Episode 178: Lessons I Learned From Scaling To 7 Figures
Discover the painful lessons I’ve learned, the hard truths I’ve faced, and the invaluable insights I’ve gained while growing my online business. From tackling digital marketing challenges and boosting social media engagement to building a sustainable business model, I share real-world experiences to help entrepreneurs avoid costly mistakes. Whether you're looking for growth strategies, marketing tips, or ways to scale your business online, this is your go-to resource for success.
Essential Lessons for Scaling Your Business to $1 Million and Beyond
Leverage existing platforms before building your own.
Adapt and refine your business model to stay relevant.
Address deep-rooted fears to unlock greater business potential.
Surround yourself with experienced mentors and peers.
Not everyone is your ideal client—clarify who you serve.
Invest in tools, team members, and systems for efficiency.
Stop relying on cookie-cutter marketing strategies.
Scaling an online business is a journey filled with challenges, setbacks, and breakthrough moments. Stay committed, embrace innovation, and keep optimizing your strategies. Success in the digital world isn’t just about working harder—it’s about working smarter. Implement these proven tactics, and you'll be well on your way to building a profitable and sustainable online business.
Product Businesses! Download my free HOW TO GET INTO A GIFT GUIDE/PRODUCT ROUND UP roadmap for free HERE to get more sales and traffic to your site this season.
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Resources Mentioned:
Join the PR Secrets Masterclass
Join the Small Biz PR Pros Facebook Group
DM the word “PITCH” to us on Instagram to get a pitching freebie https://www.instagram.com/gloriachoupr
Connect with Gloria Chou on LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/gloriaychou
Join Gloria Chou's PR Community https://www.facebook.com/groups/428633254951941
Learn more about Lyrik Fryer & WorkPlay Branding:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lyrikfryer/
Website: https://workplaybranding.com/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lyrik.fryer/
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Transcript
00:00:00 Gloria: Hey, small business heroes. Welcome back to another episode of Small Business PR where we make PR and marketing super accessible for founders, especially bootstrapping founders, founders of color, and people who have traditionally not been seen in the media.
00:00:13 Gloria: Our mission here is to make PR and visibility and getting more recognition accessible and easy. And we interview journalists about what they're looking for. Once in a while, I also give you a sneak peek behind what it's like for me to build a business as a first-time entrepreneur. So this is going to be...one of those episodes.
00:00:31 Gloria: And here are the 10 things that I've learned scaling my business to $1 million. Things that people might not even tell you. So here are my lessons learned and some of them are more painful than others. But here we go.
00:00:43 Gloria: So number one thing that people don't tell you when you're scaling a business to $1 million is that success comes not from doing all the right things, but from doing the things in the right order. I want to say that again. Success comes from not doing all of the things. It comes from doing the things in the right order. And definitely not all at once, which is a short recipe for disaster.
00:01:06 Gloria: You know all the strategies and the tools that people say works, right? You as an entrepreneur probably started your business because you have this natural curiosity and thirst. And that probably could lead you down some different options for pursuing shiny objects, I myself included. How many times have we been told this is the next thing that's going to work to grow your social media or to get customers to the door, right? So many different distractions and all of them probably do work.
00:01:32 Gloria: But here's the thing, it's not about doing all of them and being on all the social media platforms at once. It's about picking one and doubling down. It's about niching down and it's about selecting the right avenues to pursue to meet your business objectives. So, it's about the order of doing things and it's about doing the right things in the right order.
00:01:50 Gloria: I have a lot of people in my PR program that say, hey, Gloria, I want to start my own podcast. I want to have a platform. This is going to help me grow my audience." And I say, well, that's really awesome. But have you guest podcasted on other people's podcasts? Have you been interviewed? And a lot of times they say no. So here is my point. Why start a podcast which takes an enormous amount of time, energy, resources, planning? If you can just guest podcasts on other people's podcasts, if you can just be interviewed on other people's platforms, leverage their audience and use that to get...visibility and brand awareness.
