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Love scales. Or, why you’re the least important part of your business.

By on 07/10/2012

Love scales.
- Danielle LaPorte

Last week, I stated that one reason women are earning less in the Creative Class is that women tend to think in relationships as opposed to scale.

This week, returning from the second annual World Domination Summit, I stand even more firm in this knowledge.

I don’t go to this event for the content. I go to talk to customers, friends, and mentors. And most of the women I talked to – my good friends included – worry about betraying their tribes and coming up short if they were to scale what they offer.

First, what do I mean by scale? Simply, scale is serving as many customers as possible with as little effort on behalf of your business as possible. Serving a group of customers through scale means that your business has an impact on people who you wouldn’t have been able to reach otherwise.

Scaling leverages your gifts for the greatest good across the broadest channels.

I believe that most microbusinesses require a level of premium, unleveraged work. It could take the form of commission art, couture dresses, one on one coaching, or corporate speaking engagements. But most of those same businesses require a level of leverage to take their impact to scale. The two sides of the equation can and do work hand-in-hand.

One informs the other, improving both.

I woke up on Saturday thinking, “I need a little Danielle LaPorte.” Maybe you’ve had a similar experience? Luckily, I was in a position to remedy that thought. I plopped myself in a chapel pew at during her session.

She began her Q&A session with her brief observations on the conference so far. Her first was the simple but oh-so-delicious statement, “Love scales.” Ah yes, this is why I came. My entrepreneurial musings boiled down into a two word sound bite.

World Domination Summit is a beautiful example of how you can nurture relationships while leveraging your gifts & skills. Chris Guillebeau doesn’t have a relationship with each of the people who bought tickets – all within minutes of them going on sale. But, of course, many people feel like they have relationship with him.

More importantly, their connection to Chris makes connecting to the others at WDS much easier. It’s not the relationship with Chris that makes this event a success; it’s all the other relationships that are spawned by their implicit connection.

Yes, love scales at WDS. It scales at meet ups, conferences, and events. It scales at rock concerts, sidewalk sales, and yoga classes. Love even scales through ebooks, programs, and masterminds.

It’s the intention, process, and values that create the atmosphere that allows love to scale through a business. It’s not a business owner or her work with any individual client.

What holds you back from leveraging your gifts & skills to create more wealth and impact more lives is thinking that your work can’t survive without you & your attention to the client. But that’s what’s really beautiful: you aren’t the important part of the work you’re doing.

Your process – when you discover it, learn it, codify it – is the important part of your work.

It’s your process, the love that you put in it, and the love that your clients generate through it that carries your work, allowing you to scale your business and harvest its riches. It’s the love that your customers discover through each other that carries your work out into the world in new & unexpected ways. It’s the love that is born in a movement of ideas that creates positive change that you yourself could not create on your own.

It’s therefore your duty – as well as a killer earning strategy – to leverage the love & scale your offers.

So tell me, what is your process and how could you utilize it to scale your business?

The New Economy is open source. You are the developer.

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Posted in , , | Tagged , , , , | 53 Responses

53 responses to “Love scales. Or, why you’re the least important part of your business.”

  1. Ellie Di
    Ellie Di 07/11/2012 at 11:46 am | | Reply

    Stop reading my mind, woman! I’m actually in the beginning stages of love-scaling with my tribe in the form of a new community that will give all kinds of access and support while at the same time being less intensive work for me. I’ll still be doing one on one coaching, too. I’m nervous about it, for sure – “Will anyone come? Will it work?” – but it feels more right to help the most people possible while still protecting my freedom.

  2. suzanna schlemm
    suzanna schlemm 07/11/2012 at 11:46 am | | Reply

    I love this theme, specially because it is such a challenge to me.
    I am a painter! Besides selling prints + cards, I could never figure out a way to scale my work. Any ideas?

    1. Jules
      Jules 07/11/2012 at 12:00 pm | | Reply

      Suzanna – have you thought about teaching people how to paint? An ecourse in getting started as a painter? How to find your inner creative genius to create your own prints and cards? Your message, your talent, your innate gift will always be of immense value to others – never doubt that, and when your message comes from the heart, it will resonate with others in your ‘tribe’.

