Why Don’t We Invest In Ourselves?
Because doing the things you think you shouldn’t isn’t frugal – it’s a bottleneck
Yesterday, I opened our SEGC meeting with a thought for the day:
Many small business owners don’t have a growth problem – they have an investment problem.
It struck a chord.
Because if we’re honest, most of us pride ourselves on being careful. We watch expenses. We stretch dollars. We try to do as much as we can ourselves. Early on, that mindset serves us well.
But at some point, it quietly becomes the very thing that holds us back. I’ve experienced this myself more than once. There have been times in my business where I’ve thought, “I can figure this out on my own.” Whether it was marketing, systems, or administrative support, I delayed investing because I didn’t want to take on the cost.
On the surface, it felt responsible. In reality, it slowed me down. And I see this pattern consistently with solopreneurs and small business owners I work with.
We hesitate to hire a virtual assistant, even though we’re buried in low-value tasks.
We avoid investing in marketing training, even though our pipeline is inconsistent.
We delay implementing better systems, even though we know they would create efficiency.
Why? Because spending money feels risky. But staying stuck is far more expensive.
Here’s the shift that changed my thinking:
You don’t scale your business by doing more.
You scale by becoming more, and by building the support around you to match that growth.
At some point, doing everything yourself doesn’t make you efficient, it makes you the bottleneck. And bottlenecks don’t scale. The reality is, every business hits a ceiling. And that ceiling is almost always tied to the owner’s time, knowledge, or capacity. If you don’t invest to break through it, you stay there.
So instead of asking, “Can I afford this?”, a question that naturally leads to hesitation, try asking:
“What is it costing me not to do this?” and “How do I increase revenue to cover it.”
What opportunities am I missing because I don’t have consistent marketing?
What growth am I delaying because I haven’t built the right support?
What time am I losing doing work someone else could do better, or faster?
Those costs don’t always show up on your financial statements. But they show up in slower growth, missed opportunities, and ongoing frustration. Now, this isn’t about reckless spending.
It’s about intentional investment.
Start small if you need to:
- A few hours a week from a virtual assistant
- A targeted course to sharpen your marketing
- A simple system that saves you time every day
You don’t have to do everything at once. But you do have to start. I now have a bookkeeper, because I was lousy at it. I have a Coach, because I am not as smart at building a pipeline as I thought I was. I invest in attending conferences because I still need to learn.
Because growth doesn’t happen by accident, it happens when you make deliberate decisions to move your business forward. If you’re feeling stretched, stuck, or plateaued, take a step back and ask yourself:
Where am I holding on too tightly… and holding my business back as a result?
The discipline that got you here won’t necessarily get you where you want to go next.
At some point, growth requires a different mindset.
Your business will only grow as fast as you do!
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