In a recent newsletter, executive coach Todd Herman explained the typical growth stages of a business.

Before leaving the build-up stage, operations should have been systematized, and you will start feeling like you’re no longer the hamster on the wheel.

But you can only move on to the scale-up stage once you’ve built a solid infrastructure and you’re confident you can grow the business without breaking it.

This transition point is scary because it requires you to invest time, resources, and money on building systems and attracting talented people into your business.

In turn, your profit percentage will decrease (those people and systems cost money), but your revenues should grow because of the increased working capacity of the team.

The objective of the scale-up stage is to build a system where you’re getting a smaller percentage of a growing revenue pie. In the end, you’ll put more money in your pocket.

This is the common roadmap for every high-performing agent who desires to start a team or brokerage.

While the framework is clear, the whole concept falls apart if you’re not able to recruit and develop talented individuals.

Your personal performance and execution skills equipped you to be a high-performer in the build-up stage.

Your personal leadership skills and ability to attract talent will be what gets you through the scale-up stage.

If you’re starting to scale-up, focus on making the execution-to-leadership transition and bringing talented individuals onto your team. 

Or you’ll fail.