According to the U.S. Census Bureau, a record 5.5 million new business applications were submitted in 2023. Natalie Dawson, co-founder and president of Cardone Ventures, appears on Wealth! to discuss the best ways to scale your business to the next stage of growth.
“It feels like you’re fighting fires all day, every day. Challenges with customers, challenges negotiating with vendors, rising rent, rising insurance costs, and all the other things that are going on right now that are hard to deal with and hard to manage, they’re hitting you all the time,” Dawson explains. She says that with all these issues going on, it can be hard for business owners to focus on growth. But she thinks getting employees involved is a great place to start.
Dawson says, “The easiest way to grow and scale your business is to find and attract great talent.” To achieve this, she believes business owners need to set goals with their team members and clarify daily expectations to achieve both their own goals and the company’s. She points out that it’s a big mistake for business owners to assume that employees will be engaged simply because they’ve been offered a job. Rather, with engaged and motivated employees, a business can truly grow.
For more expert insights and the latest market trends, click here to watch this full episode of Wealth.
This post was written by Melanie Leal
Video Transcript
A record 5.5 million new business applications were submitted in 2023.
That’s an 8.7% increase from the previous year, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.
As more and more people start their own ventures, we want to talk about our expertise, what people need to scale their business, and how to take your company to the next stage of growth.
We have Natalie Dawson, co-founder and president of Cardone Ventures, and Natalie is also the author of the new book, “Start the Work.”
How to replicate yourself and scale your business.
Natalie, thanks for coming.
First, I want to start by talking about what a difficult environment it is for business owners.
The price is high.
There is some uncertainty about where things are headed and what business owners should prioritize to not only succeed now but to truly thrive within the next 12 to 18 months.
Fun fact: out of the 35.5 million small business owners in the United States, only 600,000 have more than 12 employees.
If you only have 12 employees, what you don’t yet know as a business owner is how to replicate yourself.
You started this business because you had a passion, an idea, and a desire to create an organization.
Well, what if just 5% of businesses could figure out how to leverage what they do so well, sell, market, and replicate it to hire others?
This leaves a large gap in this duplication process.
The reason I wrote this book is because, as business owners, we don’t focus on how to spend our time not just solving problems, but teaching others how to solve those problems.
The exact same way you build processes and systems within your business, your business will never scale beyond you.
So why is it so hard to scale or replicate a business?
And what are the steps that founders can take up front to really avoid that?
Well, it feels like you’re fighting fires all day every day, you have challenges with customers, you have challenges negotiating with vendors, rents are going up, insurance premiums are going up, so it’s tough.
And all the things that are happening today that are hard to deal with and hard to manage are constantly hitting you.
So if I were a business owner starting a business today, instead of thinking about what I need to do to attract the best talent, instead of focusing on how to best serve my customers, I would think about how to create a brand that would attract the right type of talent that will help me grow and expand.
Because the easiest way to grow and expand your business is to find and attract top talent.
But as a business owner, if you aren’t thinking about being a good leader, communicating clear expectations, and talking about the vision and direction of the organization;
You will never find the talent you are looking for and then you fall victim to people who are not really trying to help you and you end up with what is called a “lack of engagement” because you never did anything in your business to engage good talent in the first place.
You just offered them a job, and because they’re being paid by you, you figured they’d be inspired, excited, and want to help you solve the most important problem in your business.
And it’s not just how employees view their opportunities, nor is it how companies actually function.
So engagement is really a key strategy on a day-to-day basis, and what can business owners do to drive engagement on a day-to-day basis and drive business growth?
I want to say two things.
The first thing you can do is to have a clear understanding with your team members of what their goals are.
You’ll find hardworking team members if you understand what their goals are and make it your responsibility to help them achieve them through their work within the organization.
Secondly, once you know what your customer’s goals are, you need to clarify their expectations of what their day-to-day life will be like.
Do your employees know every day?
If they don’t know what they need to do specifically to make more money, if they don’t have an incentive plan, if they don’t have clear specific activities that tie into the goals they’ve shared with you, and if you can’t see a path to actually achieve those goals, then you’ll fall into the same trap that most business owners fall into: a vicious cycle of not finding great talent to help you grow.
A lot of what we’ve talked about today is based on your book, “Starting a Business,” and your experience starting your own business.
You’re also a female founder.
What do you want to figure out as you start and grow your own company?
As we all know, leadership is hard and you end up making decisions most of the time, but you don’t have to do it alone. The most challenging part of business isn’t actually influencing your customers or clients.
That’s a very rewarding part of the work I get to do.
We work with business owners across the country.
And it’s been incredible to watch them grow from $5 million in annual revenue to $15 million.
But every business has real opportunities to keep you inspired.
When you choose to accept this responsibility, you have the ability to create a positive environment in which your team members can thrive and win.
Because if your team members are successful and making more money working for your company, all you have to do is find a way to connect them enough to how you can help the company grow while they’re growing.
And how do you strategically communicate to them, every day, the decisions they need to make to create that growth?
And if you think about it every day, it’s the most fulfilling and rewarding thing you can do.
Because whether you’re in the home services field or not, it might not be the most impactful opportunity that someone thinks about to really have an impact.
As you know, we change the litter box every day.
As a founder, if it’s your product or service, you may not feel as connected to it.
But having team members, being able to hire new people who don’t know much about the industry and helping them grow to the point where we’re now a company with five locations and leading the way in recruiting, attracting and training all of the plumbers in our area.
That’s a real opportunity that every business owner has.
If they learn this process of replicating themselves and believe they can achieve this, then through teamwork they will make the dream come true, just as they say.
And Natalie Dawson, co-founder and president of Cardone Ventures, thank you so much for joining us.