      1. suzanna schlemm
        suzanna schlemm 07/11/2012 at 12:55 pm | | Reply

        Hi, Jules, thank you for your insight,
        Yes, I did think about that, and I will probably create some demos that together will create a cohesive course. It is worth doing, I used to teach and my students were very loyal. I know this is a valid option, but I can’t help think about what other ways we could scale our work. I guess there is none and this is not a problem after all, since uniqueness is a big part of why a piece of work is valuable. This is why is is called a “piece”! Thank you for addressing my post.

    2. Debra
      Debra 07/11/2012 at 12:09 pm | | Reply

      Suzanna – I’m also a painter and thinking along the same lines… I guess that sharing the process of creating the paintings could be scaleable as a class. I’m not doing it yet online, but painting students do seem to like learning from demonstration.

  3. dianne shepherd
    dianne shepherd 07/11/2012 at 12:06 pm | | Reply

    Tara you are brilliant! I am just starting to educate myself in this as I am currently involved in a coaching program and plan to launch my biz about this time next year. I am getting so much out of what you write. Thank you! You are so sassy and smart!

  4. Cherie Killilea
    Cherie Killilea 07/11/2012 at 12:31 pm | | Reply

    I find myself telling my Etsy friends all of the time, “Yes, you do want people to copy you. You want to be the one who teaches them how to do it right.” There is a loss of control when you put your creation out there in a way that others can dupllicate it, but what did control over that one product ever get you? There really is no control involved when a great product goes viral. The question is, “Will you be getting paid when that happens?”

  5. Heather Allard
    Heather Allard 07/11/2012 at 2:38 pm | | Reply

    Tara,

    It’s so funny – I read this post immediately after reading an email from a customer of mine.

    She had purchased my Retail Ready guide and wrote to thank me for everything she learned from it.

    I created Retail Ready after dozens of coaching sessions with mom entrepreneurs who were bringing a product to market – how to get their product into stores was a recurring theme and one that I could help them with after having done it myself.

    RR scales – now people can learn how to get their product into stores even while I’m sleeping. And they get all the love and knowledge that I share one-on-one. Scale. :)

    Thanks for yet another out-of-the-park post.

    Heather

  6. Lisa Manterfield
    Lisa Manterfield 07/11/2012 at 2:40 pm | | Reply

    Ah. Breathe. Yes, converting my workshops into a self-guided e-course would mean that my clients could get help at exactly the moment they need it most instead of having to wait months for the next session to begin. Duh, it’s so simple and obvious, and yet I keep moving it up and down my list. Thanks for the simplicity of this post.

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  8. Adrienn
    Adrienn 07/11/2012 at 4:07 pm | | Reply

    As I’m setting up step by step my online organizing business you give me so much information to think about and take into consideration. Thank you!

  9. Marianne
    Marianne 07/11/2012 at 7:41 pm | | Reply

    Perfect wisdom for me today. Thank you.

  10. Erin
    Erin 07/11/2012 at 8:18 pm | | Reply

    Man, this was the intervention I needed — having avoided “scales” in my bathroom and scales in my business — this redefined the word in a way I could hear and absorb, finally!

    Thanks a million, Tara!

  11. Mary Collins
    Mary Collins 07/11/2012 at 10:24 pm | | Reply

    Great food for thought. I’ve just started considering that I could find a way to scale my business. Yikes! I love the idea that love scales. It is the point of everything, isn’t it?

  12. Mary Collins
    Mary Collins 07/11/2012 at 10:24 pm | | Reply

    Great food for thought. I’ve just started considering that I could find a way to scale my business. Yikes! I love the idea that love scales. It is the point of everything, isn’t it?

  13. Hannah
    Hannah 07/12/2012 at 5:03 am | | Reply

    I really appreciate your perspective on earning and business. As someone who falls into the “thinking in relationships” category, you’re definitely helping me take a second look at my approach!

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