What if I told you a coaching business increased revenue by 60% in 12 months without hiring a single person?

Coaching businesses are notoriously difficult to scale, yet there’s one client I worked with who cracked the code to rapid growth, scaling to 28 employees. But success brought an unexpected problem...

Like many companies that scaled faster than their operations could keep up, they were beginning to buckle under their success.

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They had more customers than they could handle. What went wrong?

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They thought they had a “business problem,” but I knew there was more to it than that. So I did what I do for every other client: I conducted one-on-one interviews with every team member to better understand the challenges they were facing.

Here’s what I found:

• They had no boundaries: There was no clear determination of who owned what, leading to duplicate work that was being discovered too late.
• They used outdated technology: They relied too much on spreadsheets and Word Docs instead of software that could automate and streamline their processes.
• There were no communication standards: Communication across the organization was all over the place. Text messages, emails, instant messages – I was surprised they didn’t find a way to use carrier pigeons! Critical information was slipping through the cracks.

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These weren't technology or strategy issues - they were fundamental people and systems problems.

After a careful analysis, we…

• Designed clear jobs and responsibilities for every person in the company. This meant defining who could fill in for someone who was out, so work didn’t come to a halt when someone went on vacation.
• Deployed new project management technology to ensure that workflows, systems, and SOPs could be automated and implemented throughout the company.
• Wrote a playbook for communication standards and guidelines – including where communication should take place so nothing was missed. These guidelines became core requirements for training for every single person as soon as they joined.

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What was the impact?

They didn’t just right the ship, they set out on a new course entirely. After working together, they…

• Increased revenue by 60% in the following 12 months without taking on a single new hire.
• Improved work-life balance. Employees rarely worked past 5 pm and were able to easily coordinate work around vacations.
• Introduced a new hybrid work policy, allowing employees to work anywhere they wanted ⅗ days each week.

All of these together led to increased employee engagement, improved employee retention, and a healthier company primed to break out.
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Want to learn the secret to HR?

While this story may sound like a miraculous turnaround, you can achieve similar results.

All you need is a good strategy, the fundamentals to put your employees in a position to succeed, and a belief that HR can be a growth engine and difference-maker for your company.

If you can attract and retain the right talent for your company, there’s no stopping your growth. Great products, marketing, or even millions in funding cannot save you from poor HR practices.

That’s why I’m developing a course to teach you everything I know about setting up an HR function in your company that will equip it for hyper-growth. I’m launching it this fall, but you can join the waitlist for an exclusive early-bird discount before the official launch.

Podcast Summaries Not enough time to listen? No problem! Find focused summaries of each episode’s key learning points on my podcast page. Take me there Startup HR Survival Guide Navigate the complexities of HR in the startup world. I’ve distilled over 15 years of experience to help you get HR right the first time. Get the guide ​

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