00:02:25 Gloria: This is something that I teach in my PR starter pack, of course, but here's what I mean by doing the right things in the right order. See, I would rather get comfortable knowing how to interview, build my network by guest podcasting, which you're expanding your network using that finished podcast piece, turning it into 10 plus pieces of social media content before I pour all my time and energy on starting my own podcast, which probably will take a lot longer to gain traction.
00:02:51 Gloria: So again, success comes from not doing all the right things, but doing the right things in the right order. Number two, is a thing that I've learned from scaling my business to a million dollars, which is at every level of business, of growth, of revenue, you will have to literally kill your old self to reinvent the wheel. Now this is excruciating. It's painful because you are letting go of beliefs, narratives, ways of doing things, systems, content ideas, things that you're like, this is it. I know exactly what I'm doing. And then in order for you to get to the next level of business, all of a sudden, you have to scrape all of that and you have to start over, right?
00:03:31 Gloria: Now obviously, you take your resilience with you. You take your mindset with you. And I really think growth is kind of like a Christmas tree where you grow out, but then you have to niche down again. And then you kind of grow out and you kind of niche down. So at every level of the tree, you're kind of shaving away layers. And that's kind of how you grow. It's definitely not linear.
00:03:49 Gloria: So what I mean to say is that it is painful. You will have to let go of all the different limiting beliefs. So for example, I'll give you an example. When I wanted to turn my signature PR course from a one to one to a one to many model, which would give me the time freedom and the financial freedom that I've always wanted, I thought there was no way that people were going to want to join a program where they're not getting personalized PR help from me.
00:04:14 Gloria: At this point, I only knew that PR was something that you do on a one-on-one consulting container, right? I had to basically face that fear. I had to get over that limiting belief. I had to imagine something else entirely to create my signature program now, which is a one to many where people do get direct coaching and learn from the group and they get enormous amount of wins.
00:04:37 Gloria: So I'm able to scale my revenue and my impact because every day we have tens of founders and they're posting, they got featured in Allure and they got featured in Fast Company. That is much more impact than just me working with one client for one, two or three months. Do you know what I mean?
00:04:52 Gloria: But I have to get rid of that old narrative of people are not going to buy if it's not me directly holding their hand or people are not going to want to be able to do this if it's not me executing for them. Because the old school way of doing PR was you hired someone and then they go and pitch for you. And then guess what? They own the relationships, right? So on so many levels, it's about recreating your mindset, getting rid of that old mindset. And it means killing your old self because it means getting rid of all of those beliefs that you thought were true and pushing past that to create a new reality. And that's what has been able to help me create so many new possibilities and growth in my business that I never imagined before.
00:05:28 Gloria: But it's painful, it's excruciating, but it's also beautiful because it shows you the depth and capacity of your ability to create and innovate. And it really tells you that we are all creators here. We as entrepreneurs, we as business owners, we are all creating something from something that has never existed. So we follow our imagination, we put in the work and we create it, but it does take work and it can be very painful to kill off those old beliefs. So that's the number two thing that I've learned.
00:05:57 Gloria: The third thing that I've learned scaling my business to a million dollars is that all of your traumas, your insecurities, your unmet needs, your unprocessed emotions, it gets real deep. But all of that will play out in your business in front of you and your team if you have one.
00:06:16 Gloria: Let me explain what that means. For me, I had a lot of traumas around money safety, right? Growing up with a single parent and having moved and been a product of divorce, I was always told that the more money I made, the more stable, safe and worthy I was as a human. This is very toxic from my mom's generation as she was growing up in communist China where she literally was sewing shoes in a factory. And so her generational traumas kind of affected me because this was my point of view where she kind of instilled in me.
00:06:45 Gloria: And so if you were to run a business with that scarcity mindset, you are basically seeing everything as a transaction. You are seeing hiring not as an investment. You're always looking at how you can save money. And that really trickles down into everything that you do. And so that really limited me because it prevented me from getting the tools, the coaching, the resources, and saying yes to opportunities because I was so focused on keeping myself safe and small.
