Avoiding the Scaling Trap: How to Grow Without Losing Control
Description
You've scaled past $500K. Your team has grown from 3 people to 12. And somehow you're working MORE hours than when you started.
Sound familiar?
Chantal and Chanelle have watched this pattern destroy dozens of businesses in the $800K-$1.2M range. The solution? Not another hire. Not better time tracking. A complete systems overhaul.
In this episode, we break down exactly how one client automated 90% of her business tasks and took a 3-month sabbatical while revenue kept flowing. No theory—real systems we've built in real businesses.
WHAT WE COVER:
02:15 - Who we are (fractional COOs who've built and exited 7-figure businesses)
08:30 - The task ticker trap: treating symptoms instead of fixing root causes
15:45 - Why low-cost resources actually make your problems worse
22:10 - How bad team dynamics drain your energy and affect your family
28:35 - The bottleneck you've become (and how to stop being it)
34:20 - Quarterly systems audit: what to review every 90 days
41:15 - Case study: 3-month sabbatical with business running on autopilot
47:30 - Task audit framework using ClickUp
52:45 - Turning tasks into recurring systems (the real secret)
TOOLS WE MENTION:
ClickUp (recurring task workflows) - https://clickup.com/?fp_ref=chantal86
Kolby Assessment (team personality profiling)
Time tracking for project cost analysis - https://go.setapp.com/invite/zevtih1t
AI for SOP creation
THE REAL PROBLEM:
When something breaks in your business, you throw a cheap VA at it. Support tickets piling up? Hire someone at $15/hour. Content falling behind? Another contractor.
Before you know it, you're managing 15 people and YOU'RE the bottleneck reviewing everything.
This isn't about hiring better people. It's about building systems that don't need you constantly firefighting.
READY TO STOP BEING THE BOTTLENECK?
This is exactly what we teach inside leveragedCEO - our sales engine + community where we show you how to build the AI-powered systems that run your business while you're at the beach (or taking a 3-month sabbatical).
Learn it. Use it. Sell it to your clients. Subscribe for more - https://leveragedceo.io/subscribe
PREFER TO WATCH VIDEO?
https://youtu.be/wBkfIuriqBU
Drop a comment: What's eating most of your time right now - managing people or managing systems?






