In this transformative episode, Jason Moss shares how you can scale your startup to seven figures while working less with his CEO Freedom Formula. If you’re struggling with burnout from doing it all, or if you feel overwhelmed by inconsistent revenue, you won’t want to miss it.
You will discover:
– What value ladder strategy lets you focus on high-impact work
– Why shifting to a CEO identity helps you escape the daily grind
– How to eliminate low-value tasks to free up your time
Episode Transcript
Scott Ritzheimer
Hello, hello and welcome. Welcome once again to the start, scale and succeed podcast, the only podcast that grows with you through all seven stages of your journey as a founder. Today, Jason Moss is joining us to help all you founders in the startup entrepreneur stage to make a million while working less. Jason is a multi six figure business coach and leader of Thrive, a thriving global community of online business owners. His journey began in 2016 with his first online business, which generated a whopping $4,728 in its first year. Determined to crack the code on consistent leads and clients, Jason then spent years refining his strategies, and once he discovered what truly worked, everything changed. He scaled his business to over $500,000 annually and built a vibrant community filled with incredible clients. Today, Jason wakes up every day passionate about transforming lives by sharing the proven marketing strategies that fueled his success, and he’s here with us today. Jason, thanks for being on the show. So excited to have you here. You’re got, you’ve got this really cool guide, and I hope we can show folks how to get a copy of it themselves. But in it, you open with a pretty hard truth, and that is that most founders who’ve hit six figures are overwhelmed. They’re working long hours. They’re questioning if all of this is worth it. So for a startup founder who’s just getting off the ground, they’ve got big dreams, but they’re already feeling buried and burned out, what’s the first step to using your CEO freedom formula to take back control?
Jason Moss
Yeah, it’s a great question, and I you know anyone who’s out there, I just want to say you’re so not alone. If you’re feeling like that, you’re wearing the entire business on your back. And I mean, so many entrepreneurs that got to six figures. The thing that got us to six figures is we’re scrappy. We figured out how to solve problems, we figured out how to run everything ourselves, manage all these tools and wear all the hats and that’s a beautiful thing, but there’s something super interesting that happens around six figures, which is that the way of operating that got you to six figures really starts to break down. And so when I was at six figures, back in 2018 I hit six figures for the first time. I was working six days a week. I was designing thumbnails on the weekend. I was writing landing page copies, sending emails. I was doing everything myself. I had a mindset of this proud di wire. And I see this a lot with entrepreneurs who are at that level. It’s that scrappiness that got us to six figures that really starts to create bottleneck at that level. So yeah, when it comes to shifting out of that and being able to scale. I have a three step formula called the CEO freedom formula that I walk through with clients. The first step of that is, I think the most important piece, which is CEO identity. And what I’ve seen from helping and mentoring so many different entrepreneurs is that the thing that really gets in the way is actually the internal piece. In order to scale a business, you literally have to become a different person. You cannot build a seven figure business with a six figure identity. And so I see a lot of entrepreneurs who are trying to change the outside, certainly, where I was in 2018 I was so focused on marketing strategies and funnels and lead gen, and I was spending all my time focused on the outside, but I hadn’t yet become the kind of person I needed to be. So there’s a radical shift in identity that needs to happen. There’s a move from being an operator to being an owner, and it’s a completely different mindset, completely different way of thinking about running a business that really is that that foundational shift, that when entrepreneurs are able to make that, then everything else can filter out into the way that they run and lead the business. And that’s when scale becomes possible, while reclaiming your freedom and your time so you don’t have to work 60 hours a week, but you can make a lot more money.
Scott Ritzheimer
Yeah, I love that. What, uh, what makes that tricky is a couple things. One, you mentioned this earlier, you get to this stage by doing those scrappy things right. So it’s not that those things were wrong, it’s just that they’re not right anymore, and at least not in the way that you’re approaching them. And so that begs the question, when does that change? Like, is it like some little fairy comes and tells you overnight, like, what’s the demarcation point where you have to start shifting those mindsets and to create the success that you’re really looking for?
