Let me guess: you’re working harder than ever, but your business growth feels like you’re pushing a boulder uphill. Here’s the truth—most entrepreneurs aren’t stuck because they lack talent or drive. They’re stuck because they’re making the same avoidable mistakes over and over. Today, I’m pulling back the curtain on seven things I’ve watched my clients do (and yes, I’ve done some of these myself) that kept them spinning their wheels instead of scaling their business.
1. Casually Selling Your Offers
This is the biggest culprit. You post about your services occasionally. You drop a casual call-to-action in your stories. You mention you have spots open “whenever.”
Stop it.
Here’s what works: concentrated promotional periods where you go ALL IN. Give people a reason to act NOW—whether that’s a bonus, a deadline, or spots that are genuinely limited. There’s a reason every major retailer creates urgency with expiring discounts. Without a timeline, your ideal clients will keep your offer on their mental “someday” list forever. Instead of sprinkling in mentions for 30 days, pick a two-week window and show up everywhere—stories, emails, DMs, lives, the works. Then rest, nurture your leads, and do it again in six weeks.
2. Taking Work You Don’t Actually Want
I know—you see the revenue dip coming and panic. Someone wants to hire you, and even though it’s not quite aligned, you think, “I’ll just do it. It’ll be fine.”
It won’t be fine.
Nine times out of ten, this backfires. That work you didn’t want to do? It pulls you out of your genius zone, crushes your creativity, and steals time you could spend selling what you actually love. Worse, you’re now too busy doing the wrong work to market yourself properly or develop offers that light you up. Unless you genuinely need survival money, give yourself permission to say no.
3. Complaining About Engagement While Not Being Social
Your content gets crickets. Your DMs are empty. Your views are low. But here’s my question: are you engaging with your ideal clients?
Social media is social. You can’t show up, speak at people, and then disappear—that’s like going to a networking event, giving a speech, and immediately walking out the back door. Then wondering why no one’s talking to you.
The algorithm rewards engagement, and building community requires actually talking WITH people, not just AT them. Comment on your ideal clients’ posts. Start conversations. Be a real human. Even engaging with peers helps because they often engage back, pushing your content further. You can’t expect connection without giving it first.
4. Giving Up on Your Launch Before It’s Over
Day seven of your two-week launch. No sales yet. Your brain spirals: “This isn’t working. Why am I wasting my time?”
Don’t you dare quit now.
Here’s what I know from experience: most sales come at the END of a launch. Why? Because people move when you give them a reason to move. If your deadline is Friday, most people won’t buy until Thursday. They’re busy. They forget. They need to see your offer a dozen times before it registers enough to pull the trigger.
When you quit on day seven, you rob yourself of those critical final touches—the eighth, ninth, tenth time they see your offer. That’s usually when it clicks. The repetition during your promotional period isn’t annoying; it’s necessary. That’s what helps people buy.
5. Abandoning Strategies Too Soon
You need consistency to know if something actually works. You need to do the thing over and over, collect information, and make informed tweaks to improve the strategy.
Take warm emails, for example. Some of my clients need to send at least 100 emails to land one or two clients. When you’re going after bigger retainers, sending 400 emails to land one $4,000/month client for the next year? That’s absolutely worth it.
But I’ve watched people quit at email 100 when they haven’t gotten results yet. Instead of tweaking subject lines, testing different follow-ups, or adjusting their targeting, they abandon ship. What do you have to lose by sticking with a proven strategy a bit longer? Most strategies work with the right adjustments—you just need patience and willingness to optimize.
6. Not Following Up Because You Don’t Want to Be Annoying
Someone told you they wanted to work with you. Next month was the month. You reached out twice. No response. So you gave up.
The money is in the follow-up, friend.
Not everything is personal. Life gets busy. Maybe they had a kid emergency and your proposal got buried. Maybe they had to reprioritize. That doesn’t mean they don’t want to work with you anymore.
Follow up three to five times, then give it some space and reach out again in 30 days. You’re only annoying if someone explicitly tells you they’re not interested and you keep pushing. Until then? You’re being a professional who knows their worth. Stop feeling guilty about following up with someone who said they wanted your help.
7. Taking On Clients You Can’t Outsource
You’re already at capacity. Someone wants to work with you. You think, “It’s money on the table—I’ll figure it out.”
This is usually money scarcity talking, and it’s a trap.
When you take on work you can’t hand off to team members or that doesn’t fit a scalable model, you trap yourself in the weeds. You have no time for business development, content creation, or strategic thinking. The white space you need to grow and scale your business? Gone.
If your vision includes a one-to-many model or a team running your client work while you step into CEO mode, stop sabotaging yourself by staying too busy to build it.
If any of these resonated (or stung a little), you’re not alone. I created the Grow Membership specifically for service providers and coaches who’ve been in business for a few years but haven’t hit—or sustained—six figures yet.
Inside, you’ll get my complete Growth Framework course, weekly group coaching calls, monthly marketing challenges, daily content prompts, and direct access to ask me questions Monday through Friday. It’s everything you need to build a simple, sustainable, scalable business that lets you make six figures while working 20-25 hours a week.
Right now, it’s just a three-month commitment. Let me know if you have questions.