00:07:12 Gloria: And for you, it might manifest in that way. It might manifest in a different way. It might be that you were not seen or heard as a kid, and you feel like somehow it's wrong to promote yourself on social media, or you feel weird about promoting your business, even though you know that it changes lives, right? This stuff runs so deep. And we are lucky to be entrepreneurs where we get to literally have a playground to work out all of those things, but it can be...really painful and terrifying to see those old patterns, if unaddressed, if unworked on, play itself in business.
00:07:47 Gloria: I think about all the times where I could have said yes to opportunities, but because I was worried about keeping myself safe, I was worried about saving money, I didn't feel as abundant or expansive because I didn't do the work yet, those opportunities slipped away. Now I am on a mission to rewrite those narratives working from my body to my mind to somatic therapy and hypnotherapy and incorporating all those things. But it definitely is a journey. It didn't start off that way. And it's something that I actively have to work on every single day because it's about the decisions that we make in our business, right?
00:08:20 Gloria: No one is telling us, here is the next right decision or here is the next one. You have to feel it for yourself. And that's what we get to do as entrepreneurs with that freedom. But it just means that the constant narrative that we have ingrained in us, that will be the default one that we operate in unless we take action, unless we work on ourselves, unless we are aware of that old patterns of programming.
00:08:43 Gloria: It ripples through your relationships with other people, how you give and receive your time, how you network, how you think that you can advocate for yourself for some opportunities that are maybe out of reach, and also how you deal with defeat and failure, all of those things. And that's why I say it. Business is really our playground to look at all of our unmet needs and unhealed traumas so that we can take action.
00:09:07 Gloria: The third one is just a byproduct of the last one I said, which is that you also, because we're doing this work and we see those old conditioning patterns playing out, if you don't invest a ton in coaching, I don't mean you have to invest tens of thousands of dollars. Oftentimes it does help because it gives you a higher level of thinking and unlocks a higher level of network. But even from reading the books or...you know, consuming coaching content that's more accessible. If you don't spend a lot of your time doing that inner work, nothing's going to feel right.
00:09:39 Gloria: Because again, you're still going to be maybe it's that micromanaging tendency, right? Where you're unable to delegate and trust. I know I was guilty of it too. But that's why what I mean is like, nothing will feel aligned. It will feel like you are working your ass off and you have these people who are working for you. But why is it that you're doing all the work? It's because you haven't done the inner work to really elevate like a leader, to trust, to invest in people, to have that patience, to understand that not every dollar that you spend is gonna come back to you. That's really what I mean by it's really, really important to invest in coaching, community, resources, and experiences where you get to work through all of those things.
00:10:20 Gloria: And you get to maybe be in a peer group of people who can tell you like, hey, it's okay. Like this frightening, like fear that you have or these late night cries, it's uncomfortable, but you're not alone. I've been there. And sometimes that really makes a world of difference is just surrounding yourself with people who have been there. Maybe not exactly in the same business or industry, but in that process of learning and unlearning, they have also had to do the uncomfortable work. And so being in those masterminds, being in that coaching has really helped. And that's why it's important to find masterminds. And by the way, there's so many out there, but find masterminds that really align with you where, the coach has a lived experience that you feel like can truly resonate with you and that they really got you and that they really can see you.
00:11:03 Gloria: Let's go on to the next one, which is that first, when you first start making maybe six figures or beyond, you are just so excited to have everyone buy, right? You just want as many people in the door as possible. Everything is a yes. But as you grow and as you realize that you can make money and that you can really create something out of nothing, which all of us have when we have built a business.
00:11:25 Gloria: You lean more into realizing that you are not a McDonald's and you are not serving everyone. And you start to repel people. You start to have people who are like, oh, no, this is not for me. I actually want to work with you in this way. And you're gonna be in a position, in an empowered position to say, well, this is really not how I work with people. I have my program for a reason and this is how I work with people because this is how it's proven to get results. And that is such a liberating and powerful place to be where you realize that you are not for everyone. and that maybe some things in your messaging is actually repelling people. And that's a good thing.