Jason Moss
I think what it really comes down to is you hit a stage of burnout where a lot of entrepreneurs will try to do more of what got them to six figures. So it’s more content, it’s more sales calls, it’s more, more of the same, and it gets to a certain point where you just feel like you’re I mean, I know for me, it was like I was wearing the entire business on my back. I was overwhelmed, I was stressed out, I was burned out. I felt like I was constantly on, like at the end of the day, I couldn’t turn off. Like I was constantly thinking about my business, because the. Level of intellectual weight of managing and running and being so in the weeds and building a successful business just starts to you start to collapse under the weight of it. So I think that’s the symptom that most people will come to me and they’ll say, Jason, I I can’t keep doing this. I know I’m on the path to burnout. I just feel like I’m overwhelmed. I’m wearing too many hats. And that’s the moment, I think, for most entrepreneurs, where we go, okay, we either stay small or we slip back into the comfort of what we did before. And some entrepreneurs will do that. You know, it’s like, okay, well, I don’t want to scale, because I feel like scaling is going to mean more of this. And I have a story that says that I need to just do more of this, and that doesn’t work for me. So we stay small, or we break through and we shift into a new way of being an operating business.
Scott Ritzheimer
You mentioned with this identity piece that there’s an element where you have to change who you are that can be really scary for for most folks, really. What does that mean, and should it be a scary thing?
Jason Moss
Yeah, I mean, it is, in a certain sense, it’s a it is scary to that old part of you that’s literally dying because, I mean, a lot of what’s underneath the surface is it’s a addiction to getting our dopamine from doing, which I see with a lot of entrepreneurs, I’ve also struggled with this. It’s a sense that we feel like we get validation for being the one who’s constantly in control and managing. So there’s a lot of deeper stuff that has to change in that journey, and it is scary because it means letting go of a way of operating and a way of seeing yourself. And so there’s a lot of resistance, there’s a lot of fear around that a lot of entrepreneurs feel. I know, for me, you know, we have to reimagine the model, the way that we’re showing up in our business, because it’s not possible to scale the current model to the next level. So that is a tough place to be, and it’s also incredibly exciting and expansive, and there’s so much possibility on the other side of that it’s just being able to work with the resistance and the fear and the stories and redefine our relationship to business and how we lead, which is not easy to do, but more than possible. And there’s so much freedom on the other side of that. So that’s really the message I want to share with people, is this is, this is, does not have to be your life. Yeah, if this is so true, there’s so much possibility on the other side of that it’s so true.
Scott Ritzheimer
So I can, I can kind of hear the the pushback. I know I’ve received it. I’m sure you have, as well as like, nah. But really, it’s a I just need more leads. Like, that’s fine. I just need more leads, right? Or I just need someone that I can trust, that can execute on this, or, like, we want to shift back to those external things. Sure, a thing or two with us that you tried that didn’t work, just so that we can kind of lay that to rest?
Jason Moss
Yeah, well, I What I’ve noticed in my in my own business, and I’ve experienced this personally, as well as with so many people I mentor, is there’s this thing that starts to happen where it’s like we take one step towards a certain direction, like, for example, when I hit my first $100,000 month, that was a big milestone for me. But, and I see a lot of entrepreneurs who hit record months. It’s like, they’ll have their their first big month, but they can’t hold it. And so you’ll see a lot of this, like, we we hit the milestone, and then there’s this collapse on the other side of it. And and I see this so often with entrepreneurs. And what it is, is it’s a you have not become the kind of entrepreneur who can hold the sustainability behind the model, or behind the level of revenue, or you’re just hustling, you’re just grinding to try to hit that thing. So that’s what often happens. And what I experienced in my own business was this kind of stop and start thing for many years, like I would hit a milestone, and then I’d be right back where I started, and I would break through. And then it felt like I was I was back at square one again, and that is a symptom, yeah, of this deeper misalignment. I always tell people it’s like the business you have right now is a perfect reflection for who you are, and it will rise or fall to your own level of identity and your own internal blocks and sets of beliefs. And so the real work is really it’s not an outside game. It’s not a popular message. I mean, most people come here, they want marketing strategies, right? But what I’ve found is you become the thing first, and then the strategy actually emerges from that. It’s like when I’m thinking like a seven figure entrepreneur, I my mind will figure out the right strategy. Yeah, it needs in order to actually generate seven figures. Yep. But if I’m sick, I’m thinking like a six figure entrepreneur, I literally the the strategy, the seven figure strategy is not available to me. The seven figure lead generation plan is not available to me. So it really is an inside out. Game, and it’s a hard shift, I think, for most entrepreneurs who are wired to think externally first, but it’s a dramatic shift when we can make it that has such incredible impact on the business. And it’s, it’s been more effective than anything else I’ve ever seen. You know.
