Scale Differently

Curious if the big change you're considering is going to be successful or not? After working with thousands of business owners, I have found an unexpectedly simple way to tell the likelihood of success. It has nothing to do with planning or analysis or any of the things most people do, because while those things are all important... There is a much simpler thing to look at FIRST and I break it down in this week's episode of Scale Differently, including:

• What to do when you feel pulled toward something you can't stop thinking about
• The best move when you're not sure what you want next
• The simple indicator that a change is more likely to succeed

The way you approach change is just as important as the strategy behind it. And if you're feeling pulled toward a beautiful, big, bold vision for 2027 and want a partner by your side to bring it to life, I'd love to work with you inside Threshold. Applications are now open at cristagrasso.com/threshold

Want to share your thoughts on this episode or ask me questions? Connect with me on Substack: https://scaledifferently.substack.com/

Interested in working with me? Book a call so we can explore working together: https://www.leanscaling.com/consult

Have questions? Want to explore partnering together to scale your business? Connect with me on my personal Instagram @cristagrasso or LinkedIn and let's start a conversation.

If you loved this episode, please help us spread the word and reach more business owners like you by leaving a 5-star rating and review. Hit subscribe to be the first to listen to new episodes each Tuesday.

What if all the advice to niche down is limiting your growth? When you're multi-passionate, trying to fit everything you do into one narrowly defined niche can mean leaving behind some of your greatest strengths and passions. And while having a clear focus is important for your audience to understand what you do, there's a way to bring your diverse experience and interests together without limiting what your business can become. In this week's episode of Scale Differently, I sit down with Angela Gerber, founder of The Marketing Apothecary, who spent years trying to fit herself into traditional niches before discovering how to bring the full range of her expertise into her business. We explore how to embrace everything that makes you unique while keeping your business clear and compelling to your audience, including:

• Why niching down can hold multi-passionate entrepreneurs back
• How to find the connective thread across your different interests and expertise
• How to make your diverse offerings feel cohesive to your audience
• How to bring more of yourself into your business as you evolve

As your business grows and you evolve, the things you want to be known for and the work you want to do can change too. Angela shares a different way to approach your positioning that gives you room to evolve while making it clear to your audience how everything connects.

Links to connect with Angela:

• Website: https://themarketingapothecary.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/themarketingapothecary
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/themarketingapothecary/

Want to share your thoughts on this episode or ask me questions? Connect with me on Substack: https://scaledifferently.substack.com/

Interested in working with me? Book a call so we can explore working together: https://www.leanscaling.com/consult

Have questions? Want to explore partnering together to scale your business? Connect with me on my personal Instagram @cristagrasso or LinkedIn and let's start a conversation.

If you loved this episode, please help us spread the word and reach more business owners like you by leaving a 5-star rating and review. Hit subscribe to be the first to listen to new episodes each Tuesday.

What will make the biggest difference in how your business grows next year? When you're setting big goals for your business, it's natural to start looking for the strategies and changes that will help you achieve them. But reaching those goals involves a lot of interconnected things within your business, and some of the biggest influences on your results may be things you haven't thought about yet. In this week's episode of Scale Differently, I'm sharing three things to consider as you plan for the new year, including:

• Why the most obvious solution isn't always the one you need
• How small changes can lead to much bigger results
• Why the goal itself is only part of what matters
• What becomes possible when you look at your business as an ecosystem
• Finding the right support to realize your vision and goals

There are so many different ways to grow your business and equally as important as if you reach your goals is reaching them in a way that's aligned for you.

And if you're looking toward 2027, knowing you want to grow your business in a way that's aligned and fulfilling, I'd love to partner with you inside Threshold. Applications are open at https://www.cristagrasso.com/threshold

Want to share your thoughts on this episode or ask me questions? Connect with me on Substack: https://scaledifferently.substack.com/

Interested in working with me? Book a call so we can explore working together: https://www.leanscaling.com/consult

Have questions? Want to explore partnering together to scale your business? Connect with me on my personal Instagram @cristagrasso or LinkedIn and let's start a conversation.

If you loved this episode, please help us spread the word and reach more business owners like you by leaving a 5-star rating and review. Hit subscribe to be the first to listen to new episodes each Tuesday.

Why do we often resist the changes we know we need to make in our business? Despite wanting something different, most people naturally gravitate towards what feels familiar and known. And that can become a challenge when you have a big vision and goals that require you to be thinking, leading, operating, and scaling differently. In this week's episode of Scale Differently, I dig into how to get past any resistance to change so there is nothing standing between you and your vision, including:

• Why knowing what needs to change isn't always enough
• Where resistance often shows up as you scale
• Why we naturally gravitate towards what's familiar
• How to step out of what's comfortable & into the unknown
• A different way to think about accountability

The bigger your vision, the more likely it is to require things from you and your business that you haven't done before, which makes your willingness to embrace change an important part of realizing it.

