MANAGEMENT • 10 MIN READ

From A 6-Figure Solopreneur To 7-Figures With A Business That Thrives Without Her

Client Feature: Jena Castro-Casbon

Are You Stuck Working “IN” Your Business?

When you’re a solopreneur, the growth of your business is limited by your finite output.

So if you want to scale, the only solution is to build a team of A-Players and remove yourself as the bottleneck.

But putting the right people in the right roles is only half the battle. You need to also create systems to make things repeatable and set them up for success.

That’s a realization that our rockstar client, Jena Castro-Casbon had just before she joined 2X.

Jena owns an info product business teaching Speech Language Pathologists and Occupational Therapists how to start, grow, and scale successful private practices.

Originally, Jena worked on the business during evenings and weekends. She juggled its growth with her full-time job as a college professor, and running a private practice.

Jena’s success running the business during evenings and weekends showed it had a ton of potential. She had an audience of eager buyers, but when taking the leap to quit her job and focus on her business full-time she knew:

She needed to remove herself as the bottleneck and build a team
She needed support to implement systems and make everything repeatable and scalable

Because as Jena says:

There Are 2 Things In Business:

The stories you tell yourself…

And facts of what’s really happening.

The numbers are the facts. They are the guide. They show you what’s working, what’s not, where to focus and what to fix.

And with a recession looming (or here already!), knowing the key KPIs in your business is more important than ever!

These

Because the reality is:

“I’m a traditional visionary entrepreneur with ADHD and have a hard time focusing and executing. So hiring an online business manager was key for me. And then investing into 2X was another really, really important thing to get my systems dialed in, so that things could be repeatable.”

Jena has been a really awesome client to work with. She joined with a lot of self-awareness and had a good idea of where she needed to improve as a solopreneur, so committed to the process fully.

It’s no surprise to see the incredible results she has achieved by making some significant tweaks to her business.

Since working with 2X:

Jena’s business is set up to thrive in her absence. After a recent week-long vacation, Jena placed full trust in her team and they performed to a really high standard.
While working with 2X her business grew from $49k/month to $117k/month, and at the time had her best ever month of $152k.
Her business has continued to grow after the program. Jena recently reached out to tell us that as of July 22 her new best ever-month is $303k!

So we sat down with Jena to get an update on her progress, where she highlighted three key areas that drove her success.

Lesson #1 – Build Systems, Trust Your Team, And Set Personal Boundaries

The first thing Jena did was assess her business to highlight:

The activities she spent her time on that she doesn’t like doing
And where she spent her time doing things she wasn’t great at

This gave Jena the ability to look at her org chart and fit people into it like pieces of a jigsaw.

And then she needed systems implemented that set them up to do their best work without her micro-managing them.

But getting the team in place with systems to support them is only part of the challenge. The next challenge many entrepreneurs face is letting go so they can do what you hired them for.

Jena has done this fantastically well, and because she enjoyed many aspects of the business, she had to set boundaries with herself. This gave her team the space to thrive. Jena had achieved the true solopreneur mindset!

“Part of it was setting boundaries with myself, And I just liked what I was doing. So I think hiring the right people, and then trusting them to do the work. And then setting boundaries that pulled me out and let them do what I had hired them to do. I think that that made a big change.

When I was doing launches beforehand, it was exhausting. I would be tired for months afterward. But now, I didn’t forget we were doing a launch. But almost. And that is a pretty cool feeling.”

Lesson #2 – Simplify Your Offer

A confused mind doesn’t buy. Many businesses think that the key to growth is to create even more products.

But this often leads to a confused buyer, and they freeze, not knowing which option to take.

The key to overcoming this, especially if you’re selling education and information products like Jena, is to:

Identify your core offer
Simplify your product range
Differentiate your products
Make your offer irresistible.

Jena started with a ton of front-end products, and on evaluation, realized that she wasted a lot of time on certain products that didn’t make much money.

So she simplified her offer which her audience responded to. And then she went a step further by maximizing the value of each customer with her other products.

By repositioning other products within her new ascension model, she started to sell them as one-time offers, and order bumps off the back of her core offer.

The positioning of her products made logical sense to her audience, and her offer was irresistible.

The result? Not only did her front-end offer convert better, but the newly positioned order bumps brought in $250k in additional revenue – far more than they generated previously.

“Having so many products was confusing to me, and it was confusing to the audience. There was a pivotal moment for me, where I sat down and looked at what each product was bringing in. That’s when I realized I should focus on the things that are making the money and let go of the other resources.

We didn’t actually stop selling them. We transitioned them to be order bumps and one time offers. So last year alone, I think that our order bumps and one time offers accounted for like $250,000 just by being placed in the right place.”

Lesson #3 – Take On A New Identity as a Solopreneur

As you make that shift from being a 6-figure solopreneur to a 7-figure CEO, impostor syndrome becomes a massive challenge.

Jena faced this challenge more than most after transitioning from employee, to 6-figure business owner, and then 7-figure CEO.

It requires a big mindset shift to elevate yourself to these new levels. And Jena handled it in an incredible way.

She recognized the ease at which she adopted the identity of being a mother, so asked herself… “How can I adopt the identity that I need to make my business a success?”

And once Jena highlighted who she needed to become, she began to behave how someone in that role needs to.

“I was able to really switch out those labels and identities. I think that that made a huge difference for me, just from a mindset perspective. And even the shift in you know, like, six figure CEO to seven figure CEO, and by the end of this year, I’ll probably be a multi seven figure CEO, it’s really, really cool to just think, what would a seven figure CEO do? They wouldn’t go on Canva and make graphics, right? You have someone to do that.”

Jena's Solopreneur Advice

We ended our conversation with Jena by asking her what advice she’d give to other solopreneur business owners looking to scale.

And her words were emphatic:

“One of the reasons why I joined 2X was I knew that I was ignoring systems. But I knew in order to grow and scale my business, I needed that information. And I also needed my people to be able to create systems and everything else.

I could understand the utility of it, but I hadn’t actually implemented it and that is really what the value of investing into 2X was. And we’ve really started tracking metrics, and having SOPs. They continue to make a difference now, and I know they will in the future as well.

I hope that someone who’s listening who isn’t systems minded and knows that they need to be in order to grow in skill, and is considering joining 2X – I think you should do it!”

Work With Us 1-To-1 To Turn Your Business Into A Machine That Thrives Without You

We all need a helping hand in this lonely world of business. Gee, even a solopreneur like Zuckerberg leaned on Steve Jobs for guidance.

And if you’re like most business owners, you’re either stuck and don’t know what to do next… or you’re just working on the wrong things.

Either way, we can show you how to claim back ownership of your business, by working on the things that will actually move the needle for you.

So if you’re looking for guidance to get on track and achieve everything you want from your business, we’ve got your back.

We’ve coached and mentored 100s of business owners just like you. So there isn’t a problem our team of world-class coaches can’t help you overcome with personal one-on-one guidance and the support of our proven growth methodology.