I used to get really annoyed by the “Entrepreneurial Casino” content.
“The secret strategy the top 1% of entrepreneurs don’t want you to know!”
“You don’t need more clients, you need THIS system.”
I learned to spot it and eventually tune it out. (I hated it so much I wrote an entire book about what to do differently.)
But over the last year, I’ve found myself instead wanting to scream at the growth and scaling advice being handed to experts—even from experts I trust.
Not because it’s bad advice. It's often very good advice, unlike the Casino's nonsense.
Because it’s advice for a specific destination that’s being presented as universal.
Following a path that isn’t built for you isn’t just confusing—it’s expensive.
You’ll look around and see the formula everywhere: selling intensives is the way to scale, selling MRR (monthly recurring revenue offers) is the way to scale, selling courses to a list is the way to scale.
I’ve watched people build MRR businesses like memberships or retainers they resent because they prefer to work in bursts and crave novelty.
I’ve watched people launch intensives into markets where they don’t have the lead flow to support that demand and end up cratering their business.
I’ve watched experts build courses because they wanted leverage, only to discover they needed an audience, a launch strategy, and an entirely different marketing engine than the one that built their consulting or high-touch services business.
People also choose the right path—and build the wrong foundations.
Sometimes I see people trying to build three different business models at once because they’ve absorbed too many conflicting recommendations.
But more commonly? Deep down, they know exactly what business they want to build. They’re just using or (feeling like they should use) marketing, sales, and operational approaches that belong to a completely different path.
A membership needs a retention plan as much as a plan for new sales. A speaking business gets sold from the stage, not through launch emails. Executive consulting runs on trust, networks, and proof.
Whether they chose the wrong path or built the wrong foundations, they end up exhausted and increasingly convinced they’re the problem.
Here’s where the “how to scale” advice goes awry:
It assumes the same destination works for every business. An intensive works beautifully for brand strategy—a clear process, a clear deliverable, delivered once. It doesn’t work for accounting with monthly deliverables or a coaching process that requires wrestling with emotions over time, not a single week.
It assumes everyone has the same temperament. I have a small email list, long-term client commitments, a cohort that repeats every six months, and a membership I plan to run for years. I like long-term relationships and I don’t particularly enjoy launching. These models fit how I naturally work.
But you? You might hate being locked into a repeatable schedule. That changes everything about what growth looks like for you.
It glosses over the foundations required to make that destination work. How you sell speaking is not how you sell consulting. The marketing for courses to a list looks nothing like selling high-trust consulting to a C-Suite leader. How you operationalize a retainer looks different than operationalizing a cohort. The investments, the metrics, the systems—all different.
And most people teaching you how to scale aren’t telling you the implications for your foundations before you start walking down that path.
The missing piece: The Expertise Paths
Early on, most experts are solving similar problems: getting enough clients, building trust, and figuring out how to deliver consistently.
But once you’re established, the paths diverge.
And the growth advice sold to you at this stage assures you there’s one correct destination—and it’s usually the business model the expert teaching it built themselves.
What if the real problem is that nobody helped you decide where you’re actually trying to go before they handed you the playbook?
This summer, I’m outlining the paths: the possibilities of how to grow your expertise business and the nuance about those paths that doesn't make it into the marketing copy.
We’re going deeper than the delivery vs. creator archetypes and incorporating new ones, like the Builder (for those growing with software) and the Media Operator.
We’re looking at duration: Sprinters who work in focused bursts vs. Sustainers who build long-term recurring relationships.
And size, such as the Intimate Cohort vs. the Education Empire.
Each path has different sales and marketing requirements, different operational demands, different foundations to build before you take your next step on that path.
I’m building this out over the summer, and I’d love your input.
What have you tried that didn't work for you? Reply and tell me what you built and what nobody warned you about before you started.
I’m also realizing this topic is bigger than a newsletter series. If I go deeper, where would you actually want to engage with it: a podcast, YouTube, Substack, or a blog?
And if this made you think of someone who’s trying to force themselves into a business model that doesn’t fit, would you send it to them?