The first level is LAUNCH. It’s a completely new business, built out of your desire to take control of your future. Likely starting out in your spare time, you’re doing work on the side after hours or on the weekends, doing jobs for family, friends and subcontracting to other trades businesses. You’re FULL of excitement, and you’re motivated to make something of this new business, with all of your energy going into hunting for enough work to replace your salary.

The second level is HUSTLE. You’ve now built up enough work to give you the confidence to go out on your own, but you're constantly hustling because winning more work is now a NECESSITY. The excitement starts to drop off and is replaced by stress and uncertainty. With more and more demands on your time through marketing, sales, pricing, delivering the work, invoicing, paperwork, etc. you’re doing everything, and progress starts to feel slow.

The third level is SURVIVAL. Now, with more clients and jobs, you’re starting to take on your first employees. This has you working overtime on your business during nights and weekends, stressing about how to keep everyone busy. With greater demand for job management, you have to now start thinking about planning their work, whilst doing your own work, all with increasing piles of paperwork. You need a strategy to get to the next level fast, otherwise it feels like it would just be easier to go back to being on your own.

The fourth level is CEILING. Your workflow has now become more consistent; however, despite your growing team       and being largely off the tools, job management, quoting, invoicing, sales, marketing, etc. is still reliant on you. You’ve become the operations manager at best, and the admin assistant at worst. You’re still doing everything, strapped for time, working ridiculous hours, putting out every fire and burning the candle at both ends. You’ve reached your ceiling of capacity. You KNOW this isn’t healthy, but you don’t know how to get to the next step.

The fifth level is LEVERAGE. You’ve gone from reactive to proactive. You’re a business builder, buying back your time through developing your team, building systems and hiring help in the office. You’re starting to learn to let go and also resist the temptation of grabbing the tools and fixing EVERY problem. But, you’re still the most important cog in the machine, driving the ship and keeping the vessel afloat. Without you, everything stops.

The sixth level is SUCCESS. This is where it all comes together. Your business is no longer dependent on your direct involvement anymore, so you can CHOOSE to work in it, or hand over the day-to-day responsibilities to your management team. Also, your business is now an attractive asset that someone would be prepared to pay good money for. Here, you’re making more money, getting back your time and you’ve built a business that works for you.