E280 | Hidden Reasons Causing You to Lose Revenue and Referrals
Release Date: 05/12/2026
E303 | Why Niching Down Can Keep You from Scaling Up with Angela Gerber
Scale Differently
What if all the advice to niche down is limiting your growth? When you're multi-passionate, trying to fit everything you do into one narrowly defined niche can mean leaving behind some of your greatest strengths and passions. And while having a clear focus is important for your audience to understand what you do, there's a way to bring your diverse experience and interests together without limiting what your business can become. In this week's episode of Scale Differently, I sit down with Angela Gerber, founder of The Marketing Apothecary, who spent years trying to fit herself into...
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E302 | Three Things to Consider for Business Growth in the New Year
Scale Differently
What will make the biggest difference in how your business grows next year? When you're setting big goals for your business, it's natural to start looking for the strategies and changes that will help you achieve them. But reaching those goals involves a lot of interconnected things within your business, and some of the biggest influences on your results may be things you haven't thought about yet. In this week's episode of Scale Differently, I'm sharing three things to consider as you plan for the new year, including: Why the most obvious solution isn't always the one you need How small...
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E301 | Recognizing and Overcoming Resistance to Changes Needed to Scale
Scale Differently
Why do we often resist the changes we know we need to make in our business? Despite wanting something different, most people naturally gravitate towards what feels familiar and known. And that can become a challenge when you have a big vision and goals that require you to be thinking, leading, operating, and scaling differently. In this week’s episode of Scale Differently, I dig into how to get past any resistance to change so there is nothing standing between you and your vision, including: Why knowing what needs to change isn’t always enough Where resistance often shows up as you...
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E300 | Reimagine and Scale Your Business for What’s Next
Scale Differently
Do you ever feel like you’re revisiting the same things in your business over and over again? You evolve an offer, rethink your team, update a system, or make changes to your business model, only to find yourself doing it again. As you scale, there are very few things in your business that are static or "done". They continue to evolve as the business grows and what you want changes. And every time you enter into a cycle of revisiting and evolving your business, you're doing it from a new vantage point and entering what I think of as the 'scaling spiral'. For this week’s 300th...
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E299 | The Overlooked Root Cause of Feeling Misalignment in Your Business
Scale Differently
What causes something in your business to start feeling disconnected from what you really want? There are a lot of things that can contribute to that feeling, but there’s one common root cause I see underneath it again and again. And it’s something that can happen so gradually that you may not even realize how much it has changed the way you run, lead, grow, and scale your business. Maybe you adjusted an offer because of what a specific client needed and years later you’re still delivering it that way. Maybe you structured your schedule around a particular team member or season in...
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E298 | The Sacred Yes Framework for More Aligned Marketing and Sales
Scale Differently
What if your marketing and sales process felt as aligned as the work you deliver? So many of the tactics that have become standard practice are built around pressure, urgency, and getting someone to make a decision as quickly as possible. But if you care deeply about the transformation someone experiences once they become a client, the way they arrive at that decision matters too. Your marketing and sales process can reflect how you want to do business, how you want people to experience your work, and the kind of relationship you want to create from the very beginning. That’s what I...
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E297 | When Your Business Outgrows the Way You Run It with Heather Roberts
Scale Differently
Is your business still dependent on you in ways it may have already outgrown? What your business requires from you at seven figures can be very different from what it required from you at $100K. Every stage of business comes with a different set of needs, but it’s easy to keep making the decisions, solving the problems, and filling the gaps you’ve always handled, even when your team can take more ownership and figure things out without you. In this week’s episode of Scale Differently, I sit down with Heather Roberts, who has scaled multiple businesses past seven figures and learned...
