The Five Stages of Small Business Growth

“I am great in the early, messy days and I know that about myself, so I designed my business around serving others in that stage.”

In this conversation with business strategist (genius!) Michelle Warner, we cover the three growth stages most relevant to tiny business owners, how to fix broken business models, validating product-market-founder fit, the difference between traffic-based versus relationship-based sales and marketing, borrowing aligned audiences, leading a free monthly Q&A to “catch” their interest afterward, imagining sales as a downhill snowball, and how to scale while still staying Delightfully Tiny.

More About Michelle: Michelle Warner designs tiny companies that are built to last. With an MBA from one of the world’s top business schools and 15+ years experience growing small businesses, Michelle focuses on layering real world experience on top of classic business fundamentals to design businesses that are sustainable and scalable in the long term and resilient and adaptable in the short term.

It’s the way she grew her first business to 7+ figures, and it’s what she’s used to help 300+ CEO's create businesses that work for the important stuff: profit, energy, passion + time. She’s also the creator of Networking That Pays, the introvert-friendly, always awkward-free connection system that brings in reliable leads, consistent referrals and meaningful connections for your business - in 5 minutes a day.

🌟 3 Key Takeaways

• Three small business stages most relevant to tiny business owners (adapted from HBR): Validate—product-market-founder fit; Sell—repeatable and predictable marketing and sales; Foundation—process, team, culture)
• Relationship- versus traffic-based sales and metrics: Relationship-based business are going for smaller reach, with ideally at least a fifty-percent conversion rate on sales calls. Traffic-based marketing aims at bringing in much bigger audiences, with smaller conversion rates for things like selling digital products (pushing a boulder up hill).
• Three marketing stages: Awareness (imagine a snowball running downhill—people need to have a really big moment with you; you’ve made 80% of the sale by blowing their mind during the awareness stage) engagement, and sales.

📝 Permission

Focus on sequence over strategy: you can execute strategies perfectly, but if you’re doing them in the wrong order, it’s not going to do a thing for you.

✅ Do (or Delegate) This Next

Take five minutes a day to reach out to one person across any of these four themes: thank you’s (be specific!), connections, asks, and catch-ups.

🔗 Resources Mentioned

• Michelle on the web, IG, Twitter, LinkedIn
• Articles: HBR—The Five Stages of Small-Business Growth
• Rolling in D🤦🏻‍♀️h—Climbing Down the Entrepreneurial Ladder, An Honest Accounting (Part One)
• People: Margo Aaron, Pamela Slim, Jay Acunzo
• Tiny + Strong Table Talk: Michelle’s free monthly Q&A if you need a good idea, fresh perspective or to get inspired by what others are thinking and doing. Register here.

📚 Books Mentioned

• Free Time: Lose the Busywork, Love Your Business
• Pivot: The Only Move That Matters Is Your Next One
• Life After College

🎧 Related Episodes

• Off the Grid: Leaving Social Media Without Losing All Your Clients — Relationship Marketing with Michelle Warner
• Free Time: 042: How I Run My Business Without Social Media
• 181: Be Irreplaceable with My Creative Coach Jay Acunzo
• 117: Tiny Marketing Actions with Pamela Slim
• 261: Cringe-Free Launches and Evergreen Sales Considerations with Anne Samoilov
• 165: Are your clients bringing out the best in you? Engineering the Evolution of Your Business and 229: How (and When) to Trust Yourself and Others with Ilise Benun
• 138: ⛵️Stop Sailing the Sea of Shiny Shoulds
• 136: Why I Stopped Exploring Selling the Pivot Brand and Business

📝 Check out full show notes and share with friends: https://itsfreetime.com/episodes/263

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices