The part I keep getting stuck on

Our annual survey came out this week, and truthfully, I’ve been pouring through the numbers since the first submissions came in a month ago — so I’ve had some time to sit with it.

It’s not totally fair to look at a spreadsheet and draw conclusions… Each one of those rows are a person — all with different strengths, weaknesses, desires, limitations, and ambitions.

I know folks who are perfectly happy working 30-40 hours a week, and bringing home 50K a year. It’s a setup they’ve designed to keep their stress low, support their lifestyle, and enjoy their lives.

That kind of business is perfectly suited for living off of repeat customers and the occasional referral that lands in their inbox. It’s just enough new business to make up for any customers who fall off. Maybe even a 5 or 10% year over year revenue bump.

But that kind of passive marketing strategy (repeat customers & referrals) has a pretty hard ceiling.

If your ambitions are beyond “getting by” and you want to be bringing home a 100, 150, or 200K salary, or you want to be able to hire people and have someone else doing some of the work for you, very few do that by passively letting the work come to them.

But marketing? Yuk.

So, if we keep ourselves busy enough with clients, we can always say “I would love to…” (fill in the blank) “… but I just don’t have time”.

But, until we make time, it doesn’t get better on its own. And the numbers show us… the likely outcome is burnout.

Here’s the good news… a lot of our industry operates this way. Not that many agencies are actually out there proactively marketing their business, building relationships, and showing up. That means it actually doesn’t take that much to be in the top percentile.

There are a dozen or so small, repeatable, human, uncomplicated systems you can put into your business — that only take 15 to 30 minutes a day — that can make a massive difference. If done with consistency, it wouldn’t surprise me one bit to see a 50K salary go up to 75K or 100K in a year’s time.

I could list a bunch of the things I’ve done, and the things I’ve seen transform TABLE members businesses. Honestly, it’s not some secret playbook, it’s the obvious stuff. The things you already kind of know.

But if knowing was enough, everyone would already be doing it.

That’s the part I keep getting stuck on.

The information isn’t the problem. It’s the assurance. The action. The accountability. The follow through.

Since I started seeing the survey take shape, I’ve been noodling on something… a small, structured group where we’d actually build these systems together, one at a time. Maybe over a six-week period?

I got nothing for you to sign up for right now… But if it sounds like I’m talking to you, hit reply and let me know.