Welcome to Incorporating Super Powers. I am your host, Justin Recla. Today, we are going to be talking about scaling up your business. Fortunately, we’ve got somebody who’s an expert in industry. She’s an attorney. She’s based out of Florida. Her whole business model is about scaling up your business. We met at CEO Space. She is an absolute phenomenon and powerhouse.
Lauren Cohan, is one of those people whom you get to feel her energy in talking. You’re going to know what I’m talking about here, folks. She knows her stuff.
Lauren, thank you so much for being on the show today.
Thank you, Justin. It means so much to me to hear you say that. You know how I feel about you and about CEO Space and it’s such a blessing to be part of that amazing community. I can’t wait for the end of July.
Yeah, the end of July is going to be fun. If you’re going to be in Dallas, folks, make sure you get up there and join us. It’s an absolutely phenomenal network for your business and will do wonders for it.
ScaleUP. That’s the name of your business. Talk to us a little bit about what it is that you do and the magic that you bring to business owners.
Absolutely.
Basically, I’ve been an immigration and concierge corporate attorney for many, many years working with businesses all over the world and domestic businesses raising money, and I saw this pervasive problem among these business owners, which you see as well on the other side, that they are spending so much money on all that fun, exciting sales and marketing and coaching, and no money on the proper vetting and the foundation of their business.
Without a rock solid foundation, they’re going to have a lot of trouble scaling. So I created a three step system that uncovers the gaps in their business and provides them with the solutions to fill the gaps so that they can scale up, increase their profits, access much better strategic partnerships, and ultimately have a lucrative exit.
It was just this pervasive need, we see it, you see it too. 30,000 bucks a year on a coach. Nothing on do you even have a company. You have all these joint venture relationships, what are they? Do you even know what a joint venture is? So that’s basically what I created and love working with people like yourself that are looking under the hood of the businesses.
Well, you’re so right. I think this is, folks, if you’re listening to this and you have a business, what Lauren’s talking about here is that piece of self domination in your business. We see this over and over again, especially in the startup world, that there are so many people that they have a great idea and then they go spend a ton of money on marketing, branding, systems, and they have yet to sell anything, but yet they’re out there dropping on something that they’re wanting to sell, but they haven’t sold anything yet. They haven’t even taken the steps forward to, like Lauren said, they don’t even have a business yet.
Now, by all means, they can be operating as a sole proprietor and that’s fine. However, everything that they’re investing in is not designed to be built upon a sole proprietorship. The only way it works is through an actual legal business, investing in protecting your intellectual property, and so forth.
We see so many entrepreneurs and business owners that want to go out there and run fast and they want to do all this super sexy stuff, the email funnels and all these kinds of things, but then the minute you look underneath the hood, there’s nothing there. The business collapses without that single entrepreneur. It’s not really a business, it’s a whole another beast in itself.
Lauren, what are some of the things that you hope business owners put in place to start creating that foundation for themselves?
Some of them do realize great profits, but they hit a wall at a certain point because they haven’t paid attention to that foundation or they’ve become absentee.
Thank you. We go through this three step analysis. In the first step, we assess the gaps. We do a seven point inspection, we cover seven areas, funding and capitalization, business planning, which I’ve been doing business plans for far too many years, at least 20, branding and marketing, legal and compliance, of course that’s my baby, financial and taxes, operation systems and backup security, and insurance and licensing.
What we do is we look at those seven areas, almost like a seven point inspection at the car mechanic, but the mechanic doesn’t necessarily have the ability to fill all seven areas. I’m not a branding expert. I certainly don’t profess to be. But I’m going to know if your brand is lacking. If there’s a gap between your branding and your legal, or your branding and your operations. You don’t have operations in place. Let’s get those systems in place.
So we assess, diagnose, deliver. In the assessment phase, we assess the gaps. Diagnosis is when we provide a prescription to fill the gaps. Like a GPS, we give you a destination because ultimately you want to reach a destination. What is your goal? Do you want to exit? Do you want to scale? Are you in a turnaround mode? Which is a very common business owner we get, because like you said, so many of these startups, especially in the tech industry, they start and they run. Some of them do realize great profits, but they hit a wall at a certain point because they haven’t paid attention to that foundation or they’ve become absentee.
They’re only able to go so far with that.
Exactly. Right. And then the third piece is delivery. The delivery is all of the professionals that you need to fill these gaps.
For example, Justin and I have a strategic relationship where we are Justin’s team. The Clear Directory is my vetting partner. When we have a strategic relationship we’re undertaking, we would bring Justin’s team in to look at those partners to make sure that they are In The Clear, as Justin says, which means properly vetted. Is that the right term, Justin?
Yup, you’re spot on.
The reason that Justin and I resonate, besides the fact that I really like him, is at the last CEO Space, when he got up to speak, he says, “We bulletproof your business.” I’m like, “Hold on a minute. I bulletproof your business.” What we do is that we both bulletproof businesses from very different perspectives, which is why we complement each other so well.
We can talk about branding, but we’re not experts at that. We can talk operations. We’re not experts at that. We’re experts at what we’re experts on and the key four words that I use day in and day out, over and over and over is, and you’ll love these. I know you’ve heard me say, “Stay in your lane.” Because if you don’t stay in your lane, you’re going to screw up and you’re going to go like this and veer off track.
Folks, what Lauren is talking about here is so, so important, especially if you’re transitioning. Recognize that you don’t have to do it by yourself or all alone. You don’t have to. At the same time, if you haven’t sold anything, you might not need any marketing just yet. Go out and sell something.
Recognize that your brand, your logo, the way your website looks and feels, it’s going to evolve with you. The key to it is just like she said, stay in your lane and be where your at. It is such a huge, huge mistake that entrepreneurs make is they want to be making $1 million a year, but they haven’t sold a single product or service yet.
They go out and they’ll want to put foundational pieces in place that they haven’t put any base work in, they haven’t done the steps. They haven’t done any of these things. They’re putting money in towards a marketing or sales coach. But really what it is that needs to market or sell. We see this all the time. “Well, I’m in business.” “Well, awesome. What do you sell? What’s your product?”
They can’t define it yet. They’re out there spending money on stuff they don’t need.
Lauren, we’re going to follow you. Where can people find more information about you?
Absolutely. The best way to start the process of uncovering your gaps is by taking our free quiz, where we will actually show you how to uncover your gaps and then provide some strategic solutions to fill them. The quiz can be found at showmethemoneyquiz.com. It’s that simple.
I think the next one’s going to be bulletproofyourbusiness.com. Also, I’m all over the social media, ScaleUPCheckUP and [email protected]. Do we need to take a break now, Justin? Is that what you said?
Yep. We’re going to take a quick break. Speaking about, go get your business checked out at showmethemoneyquiz.com. But stay tuned for a word from our sponsor here. As a matter of fact, our crypto wealth coach, our show’s sponsor is here. You’re going to take a look at a quick video from him. We’ll be right back.
Perfect.
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