Show Notes
Joe asks: "I've been running my business solo for three years. I'm working long hours and burning out. Every time I run the numbers, I can't justify someone—the margins aren't there. But I can't keep doing this alone. I'm starting to resent the thing I built. Help."
In this episode, Scott diagnoses Joe's real problem (the "control trap"—either pricing too low or hoarding profits), explains why you can't grow beyond one person's capacity, and shares the Uber model for hiring strategically. You'll learn the difference between an asset and a job, why the short-term profitability dip is worth it, and how to shift from $10/hour work to $1,000/hour work.
The bottom line: Fix your pricing, hire per-job, get out of your own way. The dip is temporary—the growth is permanent.
Got a business question? Ask Scott here: https://scotttodd.net/ask
📜 Full Transcript (Click to expand)
Scott Todd (00:00)
Welcome to Fix My Business, the show that helps you, well, fix your business. And the way that we do that is we answer questions, fewer questions on this show so that we can learn where other people are stuck and how they can get unstuck so we don't do the same thing ourselves. I'm your host, Scott Todd, and today's question comes from Joe. And Joe writes, Scott, I've been running my business solo for three years now. I know I need help.
I'm working long hours every week and I'm burning out. But every time I run the numbers, I can't justify someone. The margins just aren't there. But I also can't keep doing this alone. I'm honestly starting to resent the thing I built. Help. ⁓ Joe, so many things, but first off, I think that you're struggling with a control trap.
And I know what you're going to say control. I don't want control, man. I want to give it away. I want to hire people. I'm not trying to micromanage my own business. But when I say control trap, what I mean is that you're trying to control something within your business. You're either trying to be the Walmart of your industry and offer super low pricing because the pricing is going to lead to the lower margins or
you're trying to control all of the profits. You're trying to like keep them so that you can support your lifestyle. One of the two, you're trying to control something. This is not an industry problem. This is a pricing problem or a margin problem. And I think that that's what the problem here is. here's what's gonna happen. If you don't get help,
in your business, if you don't get this fixed, then you're right, you're gonna resent your business, you're gonna hate it, and then you're gonna be like, man, I could go work a 40 hour gig, and there goes your dreams, whatever they are, whatever your business is, and that's what we're trying to prevent here, right? So what we want you to do, what I really want you to do is I want you to think about this reality. You cannot possibly grow your business without adding people.
There's no way that you can do everything that your business needs and do it well. Now, look, don't get me wrong. There's a lot of solo entrepreneurs out there, solopreneurs out there that basically have jobs for themselves, okay? And there's nothing wrong with that. If that's the business that you want, if you want to be a one-man show, so be it. That's fine. There's no judgment there. But you don't necessarily have an asset, you have a job, right? Like that's an important distinction here.
And when you get to the point where you're exhausted like Joe is, well, essentially what you have to realize is that there's only one way out. Number one, you have to increase those margins. And then second, when you do that, you have to take whatever profit you are making. Maybe go backwards a little bit while your next team member comes on board. And look, I've seen this whole thing play out in real estate investing. I really have. This is a universal problem. I've seen solo investors
where they literally do everything. They don't want to hire somebody. They don't want to hire people to help them with any parts of the business. They just want to do it themselves. And I'll say to them, like, couldn't you sell more? Couldn't you enjoy your life more? And like, I love it. I love doing what I'm doing and I'm okay with the way that it is. Okay. All right. No problem. But you're only going to grow so big. You can only grow so big when you're doing it all.
And what I think is happening here, Joe, is I think that you've reached this point where you're at this capacity that you literally can't go any further. You are tapped out. You're not gonna get more revenue. You're not gonna make more profit. There's no way you can do it because one person can only grow a business so much. Many years ago, I...
I applied for a job at Microsoft a long, long time ago. was like, I think it was around 97. I applied for a job at Microsoft. And one of the things that they were so proud of is their revenue per employee, just how massive it was. This was like 1977. And I'm sure it's that large today, if not even larger. But that was a metric that they used. But at the end of the day, here's a technology company with assets that they could license.
they had some massive revenue per employee. Apply that to your business and I bet it's pretty low. And that's as big as it's gonna be with one person doing it. And I've always found for me, when I've opened up the wallet, I went through some pain of writing a check to a new employee who's not necessarily producing money yet or a team member, employee, virtual assistant, whatever it is.
When I see, when I do that, it's painful for a little bit. But when you set it up right, and you set the expectations right, that, hey, look, I'm bringing you here because I need you to help with this. You have to pull your weight. You have to produce revenue that supports this company. When you set it up that way, set the expectation with the employee, the dip that you're gonna experience in profitability should be just a short term blip.
but then you will be more profitable because now you have two people working on the bigger problem. And additionally, if you can get rid of some of that lower dollar amount work that you're focusing on, let's call it $10 an hour work, and you can focus on, you know, a hundred or a thousand dollar an hour work, you're gonna be even much, much more profitable. You're gonna make more money. You're gonna be kicking yourself that you didn't do it sooner.
So that's what you really need to do. If you're stuck here where you don't want to add someone, I don't want you necessarily to go add somebody just to add them, but you can also add people strategically.
Think about that one for a second. So many people think, man, if I hire somebody, they gotta be 40 hours or part-time 20 hours. Bull, bull, bull, bull, no way. No way. You can hire people to do work on a per job basis. Look, when I go out town and I take an Uber, I don't tell the Uber driver, hey, I'm here for a few days. So I guess, you you hang out inside the hotel.
you for a few days and then like when I need you to go back to the airport, like you'll just be here, right? No, you pay them for a job.
