And behind that staircase are seasons of growth. Each season requires something different from you and from your business. And if you don't honor the season that you're in.

That's when growth feels heavy, messy, or you just feel stuck. In this episode, I'm gonna walk you through the three scale seasons of business, and we're gonna talk about why so many founders get stuck, the common mistakes that stall growth, and how to figure out what season you're in right now. Because if you keep slipping, it's not because you can't scale, it's because you are skipping the season that you're in.

So let's start with this. When you zoom in on what growth actually looks like, it doesn't happen in one clean upward motion. It's not that exponential growth chart that you typically see. It happens in steps like climbing stairs. And every step, like I said, requires something different. First you're gonna start, then you're gonna stabilize, and then you're going to scale.

And that cycle continues. If you happen to miss one of those, that's when things start to break. The staircase is a great way to picture it because one step builds on the next. But the bigger truth is this, you don't just climb that staircase once. It is that cycle and you move through these scale seasons again and again at every level of growth.

So we start with season one, which again is start. This is where you try something new. A new strategy, a new offer, a new marketing tactic. The whole point here is to test it, see if it even works. Too many people expect something new that they're trying to blow up on day one scale immediately. In other words, and if it doesn't, they call it a failure.

But the start season isn't about perfection. It's not about instant results. It's about testing and collecting data. Once you know that something is working, then you can move to the next season, season two, which is all about stabilize. Once you've got something that works, the next season is. All about locking it in.

You systemize it, you automate it, you delegate it. The goal is simple. We want that success that you created to be predictable and repeatable and consistent. We want it to be reliable, but not to dependent on you. This is the season that gives you balance. It's what makes growth safe to sustain long term.

Once things aren't dependent on you, and you can begin to get better and better results without more effort, we're ready for season three of scale, which is all about exactly that. Multiplying results without multiplying effort. This is where you pour gas on the fire, more customers, more revenue, more leverage, and it's all possible without burning out.

Okay, so that's the rhythm of scaling. We are going to start stabilize and then scale one season at a time. You're gonna focus on those three elements. Now, here's where most founders go wrong. First, they expect to scale immediately. This is when a business owner maybe launches a new offer or starts a new marketing strategy.

Maybe they hire a new team member, and if they don't see immediate results at the level that they want, they pivot. But the start season isn't about instant success. It's about collecting data. It's about learning. Did this message resonate? Did anyone buy? What feedback did you get?

Those are some of the questions, and just a handful there for quick examples of things that you ask during the start season to know whether you're ready to move on. And then you have to, of course, stabilize before you can scale. You can't expect things to just work immediately. You wanna learn from it.

So if you treat every experiment like it has to scale immediately, you'll keep abandoning really great ideas before they even have a chance to prove themselves.

I mentioned this one briefly as I was just speaking, but the next mistake is skipping. Stabilize. This is when something is working. Maybe you figured out a new strategy to. Let's say book sales calls, or you've got a marketing campaign that's doing a great job of pulling in leads, but instead of stabilizing it, you try to pour on volume.

So without the systems, without being able to delegate, you just try to ramp it up and do more. And then suddenly you are drowning. You're drowning in calls that you don't even have time to take in fulfillment, that you can't deliver in admin tasks that no one else is handling because you're the only one to get it all done

When this happens, it's because you didn't multiply results. You multiplied the effort, the chaos that's required because you didn't take the time to scale first. More clients, more problems, more of you in the business is exactly what happens when you skip the stabilized season, and that's why you burn out.

The third mistake is actually stabilizing too early. On the flip side, there's this trap often rooted in perfectionist tendencies where you test a new strategy and it sort of works. And so you immediately start creating SOPs and you start perfecting it, and you start to create training modules and you start hiring for other people to run it.

And the problem is you don't even know if it's going to keep working, and that means you waste time building a system around something that's not yet proven. So the lesson here is only stabilize what's been tested enough times to know that it's reliable. The next mistake is stopping innovation once something works.

Maybe you start something and you even stabilize it. Maybe you even scale it, but then you stay there. This one feels really safe because you're seeing success. It's solid, it's working, but then you freeze. You're afraid to try something new. You're afraid to try something different because what's working is working and you're afraid that if you stop doing what's working, then you won't be able to maintain the level of success that you have.

The challenge is if you stop innovating, you won't be able to maintain the level of success that you have.

The next mistake is holding back because you think scaling means more of you. I see this all the time. Business owners hesitate to grow because they imagine more clients means more hours and more stress and more of them in the weeds. But that's only true if you never stabilized. So if you only start and you never stabilize, then the delivery, the marketing, the decision making.

All of it still relies on you. And of course growth feels scary if all of that's dependent on you because it does mean more of you. But if you've stabilized, then scaling doesn't take more of you real scaling, which only happens after stabilization is the opposite. You get the leverage that you need. So growth actually demands less of you.

And the last mistake that I wanna touch on is trying to do. All three of these at once. This one's sneaky because you might feel really ambitious You're starting something new. Maybe you're testing a new offer while you are stabilizing, so you're building out SOPs and hiring for something, and at the same time you're throwing ad spend at it to try to scale it.

And on paper it feels really efficient. Why not just do it all at once and get there faster? Right? But in reality, you end up half testing, half systemizing and half scaling, and none of it actually sticks when you divide your focus. Among too many things, none of them get accomplished, and whatever you're starting never gets enough focus to prove that it actually works. The systems are built on a shaky ground

You end up just scaling the mess, it just magnifies the chaos around you instead of actually making it better. So I want you to ask yourself, what season of scale are you in right now? If you could only choose one, which would it be? If you're in start, remember, it's a test. Don't expect perfection. Once you've validated that something works, you're ready for stabilize, and if you're in stabilize, your job is to get things off of your plate, not to make it flawless or perfect, but just to move things off of your plate so it can scale without scaling your workload.

Once that's accomplished, then you're actually ready to scale, And that's when you're going to multiply what's working, but then don't get satisfied or complacent. Don't stop starting. Don't stop innovating. You need to continue to start some new things and keep that cycle moving.

Scaling happens in seasons. You can't skip a season. If you honor them in order, you'll keep moving forward without burning out or falling behind. So again, remember, start stabilize scale. These are the seasons of growth. Get them out of order and you will stall, but get them right and you multiply results without multiplying your efforts.