00:11:58 Gloria: You want people to be repelled because it means that you are stepping up in leadership. People want to follow leaders and leaders take a stance. Leaders are not wishy washy. They're not one size fits all. So we are all out here looking and observing and consuming content. And we're wondering, is this person a part of my tribe? And if you are confident enough with your message to actually take a stance, then you will probably repel some people. But that just means that you are growing in leadership and that's a good thing. That's a good thing, my friend.
00:12:27 Gloria: Another thing that has really changed for me as I went scale my business to $1 million and beyond is you start to value your time more than money. In the beginning, we value our money more than time. How can I save money? How can I get this website for the cheapest possible? How can I... So you're constantly trying to save, save, save and it's this energy of constriction because you want to save...the little money that you've made and because you don't know if it's going to come back, right?
00:12:52 Gloria: That's normal. We've all been there and I'm currently working through that as well because of my upbringing as a first-generation immigrant. But I will say that as you start to realize that your business works, your business model is viable, it gets people repeated results, you start to realize, hmm, this is really for real. We are making change in this world. People like what we have to offer.
00:13:16 Gloria: How can I scale this quickly by hiring the best experts? The best A-Team players? How can I set my team up for the best resources and get the best software and take them on team retreats and spoil them so that they feel truly invested so that they know that we care about them? Because that's all going to come back to you right? That takes a different type of mentality. It takes not you counting dollars and cents. It takes you valuing your time over money. So then you start to say no to opportunities of things that before you might have been like, "Sure, let's say yes to this, maybe it'll get me a few more people."
00:13:47 Gloria: Now you're like, "Nope, I know that my time can be more leveraged in this way." It might be doing the $10,000 an hour things instead of the $10 an hour things that you can delegate and automate. And you probably start to get addicted to delegation and automation that you don't want to do anything anymore that you can delegate to anyone else. And you only focus on your zone of genius. That's when you realize you've elevated your time and the value that you create within one hour, right?
00:14:13 Gloria: So I'll give you an example, I was so scared of handing over my email inbox, my personal email inbox, my work email, all those things. But I realized that I was in a loop of checking Slack and Instagram and email, even on date night with my husband, to the point where I was not present anywhere with anyone. And so as I built my business, I realized, "Why am I not delegating more to the people already on my team who are good at what they do?" How can I just increase their hours, pay them a little bit more so that I can have a peace of mind where I'm not constantly checking email every 30 minutes.
00:14:45 Gloria: And I have a whole block of afternoon where I am strategizing offers, where I'm building strategic relationships, where I'm doing things that only I can do like record this podcast. And so that's when I started to value my time over money. And anything that I can delegate, I want to delegate. Anything that I can automate, I want to automate. Anything I can templatize, constantly making templates now so that it becomes a system, a repeatable system for anyone on my team so that I don't have to keep reinventing the wheel every time.
00:15:11 Gloria: So as you scale, you're going to start to value your time over money. And in the beginning, it's the opposite, right? But as you scale, you're gonna learn that time is more important than money and you start to take action from that place. And that's a very powerful place to be and that's going to help your success. It certainly has helped mine. So the next thing is that in the beginning you're watching your money, your resources, everything so closely, right? You're like, "I gotta just keep tabs on everything," and so you want to have an instant ROI from everyone you hire or from every event that you throw.
00:15:40 Gloria: But as you grow and you scale, you realize that not all of the gains can be measured and quantifiable in a tangible way, right? Not everything is going to be a monetary gain or maybe adding someone to your network. Sometimes it's just a law of energy where you give because you know that you are in an abundant place, that you can host a free happy hour where you pay for all the drinks and food, but you make your community feel seen and you're not getting money back from that event, but spiritually, you're getting that good karma.
00:16:13 Gloria: Spiritually, you are rising in your ability to lead. You are establishing yourself as someone who gives freely, who cares about their community, and that's going to create ripple effects in terms of testimonials, referrals, and all kinds of things that maybe you can't quite measure. It doesn't show up on your Stripe Dashboard, it doesn't show up as more followers necessarily, but you know that it will come back and it just feels so good to help somebody to maybe sit for an hour longer than you usually do in your coaching container.
