Does every day in your business feel like Groundhog Day?
You fix a problem in the morning, only to turn around and see it broken again by the afternoon. You’re working harder than ever, but sales are stalling, headaches are multiplying, and you’re starting to wonder if you’re just bad at business.
In this episode, Scott answers a question from Chris, a business owner who feels like he’s drowning. Scott diagnoses the real issue: Chris isn’t failing; he’s just entered “The Muddy Mile.”
This is the phase where your business hits its “teenage years.” It’s awkward, it’s rebellious, and it demands your attention constantly because you haven’t built repeatability yet. Scott breaks down exactly how to stop the chaos—not by fixing everything at once, but by solving one blood-boiling problem at a time.
What You’ll Learn in This Episode:
- The “Muddy Mile” Diagnosis: Why your business feels like it’s punching you in the face (and why it’s actually a sign of growth, not failure).
- The “Teenage Business” Metaphor: Understanding why your team is so dependent on you right now.
- The “Blood Boil” Method: How to identify which problem to solve first (Hint: It’s not always the biggest financial leak; it’s the one that annoys you the most).
- The “One-Page” Fix: A step-by-step script for documenting a process and getting your team to adhere to it without “malicious compliance.”
- Escaping the Loop: How to finally stop the Groundhog Day cycle and move toward a scalable, hands-off business.
Quotable Moments:
“Your business is crushing you because your team needs you. And the reason they need you is because you haven’t built repeatability yet.”
“It’s one problem at a time. It’s painful and it’s ridiculous, but that is the only way you can build systems that can scale your business.”
Resources & Links:
- Submit Your Question: Are you stuck in the messy middle? Send your question to Scott at scotttodd.net/ask
- Website: Fix My Business
Full Transcript
Scott Todd (00:00)
Welcome to Fix My Business, the show that helps you get your business unstuck. And we do that by answering your questions. And today’s question comes from Chris. And Chris says, I’m working nonstop, putting money and effort everywhere I can, but it feels like nothing ever clicks. Sales stall, problems keep stacking up, and every small win comes with three new headaches. I don’t feel like I’m winning. At times I question if I’m just bad at business.
Am I doing something fundamentally wrong? Chris, you are not bad at business and you are not doing something fundamentally wrong. What’s happening is you are stuck in what I call the muddy mile. What happens here in this phase is that every day feels like you’re in that movie, The Groundhog’s Day. Every day you fix something, you turn around and it’s back.
It’s like it’s never finished. And here’s a better context for that. It’s as if your business has hit its teenage years. And guess what? You are getting whomped on. Your business is crushing you because your team needs you. Now, the reason that they need you is because you haven’t built repeatability yet. That’s what’s missing here. And until you do, you’re going to continue to get whomped on.
Look, I’ve been here. I remember so many times in my business where I got to the point where I was just almost, almost physically sick to see a given problem. I’d see it and I’m like, ⁓ not this one again. It got to the point where, quite frankly, I was dreading my business because every time I thought I had a problem fixed, I blinked and guess what? It was back again.
Finally, there was this one problem. I just couldn’t take it. The salespeople were doing this.
look, they weren’t being malicious when they were doing it. What happened was they were moving way too fast. Okay. The salespeople were just trying to make sales. They were just trying to get it going. The problem was, is that they were making a lot of mistakes that had downstream system issues. So finally, I couldn’t take it anymore. I called a company meeting and I told them, look, I can’t see this problem one more time. It is preventable. Here’s why it keeps happening. I showed them what was happening and why
it was causing problems and the problems that it was solving. I had the accounting team there. I’m telling you, had everybody, sales team, everybody was there so that they all understood this is the root cause of the problem and it has to stop. And then here’s what we did. We wrote down how this thing gets handled once and for all. The team agreed to it and we said, listen, this needs to be repeatable. Okay, like when we do this, one thing we have to do it
this way, X, Y and Z. There’s no way around it. And when you do that, problem by problem, that is how you’re going to get out of the muddy mile. It’s one problem at a time. And it’s painful and it’s ridiculous, but that is the only way that you can build systems that can scale your business to where you want it to go. That’s it. Now,
There is a solution here, and I kind of mentioned it. You got to solve it one problem at a time. And what I want you to do is the next problem that you see, the next one that’s just your biggest annoyance, not the biggest problem, but the one that just makes your blood boil. When you see that one, that’s the one I want you to grab. I want you to grab that one, and I want you to grab a piece of paper, and I want you to write out how this
how this work should be done. That’s it. Like, hey, it starts here and it comes out here. Just that one piece, not the whole business, just that process that keeps breaking. Map it out, document it. And then what you got to do is you got to go and you got to gather the team and you just got to spread the word, Matt. You just have to keep spreading the word. And you got to tell them, look, from here on out, when this happens,
This is the way that we handle it every single time. No variance, no deviation from this. We do it X, Y, and Z. Now, hopefully you’ve mapped it out right or you’re going to get some malicious compliance in there, but you can always fix it. Okay, like that’s always fixable. But then when you have that problem solved, then what you’re going to do is now you’re going to move on to the next problem. And by being the leader, by
by taking this problem by problem by problem, you will eventually wake up and you’ll realize that your business isn’t punching you in the face anymore. Your business is actually doing very well because you’ve eliminated all of the problems. And that is really the only way of getting out of the muddy mile. And look, some people never get it. Some people never get to the point where they’re like, okay, I’ve had enough.
We’re going to sit down, we’re going to do the hard work and we’re going to get out of this thing. Some people just stay in this vicious cycle forever and ever and ever. And it’s just a miserable existence. And you know, if that’s you, you now know how to get out of it. Okay. So look, ⁓ Chris, I want you to go through there. Take, take the advice, take the prescription, go do it. Report back to me. Let me know. Let me know what the one that, that you picked.
Let me know how that worked for you. I’d like to report it back onto this show. And if you have a question that has you stuck in your business, what are you struggling with? Head over to scotttodd.net forward slash ask and submit it over there. And I hope to be helping you on this show. In the meantime, I will see you in our next episode. And remember, keep moving your feet.