Hi Reader,

If you open LinkedIn or your inbox right now, you are likely being bombarded with a thousand different instructions on how to scale your business in 2026.

“You need to be posting video content 3x a week.” “You need a complex funnel with an upsell and a downsell.” “You need to integrate AI into your workflow immediately.”

In the modern business world, we are drowning in “Shoulds.”

We are told that to scale, we must be everywhere, do everything, and adopt every new tool. But here is the tactical reality that most business coaches won’t tell you:

Every new “tactic” you add to your business creates Operational Debt.

If you say you “should” start a podcast, you now need an Operation to record, edit, and publish it. If you say you “should” be on three social platforms, you now need an Operation to repurpose and schedule content.

If you add these tactics without building the systems to support them, you become the bottleneck. You can’t scale because your operational capacity is maxed out by low-impact tasks.

I fell into this trap when I started my practice. I tried to do it all, assuming “more activity” equaled “more growth.” It didn’t. It just led to exhaustion and burnout.

The 3-Step Operational Audit

Sustainable scaling doesn’t come from doing more. It comes from stripping your operations down to the essentials and systemizing them perfectly.

If you feel like you are spinning your wheels, stop looking for a new hack. Look at your operations.

Here are the three questions I use to audit businesses (and my own) to find the bottlenecks:

1. The “Revenue vs. Drag” Test: List every recurring activity you did last week. Highlight the ones that directly contributed to revenue (Sales or Delivery). Everything else is Operational Drag.
   ​The Fix: Can these “Drag” tasks be eliminated entirely? If not, can they be automated? If you are manually scheduling emails or formatting invoices, you are wasting the energy required to scale.
2. The “SOP” Test: Look at your core service offering. If you hired a stranger tomorrow, could you hand them a document that explains exactly how to deliver it?
   ​The Fix: If the answer is No, you don’t have a product; you have a habit. You cannot scale a habit. Pick your #1 service and document the step-by-step workflow.
3. The “Double Volume” Stress Test: Ask yourself: “If we signed 10 new clients tomorrow, exactly where would the system break?”
   ​The Fix: Would it be manual onboarding? Would it be you doing the fulfillment? That breaking point is your priority. Ignore the new marketing trends and fix that specific operational crack.

Build the Foundation First

You cannot build a skyscraper on a foundation of “Shoulds.”

This year, give yourself permission to do less. Focus on the foundational systems—lead flow, onboarding, and delivery. Once those are running like a machine, then you have earned the right to add complexity.

Read the full post: How to Scale a Service Business by Doing Less​

Here’s to a year of doing 'less', better.

Cheers,

Anais

P.S. If you ran the audit above and realized your operations are the bottleneck, let’s talk. My practice is dedicated to helping founders strip away the “shoulds” and build the systems required to scale. You can book a discovery call below to start the conversation:

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"The essence of strategy is choosing what not to do."
— Michael Porter

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