Ravi Abuvala is the founder of “Scaling with Systems” where he’s helped thousands of entrepreneurs and business owners achieve massive scale through simple systems, creating a business that serves them instead of the other way around. He’s got expert insight on marketing, content creation, sales, and much more.
What’s a common problem most business owners face regarding revenue:
“Whenever we work with a client, we pretty much identify – based on data, not based on feeling – what’s the one thing that if we remove or solve, would essentially unlock growth inside the company And, then at that point you’d reassess, and you kind of keep on doing that.
That’s the methodology that we use. We call it the critical constraint method. I’d say for the vast majority of our clients, they are what most firms would classify as post revenue, meaning they’re already generating some sales. But it’s a little sporadic, right? So, they could be doing, let’s say, for easy numbers, like $200,000 to $500,000 a year, but it’s friends and family, it’s referrals.
They maybe post a piece of content, they throw up this ad every once in a while, and it’s not very predictable. And so, I’d say the common denominator for the vast majority of our clients, especially in our first engagement with them, is that they have no real, true, scalable marketing system in place.”
Working on your business vs working in your business:
“Working on the business to me, is like being a free agent. You don’t necessarily work for marketing, you don’t work for sales, you don’t work for client success. You have leaders in all those departments. They make all those decisions.
Working in the business is where you’re doing the marketing, you’re doing the sales, you’re doing the fulfillment. You are spending 12 to 14 hours every single day just trying to keep the business essentially above water. And when you’re doing that, you know, the saying is it’s almost hard to see the forest through the trees. You can’t really see what the next strategic move is.”
The importance of creating online content:
“We’ve worked with almost 3000 businesses. I’ve seen companies that come in that just do cold calling or just do cold emailing, or just rely on friends and family for referrals, etc.
And I can say beyond a shadow of a doubt, the people that I see as the happiest are typically the ones that are using some kind of social media presence to fuel their business. Because if you do it correctly, you can essentially just film your own life doing things that you were going to do anyway, talking about the things that you love to talk about, and be able to generate clients and a profit.
You don’t have to build a team around it. It’s incredibly leveraged. You create one video; it lasts for years. The prospects that come in are pre-sold, they close at a higher rate, and they have a higher lifetime value. They’re willing to work with you further, even if you fudge up the fulfillment a little bit, because they trust you so much. Which is pretty much what I think content does; it builds trust with prospects.”
What’s the common denominator of successful business owners:
“I’ll tell you right now it’s the ability to handle feedback well … whether it’s positive and not letting it hype you up so much that you become almost blindly egotistical, or when it’s negative.
And even being able to filter through if it is feedback that you should listen to, because maybe they’re not the person I want to be, or they’re not my ideal client, etc. And so, I’m a huge fan of feedback loops. And I think the ability to constantly take feedback in your life from your clients, from the marketplace, etc. I think that’s probably one of the common denominators I see with a lot of successful businesses.”
