[013] - My First Billion: Raising the Floor

By the time you’re reading this, I’ll be in the middle of Strategic Scale Summit.

People are flying in. The room is set.
The work is underway.

But the real work for me happened before the event.

Last week, we wrapped up one of our 3-day virtual bootcamps and to be blunt, it bombed.

Not in a dramatic, “the sky is falling” way.

It just quietly confirmed something I’d already been feeling and seeing in the data.

The more we ran it, the further we drifted from our best clients.

So Monday, I hit pause.

Not because something broke, but because something wasn’t aligned.

The Temptation

The easy move would’ve been to “fix” it by adding options.

Lower tiers.
Split offers.
More pathways.
Making concessions.

I even explored it.

For a moment, it felt exciting.
Then I caught myself.

Because that wouldn’t have been raising the floor.

It would’ve been raising the ceiling while weakening the foundation.

There’s a line from Bumpers that snapped it into focus for me:

Raising the floor isn’t sexy, until it is.

We don’t require more complexity or capacity.

We require more clarity.

The Decision

So instead of widening the door, we’re narrowing it.

One clear offer.
One clear client.
One clear standard.

The client we’d work with even if money wasn’t involved.

The one who executes without hand-holding.

The one who owns their outcomes.

They stay longer.
They require less support.
They win bigger.

So do we.

The Pattern I’m Letting Go Of

There was a season where every dip felt like a signal to change everything.

New offers.
New funnels.
New angles.

I’ve done that before.

It creates movement, but not Momentum.

This week reminded me that constraint is a strategy.

And you scale through subtraction, not addition.

Life Outside the Whiteboard

Monday, my wife and I took a day trip to my second favorite city, San Diego.

No meetings.
No rushing.
Just space.
We caught up on our weekly sync, a meeting that matters more than any other meeting.

It’s a time for us to make sure we’re aligned.

The relationship with my wife is my most important relationship on this side of heaven so it’s important that I consistently invest in it.

Where I’m At Right Now

I paused all ads.
I paused the noise.
I gave myself permission to think.

Not because I’m stuck, but because I’m refining.

Sometimes leadership looks like decisive action, and sometimes it looks like disciplined restraint.

This week was the latter.

That’s the work I’m committed to this year.

Marquel