And if you know your 2027 vision is going to require you to think, lead, operate, and scale differently, and you want support making those shifts a reality, I'd love to partner with you inside Threshold. Now accepting applications at https://www.cristagrasso.com/threshold

Want to share your thoughts on this episode or ask me questions? Connect with me on Substack: https://scaledifferently.substack.com/

Interested in working with me? Book a call so we can explore working together: https://www.leanscaling.com/consult

Have questions? Want to explore partnering together to scale your business? Connect with me on my personal Instagram @cristagrasso or LinkedIn and let's start a conversation.

If you loved this episode, please help us spread the word and reach more business owners like you by leaving a 5-star rating and review. Hit subscribe to be the first to listen to new episodes each Tuesday.

Do you ever feel like you're revisiting the same things in your business over and over again? You evolve an offer, rethink your team, update a system, or make changes to your business model, only to find yourself doing it again. As you scale, there are very few things in your business that are static or "done". They continue to evolve as the business grows and what you want changes. And every time you enter into a cycle of revisiting and evolving your business, you're doing it from a new vantage point and entering what I think of as the 'scaling spiral'. For this week's 300th episode of Scale Differently, I'm sharing some of the biggest lessons from the past 300 episodes and what they can teach us about how we approach our next cycle of growth and scale, including:

• Why scaling happens in a spiral
• What changes each time you move through a cycle
• Why the pace of those cycles is accelerating
• The four stages of the scaling spiral
• The energetics and mechanics and scaling

The faster things change, the more important it becomes to be clear on what you want for yourself and your business, so you can be intentional about what you carry forward, what you reimagine, and what you evolve as you move through your next cycle.

Ready to decide what you want your business to become in 2027? Learn more and apply for Threshold10: https://www.cristagrasso.com/threshold

Want to share your thoughts on this episode or ask me questions? Connect with me on Substack: https://scaledifferently.substack.com/

Interested in working with me? Book a call so we can explore working together: https://www.leanscaling.com/consult

Have questions? Want to explore partnering together to scale your business? Connect with me on my personal Instagram @cristagrasso or LinkedIn and let's start a conversation.

If you loved this episode, please help us spread the word and reach more business owners like you by leaving a 5-star rating and review. Hit subscribe to be the first to listen to new episodes each Tuesday.

What causes something in your business to start feeling disconnected from what you really want? There are a lot of things that can contribute to that feeling, but there's one common root cause I see underneath it again and again. And it's something that can happen so gradually that you may not even realize how much it has changed the way you run, lead, grow, and scale your business. Maybe you adjusted an offer because of what a specific client needed and years later you're still delivering it that way. Maybe you structured your schedule around a particular team member or season in your business, and even though things have changed, your schedule never shifted. Individually, none of those things may seem especially significant. But when enough of them stay in place, they can create a much bigger sense of disconnect over time. That's what I'm exploring in this week's episode of Scale Differently, including:

• The common root cause behind feeling disconnected
• How misalignment ends up compounding over time
• How something temporary can become the new norm
• Ways to challenge and shift what's out of alignment
• How to avoid overwhelming yourself with change

You can have a business that is successful and still feel increasingly disconnected from the way you actually want to run, lead, grow, and scale it. Understanding what created that disconnect is the first step to changing it.

Looking to make some changes, achieve some big goals, and scale your business differently as we look to the new year? Learn more and apply for Threshold 10: https://www.cristagrasso.com/threshold

Want to share your thoughts on this episode or ask me questions? Connect with me on Substack: https://scaledifferently.substack.com/

Interested in working with me? Book a call so we can explore working together: https://www.leanscaling.com/consult

Have questions? Want to explore partnering together to scale your business? Connect with me on my personal Instagram @cristagrasso or LinkedIn and let's start a conversation.

If you loved this episode, please help us spread the word and reach more business owners like you by leaving a 5-star rating and review. Hit subscribe to be the first to listen to new episodes each Tuesday.

What if your marketing and sales process felt as aligned as the work you deliver? So many of the tactics that have become standard practice are built around pressure, urgency, and getting someone to make a decision as quickly as possible. But if you care deeply about the transformation someone experiences once they become a client, the way they arrive at that decision matters too. Your marketing and sales process can reflect how you want to do business, how you want people to experience your work, and the kind of relationship you want to create from the very beginning. That's what I explore in this week's episode of Scale Differently, including:

• Creating a marketing and sales process that feels aligned
• Why the way someone says yes matters as much as the yes itself
• The three states to move a buyer through (from THEIR perspective)
• The critical thing that should happen after someone says yes
• Creating a stronger beginning to the client experience

The way you market and sell is part of the experience people have with your business. I believe it should feel as sacred as the transformation you provide once someone says yes to work with you.

