The Clarity Compass

The 5-Step Approach You Need To Scale Your Business

The first thing I do with my clients when we start working together is to dive headfirst into the reason they started their business in the first place: their why.

Their “why” is often a combination of a catapulting event or a set of circumstances (good or bad) and a passion for the type of business they started. While the why can and very likely will change over time, it is so important to help clients get back to their roots and remember why they started in the first place, what drove them, and to remember the thing they are passionate about. This is what I call “the clarity compass” because when we are in touch with this why, we can use it to guide all of our processes so that everything stays in alignment. 

Let me give you a specific example. Personally, I am deep in a season of personal and professional reflection. I have been thinking a lot about my whys for starting this consulting business, and how those whys have changed over time, and how to continue to incorporate them as my business pivots. 

Step #1: Identify what drove you to start your business

The deepest desire of my heart my entire life was to become a mom and I remember knowing this at a young age. Naturally, my son, Dominic, was the driving force for me to quit the corporate world. He was my gift and my fuel to change my life. You see, after my divorce when he was one, I was a single, solo parent working hard to make ends meet, raise that little man, and fulfill my personal and career goals. I would drop him off at 7:30am, commute to work, work from 8-5pm, then rush back to barely pick him up from after school care by 5:30pm. The grind. A pressure cooker. 

This schedule left no room for error, for illness or rest and meant I constantly felt pressured, rushed and chaotic. If there was traffic, or if an employee or my boss walked into my office right before 5pm, the entire plan was shot. It was stressful and I was on a non-stop hamster wheel to perform. As a perfectionist, I put additional pressure on myself, and once I was home, cooked dinner, read books and tucked my boy in, I would return to the grind to get my inbox cleared and would often work until 1am. I’d be back at it for my 5am workout and I survived on little sleep.

I was successful, physically fit, an asset to my employer and I felt accomplished professionally, but I was tired, drained and unfulfilled personally. What was the point to all of this effort? It certainly didn’t change the $$$ in my pocket. I had been given the deepest desire of my life, becoming a mom, but I was missing so much and I saw the time with my little man fleeting. 

Now that I was a mom, the desire of my heart was to be able to pick him up every day at 3 pm and to NOT go back to work. And so, I decided prior to kindergarten that I would make a change by the time he was in 2nd grade - whether that was to take an international job and be able to hire more support, or to start my own business. I was committed to this decision because when I simply thought about it, peace overwhelmed my body. The time creeped closer and I needed to get busy figuring out what kind of work I could do that would fill up my soul AND make me money! 

Step #2: Get in touch with the skills that make you feel alive, not the ones that simply make you money. 

I did some soul searching and reached out for support and got in touch with the skills I possess that made me feel alive, rather than the skills that I had that could make me money. This is where I gathered my creative superhouse abilities of idea generation with observing people and processes and then “connecting the dots” to streamline and scale businesses. I combined that with my love of all things HR (hiring and firing), a dose of my financial analysis / CPA skillset and BAM Dot Rock Consulting was created.

Step #3: Figure out what motivates and fuels you

As I stepped away from that world where I worked for someone else and complied with their rules, I did some soul searching and answered the question, “What motivates me and fuels me?”

The answer: CrossFit, Curiosity, Family (connection) and Adventure. I crave time off from work, where I can create magic just by being who I am and living passionately in this world - traveling, cooking, reading and flying airplanes. I crave exercise:  moving my body and pushing it makes my creative juices flow. I crave adventure and desire to work from anywhere in the world but not work in a world of tight constraints and deadlines. I crave connection; I want to spend quality time, unrushed, with my family. And I want to do work that is infused with curiosity and not siemple black and white answers.

Step #4: Incorporate your motivations into the foundation of your business values

At the core of this business were a set of values and beliefs that I wanted to incorporate - curiosity, adventure, exercise and family.  In short, I wanted to enrich these areas of my life by taking a step away from the corporate world and into entrepreneurship. I wanted a business that thrived by working less, not more. I wanted to live a life fueled by CrossFit and outdoor adventure that I could build into my daily schedule. Family - I wanted to pick up my son and my now bonus son from school and then focus on family for the remainder of the day. I wanted to cook healthy meals and enjoy one of my passions, cooking, in a less pressured time crunch. I wanted to do all of this by surrounding myself with a team to support me so that I felt like the needle was constantly moving, whether I was playing or sitting in front of my desk. And finally, I needed to replace my corporate income.

Step 5: Incorporate these values into your processes, specifically your hiring process.

As I have developed this business, some parts of the business have succeeded and others have flopped.

But I have proudly stayed true to my convictions, my values and my whys and I have pivoted quickly when things feel off or don’t work the way I thought they would. Every time I hire someone new or shift a revenue stream, I look back at these whys and values and make sure I’m staying true to myself. 

If you are feeling burnt out, overwhelmed, disconnected from your business, or if you are simply working to streamline your business and hire additional staff,  I encourage you to get back in touch with your clarity compass by using this simple checklist. 

A quick re-cap of the steps:

• Step #1: Identify what drove you to start your business in the first place. Does that still motivate you?

• Step #2: Get in touch with the skills that make you feel alive, not the ones that simply make you money.

• Step #3: Figure out what motivates and fuels you - personally & professionally. 

• Step #4: Incorporate your motivations into the foundation of your business values

• Step 5: Incorporate these values into your processes, specifically your hiring process.