Same thing with your initial team people. How can you pay them per job? Figure that out. Figure out what's going on with your pricing. Something's wrong with your pricing. You gotta look at that. And when you do, and you take the right next step, which is to add somebody, your business is going to grow, and it's gonna grow even faster. You just have to take the hit for a little bit. That's it. All right, Joe, I appreciate the question.
If you have a question, head over to scotttodd.net forward slash ask where we answer your questions and I will see you in the next episode. Take care.
Welcome to Fix My Business, the show that helps you, well, fix your business. And the way that we do that is we answer questions, fewer questions on this show so that we can learn where other people are stuck and how they can get unstuck so we don't do the same thing ourselves. I'm your host, Scott Todd, and today's question comes from Joe. And Joe writes, Scott, I've been running my business solo for three years now. I know I need help.
I'm working long hours every week and I'm burning out. But every time I run the numbers, I can't justify someone. The margins just aren't there. But I also can't keep doing this alone. I'm honestly starting to resent the thing I built. Help. ⁓ Joe, so many things, but first off, I think that you're struggling with a control trap.
And I know what you're going to say control. I don't want control, man. I want to give it away. I want to hire people. I'm not trying to micromanage my own business. But when I say control trap, what I mean is that you're trying to control something within your business. You're either trying to be the Walmart of your industry and offer super low pricing because the pricing is going to lead to the lower margins or
you're trying to control all of the profits. You're trying to like keep them so that you can support your lifestyle. One of the two, you're trying to control something. This is not an industry problem. This is a pricing problem or a margin problem. And I think that that's what the problem here is. here's what's gonna happen. If you don't get help,
in your business, if you don't get this fixed, then you're right, you're gonna resent your business, you're gonna hate it, and then you're gonna be like, man, I could go work a 40 hour gig, and there goes your dreams, whatever they are, whatever your business is, and that's what we're trying to prevent here, right? So what we want you to do, what I really want you to do is I want you to think about this reality. You cannot possibly grow your business without adding people.
There's no way that you can do everything that your business needs and do it well. Now, look, don't get me wrong. There's a lot of solo entrepreneurs out there, solopreneurs out there that basically have jobs for themselves, okay? And there's nothing wrong with that. If that's the business that you want, if you want to be a one-man show, so be it. That's fine. There's no judgment there. But you don't necessarily have an asset, you have a job, right? Like that's an important distinction here.
And when you get to the point where you're exhausted like Joe is, well, essentially what you have to realize is that there's only one way out. Number one, you have to increase those margins. And then second, when you do that, you have to take whatever profit you are making. Maybe go backwards a little bit while your next team member comes on board. And look, I've seen this whole thing play out in real estate investing. I really have. This is a universal problem. I've seen solo investors
where they literally do everything. They don't want to hire somebody. They don't want to hire people to help them with any parts of the business. They just want to do it themselves. And I'll say to them, like, couldn't you sell more? Couldn't you enjoy your life more? And like, I love it. I love doing what I'm doing and I'm okay with the way that it is. Okay. All right. No problem. But you're only going to grow so big. You can only grow so big when you're doing it all.
And what I think is happening here, Joe, is I think that you've reached this point where you're at this capacity that you literally can't go any further. You are tapped out. You're not gonna get more revenue. You're not gonna make more profit. There's no way you can do it because one person can only grow a business so much. Many years ago, I...
I applied for a job at Microsoft a long, long time ago. was like, I think it was around 97. I applied for a job at Microsoft. And one of the things that they were so proud of is their revenue per employee, just how massive it was. This was like 1977. And I'm sure it's that large today, if not even larger. But that was a metric that they used. But at the end of the day, here's a technology company with assets that they could license.
they had some massive revenue per employee. Apply that to your business and I bet it's pretty low. And that's as big as it's gonna be with one person doing it. And I've always found for me, when I've opened up the wallet, I went through some pain of writing a check to a new employee who's not necessarily producing money yet or a team member, employee, virtual assistant, whatever it is.
When I see, when I do that, it's painful for a little bit. But when you set it up right, and you set the expectations right, that, hey, look, I'm bringing you here because I need you to help with this. You have to pull your weight. You have to produce revenue that supports this company. When you set it up that way, set the expectation with the employee, the dip that you're gonna experience in profitability should be just a short term blip.
but then you will be more profitable because now you have two people working on the bigger problem. And additionally, if you can get rid of some of that lower dollar amount work that you're focusing on, let's call it $10 an hour work, and you can focus on, you know, a hundred or a thousand dollar an hour work, you're gonna be even much, much more profitable. You're gonna make more money. You're gonna be kicking yourself that you didn't do it sooner.
So that's what you really need to do. If you're stuck here where you don't want to add someone, I don't want you necessarily to go add somebody just to add them, but you can also add people strategically.
Think about that one for a second. So many people think, man, if I hire somebody, they gotta be 40 hours or part-time 20 hours. Bull, bull, bull, bull, no way. No way. You can hire people to do work on a per job basis. Look, when I go out town and I take an Uber, I don't tell the Uber driver, hey, I'm here for a few days. So I guess, you you hang out inside the hotel.
you for a few days and then like when I need you to go back to the airport, like you'll just be here, right? No, you pay them for a job.
Same thing with your initial team people. How can you pay them per job? Figure that out. Figure out what's going on with your pricing. Something's wrong with your pricing. You gotta look at that. And when you do, and you take the right next step, which is to add somebody, your business is going to grow, and it's gonna grow even faster. You just have to take the hit for a little bit. That's it. All right, Joe, I appreciate the question.
If you have a question, head over to scotttodd.net forward slash ask where we answer your questions and I will see you in the next episode. Take care.