Why Your Business Can’t Outgrow You: Don’t be the Bottleneck

Erin Stahla, Co-owner of Stahla Services, a nationwide provider of restroom, shower, and ADA trailer rentals again joins Enterprise Radio. Erin will discuss why your business can’t outgrow you.

Listen to host Eric Dye & guest Erin Stahla discuss the following:

(Host Eric Dye): When did you first realize that you had to grow before the business could?

(Guest Erin Stahla):  Man, this is a difficult one, I think, to discern in the beginning especially so a lot of times leaders, owners, founders are looking for a business to grow exponentially, right. It’d be awesome if it just grew overnight into something huge, but what people often don’t realize is that the business won’t grow past your personal growth as the leader. And that’s something to really make sure that you understand and it’s something I’m working to understand each day that my business won’t surpass my own foundational learning of the business, and as a person. So kind of diving into that is you just want to make sure that you’re continuing to develop yourself as a leader and as a person before you go in and expect your business to grow. So I think one of the one of the ways that I had to learn to grow or one of the moments I really realized that I had to level up for the team was when we started trying to really hire and attract top talent. This really makes you kind of step back and look in the mirror of hey, if I’m trying to attract top talent, am I worthy of attracting that top talent? What I want to work for myself. So you want to make sure that this is a place that people can continue to develop and you don’t want to just talk a big game during the interview and then lose that steam every day thereafter. So how do you how do you not do that so. You really can’t attract what you aren’t becoming, and that’s just a foundation leadership principal that you have to become the leader that other people would want to follow. So that’s just one of the moments that I realized that I kind of had to level up personal development and definitely valuable opportunity for growth thereafter.

(Host Eric Dye): What personal skill or mindset shift made the biggest impact on your ability to lead a bigger business?

(Guest Erin Stahla):  Yeah. I think just realizing that leadership creates positive changes. So it can be small, it can be large, but leadership really is the key word to study and to understand. So. You you’re the growth factor or you’re the limiting factor. That’s the good news. As the leaders, you can actually choose what you want to be. So it’s up to me to decide which one I’m going to be, and sometimes that’s very often it is a daily choice. Will I be the growth factor for my team and for my company, or will I show up as the limiting factor for my team or company? So I really do believe that I owe it to my team to show up as the growth factor every day, so that is something that I take to heart and it’s something that I think is very personal to you and leadership is comes in different forms, right it is not a one-size-fits-all, so really determining what leadership means for you and how you’re going to continue to develop yourself. Is something that won’t just grow your business. Will grow you. It will grow your lifestyle and it will really expand what you even think this life could be.

(Host Eric Dye): How do you balance working in the business (urgent tasks) with working on yourself (strategic growth)?