I got stuck on the '6-figure hamster wheel' and lost my multimillion-dollar business — now I always give entrepreneurs the same advice

David Gray

Do you have a business or a hustle? Do you even know the difference?

Our culture evangelizes entrepreneurship as the new "rock star" status, and if you aren't "hustling," you're failing.

This mindset propels most entrepreneurs to create a "hustle," not a sustainable business.

One will make you insane and eventually kill you. The other will gift you more freedom and impact than you can ever imagine.

I work with many entrepreneurs who get stuck on the "Six-Figure Hamster Wheel" — trapped in the hustle of repeatedly hunting leads, warming them up, closing deals, and delivering.

But there's a glaring hole in this business model: Success is solely reliant on the time you invest in the business, so it stutters in cycles.

You get a chaotic yo-yo of good months followed by really bad months. The high "highs" and low "lows" kill your ability to think strategically and build an actual scalable, sustainable business.

I built a multimillion-dollar business on this way of working. I was generating six figures a month, but it was all based on me. Then, it failed. By 2013, I was $726,000 in debt. Already on my third attempt as an entrepreneur, I thought that this was the final nail in the coffin. But desperation has a peculiar way of unlocking creativity: The only way to escape this mess was to find something that worked and leverage the hell out of it.

Here's what I learned:

First, stop depending on luck.

Relationships, referrals, recommendations, networking, and proposals are reliant on luck. They don't bring a consistent stream of qualified leads to stabilize your company.

Second, understand your prospect's mindset

Trying to pitch or sell to someone before they're ready is guaranteed to repel them. Instead, consider your three types of prospects — people on the:

• Sidewalk (who are your ideal customer, but they don't know you — so attract their attention with Facebook ads).
• Slow Lane (who search Google for authority figures to offer solutions).
• Fast Lane (who have a problem, are referred by a friend, and are ready to buy — as long you meet their objections).

Ask yourself: "How can I add value to each type of prospect? How can I make them more interested and invested in my offer? How can I transition them to becoming paying customers?"

Third, distribute your value to more people — automatically.

When I help entrepreneurs scale from six figures to seven figures, this is the one thing that helps them grow overnight. It facilitates a stranger-to-sale process, 24/7. Think about it. Wouldn't it be easier to have people calling, emailing, and buying your products, even when you're not involved?

If you have people hunting you, it's a game changer. You can hire, make decisions, and create predictability in your business. You upgrade from reactive to strategic thinking. Every successful business leader will tell you that business is a "long-term game." Strategic thinking is beyond most hustlers, but the business owner can have it in abundance.

Remember: Even with great cash flow, if you step outside your business and it stagnates, you have a "hamster wheel" hustle. If you can't attract automatic, predictable attention to the value your business provides, your hustle will, at some point, slowly kill you. Be a business owner with a great work ethic, not a hustler. That's what I did, and a few years years later, not only have I paid off all the debt, but I've generated millions more in revenue.

Scott Oldford is the founder of INFINITUS. Oldford helps entrepreneurs grow their business with online marketing.

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