Scott Ritzheimer
It’s so true, it’s so true, and it’s, it’s one of the reasons why, and I think you’ll relate to this as well. But I love working with founders, because once they do make the shift, man, they can figure stuff out like it’s profound, how quickly you’ll adapt and how quickly you’ll solve these things that you didn’t even know you needed to solve. So long as that energy is directed in the right way, one of the if we kind of move on to step two of this process, you talk about eliminating and leveraging, which is an interesting combination, because most folks will kind of split those out. What does that mean to you? Why is it so important that it’s the next step in the process?
Jason Moss
Yeah. So when I look at what most entrepreneurs are doing, at least 50% of what they’re doing on a day to day in their business doesn’t need to be done. And this is, I mean, hundreds of entrepreneurs I’ve mentored, and this is like 99% of them myself, too. I mean, i i Every few months in my business, I do a time audit where I’ll track my time every every 15 minutes I’ll do for a week. And I love the things that I’m doing. And there’s, every single time I do it, there’s just things that, when I actually scrutinize it and I sit down, I say, what’s actually generating revenue and what’s not? For example, we had a for for a couple years. We had a video editor in my business, and I do a lot of YouTube content. It’s a big lead gen source for us. And I had this unvalued unvalidated assumption when I first hired that video editor, that if we invested a lot of money into having better edited videos, we would get more views. People want to push them to more people. I never checked that assumption. I just assumed it. I went on and hired a video. We’ll be paying $500 a video, so like, four grand a month to be able to edit these videos. And I had someone on my team who was reviewing these videos, and, you know, working on revisions, I never actually stepped back and looked at the data. And when I actually looked at the data and I compared highly edited videos on our channel to raw uncut videos, what I found was there was zero difference in retention. Well, we’re just as likely to watch the unedited videos. Actually. They were watching them for longer, and they were doing better on our channel. So this is a this is a small example of what happens all the time with entrepreneurs. There’s so much inefficiency and blow in most businesses, and in times when things are good, that stuff can float by. But if we look at what’s happening in the economy right now, what’s up ahead, I think many people, myself included, are looking at, you know, where we are economically, and we’re we’re kind of headed for what I imagine to be a little bit of a bumpier ride over the next year, and in times like these, efficiency lean, effective models that are not that are not overwhelmed by bloat. That’s the stuff that’s really going to survive. So so the first step of this is really like getting super aggressive about auditing your time and cutting all the things that actually aren’t moving the needle, and then from there, because most people skip that, like I did. They’re like, Oh, let me just find a team member to do this. Right? Let me delegate someone else. And it’s very easy to hand something off to somebody else that we think needs to be done, when most people just don’t ask that question of like, do I even need to do this in the first place? Is this important part of my business? So that’s the first piece. And then we move on to, how can we create more leverage around your time so we can move you up the value ladder so you’re not spending all your time doing, you know, $20 an hour admin tasks in the business. And that’s the piece that I think a lot of entrepreneurs at at that six figure level could really benefit from, right? You know, it’s that, that that leveraged approach, moving away from this, I’m doing everything myself, mindset and more to how do I leverage team? How do I leverage AI? How do I leverage automation to be able to free me up to focus on higher revenue, ROI generating activities in the business?
Scott Ritzheimer
Yeah, with all those different opportunities, how do you help people figure out where to start?
Jason Moss
Well, I think the easiest thing that most entrepreneurs could do right now, if you’re listening to this, is just make a list of all the things that you’re doing in your business on a weekly basis, and go through every single one of those and ask yourself, Is this making money, number one, and how much revenue is it actually generating in the business? And if it’s generating less than 10% or 20% revenue in the business, just cut it. You probably cut your to do list in half, just by doing that. That would be where I would start. And then from there I have this, you know, I mean, this not a new concept, the value ladder. You know, many people talk about this. So if you imagine a ladder like a visual of. Ladder. And you have, at the bottom of the ladder, you have like low level, low value tasks in your business, things like admin, things like scheduling content, things like scheduling, generally scheduling, administrative type stuff, things that you could hire somebody for $20 an hour to do. And then at the top of the ladder you’ve got things like high level strategy sales calls, being on camera, doing interviews like this, this is high leverage time for me. And then you’ve got all sorts of things in between. You can, you can just draw on a value ladder like this in your business. And my goal when I mentor entrepreneurs is, how do we move you up the value ladder? So you start it by looking at the bottom of the value ladder. And you look at the things that you’re doing lowest rungs on the value ladder. And we look at, how can we automate, how can we delegate? What can we eliminate here? Yeah, and then over time, you start to just inch up the value ladder, week by week, month by month. We move you off more and more of those low leverage things. And you do that bit by bit by bit, and that opens up more time to be able to enjoy your life, but also to be able to focus on things that are actually going to generate a lot more revenue in business.