00:16:42 Gloria: Because you really want to help that person, even though it's not technically in the program, right? Those are all the things that you feel super blessed and grateful to be able to do as you scale. And it's a confirmation from the universe that it all comes back to you in one way or the other, because you are trusting that it does, without having to keep checking your balance sheet every single day to see, "Is this adding to my bottom line?" Because you trust that it is coming back to you energetically or otherwise. That's just a powerful place to be in.
00:17:10 Gloria: Another thing is that you realize as you scale, how brainwashed we've become just from listening to all of the other funnel bros and marketing bros about this is how you do your business. Now to be clear, I also use those things in the beginning, right? Because those are all the people that we learned from when we first build a business. We learned from the same five dudes who have been creating these playbooks and it does help. In the beginning, it does help get you launched.
00:17:38 Gloria: It does help maybe make your first six figure. But if you want to make multiple six figures or seven figures, you're really going to have to decide what is true for you out of that playbook. And it's time to write your own playbook because at that point, you have an audience. You have your point of view. You have heard from your audience why they decided to buy from you and other people. And from all of this market research and confirmation, you become a new playbook. You are in a position of knowledge and resource and experience where you can write your own playbook of what's true for you.
00:18:13 Gloria: So there is power in abandoning those playbooks [of] other people. It's scary because we're always looking for the next right thing, right? We're always like, "Please just tell me what to do." But as you scale, you learn that a lot of the times the success comes from not doing what traditionally everyone's doing. And if anything, this year in online business has taught us that what has worked is not going to work anymore.
00:18:36 Gloria: And then you're going to be able to practice that skill of resilience, of leaning into trust and innovation. Because what is entrepreneurship if it's not innovation, right? I feel like we start off having these great ideas and somehow we just get pigeonholed into doing things a certain way because we are listening from the same people online. But now it's your time. If you want to grow, lean into your limitless ability to create, to have higher levels of thinking, to unlock new possibilities, and that's where the success is going to be.
00:19:03 Gloria: So I had to do that for myself. I had to cleanse myself of a lot of the things that I thought were true that were no longer true for me. And in doing so, I've been able to really take a stand and have people come my way, join me, follow me, and tell me that they loved what I had to say about X, Y, and Z and how they too rejected X, Y, and Z right? Again, it's all about taking a stance. And this is just a powerful place to be in. Second to last thing is that your ability to grow, right? Our ability to grow as business owners is in direct relationship to our ability to trust and delegate to other people.
00:19:37 Gloria: Now, if you look at the most successful entrepreneurs, they are not doing the day-to-day, like managing, like, "Have you done this? Have you checked this?" No, they are stepping back and empowering their team and giving them the resources so that their team is doing the execution. If you look at the most successful Fortune 500 CEOs, they are not doing the day-to-day. They are making sure that they're getting out of the way so that their team can really elevate and do their best work.
00:20:02 Gloria: Now that takes a tremendous amount of leadership skills, of patience, of coaching, of understanding how to develop talent, how to give feedback, how to have tough conversations, how to put the right people in the right seats. Because oftentimes it's not just about, "Well, this person is not right for the team, let's get rid of them." No, it's about maybe this person has skills that are just not aligned to their current role. How can you give every single person on your team something that lights them up?
00:20:31 Gloria: So that they're in their zone of genius, so that you can play that game at a higher level when everyone is at their A game, right? We want to have people who are doing things that they love and they feel like they're set up for success for. And so that's really what I mean by your level of success is directly related to your level to step into leadership. And that takes trust, that takes letting go of control, that takes surrender, that takes a communicating in a way that you can effectively delegate and have things still be done 80% perfect, right? 80% perfect done by someone else is like 100% awesome.
00:21:05 Gloria: It's from a book that I read called "Buy Back Your Time," and we're not expecting someone to be carbon copies of us. That is the quickest way to burn out and stressing out your team. I had to learn that because I had people actually leave. It was about how can I set up for success by having clear SOPs, clear instructions, and then having a feedback loop when things don't go wrong where it's not about me judging them or turning them off or disempowering them?