Want to share your thoughts on this episode or ask me questions? Connect with me on Substack: https://scaledifferently.substack.com/

Interested in working with me? Book a call so we can explore working together: https://www.leanscaling.com/consult

Have questions? Want to explore partnering together to scale your business? Connect with me on my personal Instagram @cristagrasso or LinkedIn and let's start a conversation.

If you loved this episode, please help us spread the word and reach more business owners like you by leaving a 5-star rating and review. Hit subscribe to be the first to listen to new episodes each Tuesday.

Is your business still dependent on you in ways it may have already outgrown? What your business requires from you at seven figures can be very different from what it required from you at $100K. Every stage of business comes with a different set of needs, but it's easy to keep making the decisions, solving the problems, and filling the gaps you've always handled, even when your team can take more ownership and figure things out without you. In this week's episode of Scale Differently, I sit down with Heather Roberts, who has scaled multiple businesses past seven figures and learned firsthand how much has to change as your business moves from one stage to the next. Heather compares business stages to raising kids, and by taking us through her own journey with her own businesses, we dive into what that shift looks like, including:

• What it realistically takes to get out of day-to-day operations
• How your involvement should change as your business grows
• How to decide what you still want to own and what you're ready to hand off
• How keeping your business lean can give you more flexibility
• How to shape your business around what you want from your life

If you want to reduce how much you're working in your business and how much depends on you, you won't want to miss this episode. Heather now works 2-3 hours a week in her business and she breaks down how she made that possible.

Links

• Website: https://heatherroberts.life/
• Book: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/the-nurture-method-heather-roberts/1149899363?ean=9798895762035
• Substack: https://www.nowwhatyall.com/
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/heathersroberts/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/sonowwhatyall/

Want to share your thoughts on this episode or ask me questions? Connect with me on Substack: https://scaledifferently.substack.com/

Interested in working with me? Book a call so we can explore working together: https://www.leanscaling.com/consult

Have questions? Want to explore partnering together to scale your business? Connect with me on my personal Instagram @cristagrasso or LinkedIn and let's start a conversation.

If you loved this episode, please help us spread the word and reach more business owners like you by leaving a 5-star rating and review. Hit subscribe to be the first to listen to new episodes each Tuesday.

If you were reimagining your business today, knowing everything you know now, would you make the same choices? Would you sell the same things? Structure your team the same way? Spend your own time the same way? Market, sell, and deliver the same way? So much of what exists in an established business is the result of decisions made at another point in time, based on what made sense then. But what if you gave yourself a clean blank slate and reimagined what you would choose today, based on what you want now and what you can see becoming possible in the future? That's what I explore in this week's episode of Scale Differently, including:

• How to reimagine your business from today's vantage point
• How AI and technology are expanding what's possible
• A powerful exercise to map out what you want next
• How small shifts can significantly change the way you scale

Want to share your thoughts on this episode, ask me questions, and access a step-by-step guide for reimagining how you scale? Connect with me on Substack: https://scaledifferently.substack.com/

Interested in working with me? Book a call so we can explore working together: https://www.leanscaling.com/consult

Have questions? Want to explore partnering together to scale your business? Connect with me on my personal Instagram @cristagrasso or LinkedIn and let's start a conversation.

If you loved this episode, please help us spread the word and reach more business owners like you by leaving a 5-star rating and review. Hit subscribe to be the first to listen to new episodes each Tuesday.

Have you ever finally created some much-needed space in your business… only to immediately fill it right back up? Someone leaves your team, and you start looking for their replacement. An offer runs its course, and you start figuring out what you'll sell next. You delegate something that gives you back 10 hours each week, and somehow those hours quickly get reallocated to something else... Sound familiar? As business owners, we're naturally great at solving problems and moving things forward, so when something opens up, our instinct is usually to figure out what belongs there next. But what opens up if you don't rush to fill that space? I've been thinking about this a lot since getting back from a trip Mallorca, where I intentionally gave myself far more open, uncommitted space than I normally do. What emerged from that experience reminded me how much can become visible when we give ourselves enough capacity for something we couldn't have planned for. In this week's episode of Scale Differently, I explore:

• Why we're so quick to fill every opening in our businesses
• What leaving something open makes possible in your business
• Understanding the key difference between a void and an opening
• My personal experience in Mallorca and what came out of the open space
• Why your best ideas and opportunities aren't always pre-planned

We spend a lot of time making sure we have capacity for the unexpected problems that inevitably happen in business. But what about leaving capacity for the unexpected magic? You can't receive something new into a space that's already full.

Want to share your thoughts on this episode or ask me questions? Connect with me on Substack: https://scaledifferently.substack.com/

Interested in working with me? Book a call so we can explore working together: https://www.leanscaling.com/consult

Have questions? Want to explore partnering together to scale your business? Connect with me on my personal Instagram @cristagrasso or LinkedIn and let's start a conversation.

If you loved this episode, please help us spread the word and reach more business owners like you by leaving a 5-star rating and review. Hit subscribe to be the first to listen to new episodes each Tuesday.