Scott Ritzheimer
Yeah, that’s fantastic. Such a simple approach, but it really, really works. I love that approach. Jason, I’m going to let you go here in a minute, but I’ve got another question before we do and then I want to make sure folks know how they can get in touch with you. What would you say is the biggest secret that you wish wasn’t a secret at all? What’s that one thing you wish everybody watching or listening today knew?
Jason Moss
I think it’s that business is an act of service. You know, when I think about what’s been most influential for me in terms of my own success, as well as the clients that I serve. It really comes down to that it’s the entrepreneurs who are obsessed about, how can I solve problems, how can I understand deeply who my people are, what they need, what their dreams are, what keeps them up at night. And that sounds cliche, because a lot of marketers talk about this, but it’s easy to get distracted. I find as I grow and scale, it’s everything I’ve always launched in my business that have flopped, that has flopped, and I’ve launched a lot of successful offer I’ve also failed a lot of times. Launched a lot of things that have just bombed, and 90% of the things that have bombed, when I look back and I ask myself, why? It’s because I got away from the market, I wasn’t rooted and I wasn’t grounded in what people really want. And so I think the the real what, to me, What business is, is it’s, it’s an act of service. It’s, How can I add value? How can I help other people, and particularly as you scale and grow a business, it’s, it’s actually harder to stay grounded in that, because we start playing more of this high level owner role, and we get away from those ground floor connections and relationships and more being, like tapped into what people really want. Yeah, so for me, I think the secret is stay grounded in who your people are. Really seek to understand them. Get on calls with them, like, hang out with them, even when you’re growing and scaling. You know, this might sound like contrary to everything I’m just saying, but it isn’t. It’s sometimes actually being in the ground floor is a good thing, like going and just having conversations with your five best clients and getting on the phone with them. Okay, I think that’s high leverage time. And really that is the biggest secret to success, is the entrepreneurs who are staying grounded in service that are going to win.
Scott Ritzheimer
Yeah, I love that, and I found a point of distinction between those two things is that you’re having those conversations because you can, not because you have to. It’s not necessary for the thing to move forward, but it’s for you to really approach and make that connection, get the we wouldn’t really call it this, but get the data out of that experience that’s going to help you make great decisions and implement the right strategies moving forward. So that shift from I have to do this to I can do this is a really big one. Jason, there’s some folks listening that like it’s just exactly what they need right now, and they’d like to have more. Tell us a little bit about the the free resource you’ve got available, and then where they can find more out about you and the work that you do.
Jason Moss
Yeah, for sure. So you can go to Jasonmoss.com there’s that seven figure scaling guide there, which we talked about steps one and two of the CEO freedom formula today, basically, how to, how to how to break free from becoming a prisoner in your business and build a business that you run instead of a business that runs you. This formula, this three step approach, really walks you through how to do that. And so that guide goes into more depth, into the how, into what’s working best for the entrepreneurs that I mentor to help them scale today, it’s completely free and super valuable. It’s not like a hidden sales pitch. There’s actually like a lot of value in there. So you can check that out on my website, if you just go to jasonmoss.com and there’s a link to download the scaling guide there. We got a ton more information on that site. There YouTube channel with hundreds of free videos, valuable content. Intent for entrepreneurs who are scaling. So lots of great places to check out, but JasonMoss.com, is where I’d go, and that’s our hub for all things helping you scale.
Scott Ritzheimer
Fantastic, Jason, thanks for being on the show. Just a privilege and honor having you here with us today. Loved this conversation, and there’s a lot of gold in there for folks that are in this stage. For those of you watching and listening, you know your time and attention mean the world to us. I hope you got as much out of this conversation as I know I did, and I cannot wait to see you next time. Take care.
Contact Jason Moss
Jason Moss is a multi-six-figure business coach and leader of a thriving global community of online business owners. His journey began in 2016 with his first online business, which generated just $4,728 in its first year. Determined to crack the code on consistent leads and clients, Jason spent years refining his strategies. Once he discovered what truly worked, everything changed. He scaled his business to over $500,000 annually and built a vibrant community filled with incredible clients. Today, Jason wakes up every day passionate about transforming lives by sharing the proven marketing strategies that fueled his success.
Want to learn more about Jason Moss’s work at jasonmoss.com? Check out his website at https://jasonmoss.com/ and get a copy of his free 7-Figure Scaling Guide.