5 Steps to Founder Freedom
Freedom Firm Insider #002
The two-year escape plan…
In 2022, I had the opposite of a Freedom Firm.
We’d started to grow…rapidly.
It was awesome.
Everything I’d worked the previous 10 years to build was finally taking off…
Like a SpaceX rocket.
On the outside, I got praise and congratulations.
I’d go to masterminds, and peers were impressed with the success.
But there was a dark side no one knew…
The growth was like a crushing vice…
Every month it squeezed harder.
The faster we grew, the worse it got.
Here we were, growing fast, hitting big revenue goals, working with amazing clients…
And more and more, I was becoming disillusioned with it all.
Under the strain of rapid growth…
– Every system broke
– The newly built team’s inexperience was exposed
– The utter dependence on ME holding it all together was a nightmare on repeat
Things had to change if we were to survive.
When you’re a firefighter and everything’s ablaze, it’s easy to be engulfed.
I was playing an early morning solo round at Sea Island and having one of those “self-reckoning” conversations in my head when it hit me..
There are only two times to do anything.
Now and Not Now.
I was trying to put everything into “Now”…because everything seemed to be on fire.
I was doing just enough in each area of the business to keep the fires at bay, but I wasn’t putting any of them out permanently.
The answer for me…and the answer for you is in this question:
What’s the current constraint?
Every business is a system (a series of systems).
And every system has one, and only one, biggest constraint at any time.
The way out of a chaotic business and into a Freedom Firm is to find and fix the current constraint.
These are five key areas to look at in any business…
1. Traffic (creating demand)
2. Conversion (converting demand)
3. Team (who gets it done)
4. Delivery System (how you get it done)
5. Brand (your place in the market’s mind)
The question to ask is…
Which area is currently blocking the other four?
You might have a great team, an awesome process, a solid reputation in the market, and most prospects become clients when you meet them, but you’re only seeing a handful of prospects a month.
Traffic is the constraint.
Stop here… think for a minute.
What’s the current constraint for your firm?
Once you know the constraint, you need to imagine what that would look like “unclogged”.
Here’s how I think about it…
Traffic >> Leads Every Day
Conversion >> Non-Stop Sales
Team >> Team-Driven Growth
Delivery >> Founder-Free Fulfillment
Brand >> 1-of-1 Positioning
Unclogged traffic looks like “Leads Every Day”.
If traffic is my constraint, now I can focus my energy on that area until I create leads every day.
When that’s fixed, a new constraint will emerge.
You’ll go around these five areas again and again.
Before you think, “Wait, I have to do this over and over!?”
If you do this with a team, they will quickly take over the process.
The first constraint in almost every firm is traffic.
Fix that, and the constraint usually moves to conversion.
Start converting leads at a high rate, and the constraint will quickly shift to team–you need more hands to help clients.
Grow the team and the fulfillment system that worked when you were plugged into every step, will start to break.
If you handle this first cycle through the constraints the right way, this is where you start seeing relief.
You turn employees into “Team-Driven Growth”
…and you turn getting client work done into “Founder-Free Fulfillment.”
On Thursday, Oct 16, I’m hosting a free workshop where we’ll do some hands-on work to find your current constraint and get a plan for busting the constraint.
If you’d like to be a part of it, click here, and I’ll send you a calendar invite.
Oh, and we’ve done some “selling webinars” over the last few months. This isn’t one of those.
Nothing to sell…
I just want to help you get a step closer to your own Freedom Firm, because it’s fun.
Steve “Constraint Buster” Gordon
P.S. Whenever you’re ready, here are three ways we can help…
1. Interested in a pipeline that never runs dry? Watch this masterclass where I layout the 3 secrets to build a never-dry-pipeline of leads. Click here
2. Get the blueprint for writing a bestselling book in 90-days that I shared with a closed-door meeting of the worlds top speakers… Click here
3. Ready to finally get that book you’ve wanted to write done? Click here to schedule a Bestseller Blueprint Session and let’s explore your business book idea together.