00:21:28 Gloria: How can we have uncomfortable conversations of performance where it actually brings our team closer? That is a sign of true leadership and something that I'm actively working towards so that every single person on the team can work at a higher level because it's not about me doing all the things, it's about us as a team. And as you grow, your team and your ability to delegate and elevate will be absolutely transformative to how you can grow and scale because you cannot do it alone.
00:21:54 Gloria: And a lot of you listening, you probably have already recognized that you really can't do it alone, right? And it becomes about the team and hiring. And so that's why I'm spending a lot of time now, figuring out how can I be the best leader? How can I communicate? How can I get unstuck with my communication? And how can I ask questions in a way that's not accusatory, that actually addresses the problem but not threatens or makes people be on the defensive so that we can arrive at a solution together?
00:22:19 Gloria: The last one is that the more you grow, the more thinking and CEO like me time you're going to need. What I mean by this is the more that I've grown, I've always prioritized reading more books and also taking more time to just think about what is true for me and my business, what offers I want to have so that I'm not just constantly doing, doing, doing, right? It's about the reflection work. It's about the inner work. And I actually spend one to two weeks every year taking a solo trip. And you hear about Bill Gates doing this too. The solo time is so important.
00:22:50 Gloria: Because we're getting so much information from our peers, from strategies, we're inundated with information, but our ability to unlock the next level of success is knowing what is aligned for us and taking confident and empowered action instead of being stuck in decision paralysis. So that's what I mean. So that's why the more I grew, the less focus on tools and tips and joining masterminds where it was like all strategy and more about tapping into how I feel, regulating my nervous system, rewiring my relationship to email, to productivity, to communication.
00:23:22 Gloria: That's really what I mean by you need alone time, you need CEO time, take solo trips, take more walks. But I can't stress enough the CEO thinking time where you're blocking out three to four hours just to think, take a walk. Have you ever noticed that some of your best ideas come from when you're actually in motion? That's what I mean. Our ability to create new possibilities is direct in proportion to our ability to tap into our creativity.
00:23:46 Gloria: And that comes from stepping back from doing all the things and thinking and reflecting and just having some peace and quiet to reconnect with ourselves. So these are the top 10 things I learned from scaling my business to a million dollars a year. It was painful. I experienced a lot of burnout. As many of you know, I had my own journey of struggles, healing my relationship with my mother through psychedelic plant medicine and understanding that everything is energy after I had a 13 centimeter fibroid tumor that grew rapidly in my uterus that I literally took out and I saw, "Wow, that has stuck energy."
00:24:19 Gloria: So through all these things, I've been really grateful to have some deeply beautiful and painful lessons and I'm nowhere near the end of my journey, I'm still learning every day. I'm nowhere near perfect as a leader, but I'm a lot closer to where I want to be. So hopefully these 10 things have given you some perspective. Thank you so much for trusting me, for letting me be in your ear, for being on this journey together.
00:24:41 Gloria: It's definitely a roller coaster ride. We got our good days, our bad days, and it's definitely not all rainbows and butterflies. But knowing that you are here with me along the way, I see you, I hear you, I've got you. We collectively can shine a light on each other. If you love this podcast, feel free to give me a rating and a review. I would love to know what you think. And if you know of another small business hero who can benefit from this podcast, please send it along to them. Thank you so much for being here and I cannot wait for next week's episode.
00:25:12 Gloria: Hey, small business hero, did you know that you can get featured for free on outlets like Forbes, the New York Times, Marie Claire, PopSugar, and so many more, even if you're not yet launched or if you don't have any connections? That's right. That's why I invite you to watch my PR secrets masterclass, where I reveal the exact methods thousands of bootstrapping small businesses use to hack their own PR and go from unknown to being a credible and sought after industry expert.
00:25:40 Gloria: Now, if you want to land your first press feature, get on a podcast, secure a VIP speaking gig, or just reach out to that very intimidating editor, this class will show you exactly how to do it. Register now at gloriachoupr.com/masterclass. That's Gloria Chou C-H-O-U pr.com/masterclass. So you can get featured in 30 days without spending a penny on ads or agencies. Best of all, this is completely free. So get in there and let's get you featured.