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In 2012 I found out that 800 of the relationships I had spent five years building were producing nothing.

I bought a senior home care franchise in 2007. My franchisor was clear about the work: 40 visits a week to referral sources in the community. Hospitals, discharge planners, elder law attorneys, senior living directors. So I did 40 visits a week, and when that got to be more than I could carry I hired a full-time salesperson to run the route with me.

Five years in, we had a database of 1,000 referral sources. She was driving all over the county, some of them monthly, some every other month, some quarterly. We had built a million dollar business. By every measure I had, the strategy was working.

Then two neighboring franchise owners and I started sitting down together to run our numbers as a quarterly practice. Half a day, and then lunch. The first time we did it, I pulled the referral data.

I read it twice. Five years of driving, of coffees, of dropping off lunches and holiday baskets, and 4 out of every 5 of those relationships had produced almost nothing.

The decision in front of me was not a strategy question. It was an emotional one. Stopping meant walking away from 800 people I had been showing up for, some of them for years. I felt guilty about it for weeks before I did it.

We cut them anyway.

Revenue started climbing almost immediately. Not because we worked harder. We worked less. My salesperson stopped running herself into the ground and started spending that time on the 200, which meant she knew their names, their pain points, their busy seasons. They sent us more.

Here is what nobody tells you about running a business at a million dollars.

Somewhere on the way up, effort stops being the variable. Below a certain size, working harder fixes almost everything. Slow month, more outreach. Soft quarter, more hours. You built the business on that, and it worked, which is exactly why it is so hard to see when it stops working.

Past that point, the difference between hitting your number and missing it is 4 or 5 decisions that nobody makes on purpose. Which offer you push. What you charge. Which relationships you feed. What you stop doing.

I call the last one the 800, because every established business has one. It is a set of activities, offers, channels, or relationships that were true once and are not true now. They are almost impossible to spot from the inside, because they are not failing. They are producing something. Just not enough to justify what they cost you.

The busier you are, the more the whole thing looks equally necessary.

Your numbers surface it in about 20 minutes.

You already have the numbers. You have inquiries somewhere in your inbox, consults somewhere on your calendar, clients somewhere in your books, and an average client value you could calculate right now. What you have never done is put them in a line, run them backward from what you want, and let them tell you where the business is being carried.

That is not a spreadsheet exercise. It is the difference between a goal you are carrying around and a plan you are working.

None of that came from a mindset shift. It came from knowing which 200 mattered and having the nerve to cut the rest.

Registration opened this morning.

If you have a strong business and a quarter that still somehow just happens to you, this room is for you.

If you know your numbers exist but you have never used them to decide anything, this room is for you.

If you are about to walk into Q4 carrying a number you have never run the math on, this room is very much for you.

I'll meet you there.

Remember to live your one life!

💗Sailynn...

Business Strategist for Service-Based Women Owners
Founder of Simply Rich dba Passion Purpose Posture