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E296 | Reimagining How You Scale to Align With Who You Are Now
Scale Differently
If you were reimagining your business today, knowing everything you know now, would you make the same choices? Would you sell the same things? Structure your team the same way? Spend your own time the same way? Market, sell, and deliver the same way? So much of what exists in an established business is the result of decisions made at another point in time, based on what made sense then. But what if you gave yourself a clean blank slate and reimagined what you would choose today, based on what you want now and what you can see becoming possible in the future? That's what I explore in this...
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E295 | Creating Space for the Unexpected in Business
Scale Differently
Have you ever finally created some much-needed space in your business… only to immediately fill it right back up? Someone leaves your team, and you start looking for their replacement. An offer runs its course, and you start figuring out what you’ll sell next. You delegate something that gives you back 10 hours each week, and somehow those hours quickly get reallocated to something else... Sound familiar? As business owners, we’re naturally great at solving problems and moving things forward, so when something opens up, our instinct is usually to figure out what belongs there next. ...
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E294 | Simplifying Business Growth with Celi Arias
Scale Differently
Is the part of your business you're giving the most attention to the part that will help your business grow? For Celi Arias, a scaling strategist and the founder of ScalePilot, the shifts she wanted to see in her business started happening when she realized that she'd spent more time giving attention to the parts of business she loved, but didn't give enough attention to the areas that determined whether the business could truly grow. Shifting her focus towards the things that really help a business grow has helped her change how she grows businesses today. In this week's episode of Scale...
info_outlineAre you making subtle mistakes that cost your business money? Have you wondered how AI and automation are shaping the way your brand connects with your audience? Have you noticed changes in brands you once trusted?
In this episode, I share personal experiences where messaging felt inconsistent and where AI was used in a way that removed the human touch. This led me to step away from an event I used to attend regularly and stop referring clients to a brand I once valued.
I walk through real examples of how even small disconnects, like automated emails that feel impersonal or overly aggressive sales approaches, can shift how loyal audiences respond and engage. You will hear practical insights on why consistency and authenticity matter across every part of your communication.
If you want your brand to attract the right audience and grow in a sustainable way, this episode will help you think more clearly about how you show up in your content and interactions.
In this episode, I discuss
- Incongruence in online business messaging
- Risks of outsourcing content to AI
- Emotional resonance vs. generic communication
- Impact of disengaged marketing on referrals
- Consistency across marketing channels
- Hard sell tactics vs. value nurturing
- Importance of aligning values and practices
If you want support creating a foundation that still reflects what you and your business stand for as you introduce more AI and automation into your business, then join me inside Extraction where we will create your Visionary Operating System that's designed to capture everything that makes your leadership, your brand, and your business unmistakably yours as you scale. Learn more about Extraction at https://www.leanscaling.com/extraction
Founders: Are you ready to get out of the day-to-day operations of your business?
Start by joining me inside our next Scale Simpler workshop, where I help you discover the hidden factors keeping you stuck in the day-to-day.
Then join me in Extraction, where we'll spend 4 weeks together developing your founder extraction roadmap to help you finally get out of the day-to-day of the business without things falling apart.
Register for Scale Simpler at https://www.leanscaling.com/scaleworkshop and Extraction at https://www.leanscaling.com/extraction
Fractionals & Consultants: Ready to become the strategic partner that small businesses can't imagine scaling without?
Apply for our Chief Strategy and Operating Officer (CSOO) certification and become licensed to leverage our Lean Scaling System™ to simplify how you scale your clients' businesses (and your own) and step into the role founders are increasingly searching for.
Learn more at https://www.strategicopsinstitute.com/certification
Fractionals, Consultants, & Leaders: Ready to deepen your strategic leadership skills and differentiate your services to stand out in a crowded market?
Join our SOL Collective community, THE private space centered on strategic leadership, AI enablement, and defining your signature positioning for those who partner with small to mid-sized businesses.
Learn more at https://www.strategicopsinstitute.com/collective
Have questions? Want to explore partnering together to scale your business? Connect with me on my personal Instagram @cristagrasso or LinkedIn and let’s start a conversation.
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