Happy, Healthy, & Wealthy Therapists | Ep 35: The Problem With Scaling for the Sake of Scaling

Released: 06/11/2026

Show Notes:

In this episode, Amanda sits down with Steph Orosco to talk about what it really means to build a business that supports both your goals and your well-being. Together, they explore why scaling for the sake of scaling can leave therapists feeling disconnected from the very businesses they worked so hard to create, and how getting clear on what you actually want is often the first step toward sustainable growth. Steph shares insights on CEO mindset, the importance of support and delegation, and the perfectionism and people-pleasing tendencies that often keep therapists stuck doing everything themselves. They also discuss why alignment matters just as much as strategy, and how creating success on your own terms can completely change your experience of running a business.

About Steph Orosco:

My guest today is Steph, who’s a one-to-one business coach and OBM based in Seattle, Washington. When she’s not curled up and working from bed with her sassy cat, Harley, you can find her pushing herself through early morning strength workouts, loving on her nephews and niece and traveling and exploring with her husband, Sam. Her work is focused on high touch, personalized support and true partnership. She started her business as a VA eight and a half years ago, then quickly scaled into an OBM agency with a team of eight managing the operations of successful multi six and seven figure businesses. Over the last five years, she’s also coached dozens of service based business owners to six and multi six figure results.

3 Key Takeaways:

1. Sustainable scaling means having a strategic partner (OBM, coach, or both) who can reflect back the tradeoffs of every new idea, so you’re not building offers from scarcity or hustle but from genuine alignment.
2. The real difference between a VA and an OBM is execution versus ownership: a VA does the task, an OBM holds the bigger picture, manages the team, and helps you decide what’s actually worth doing.
3. Slowing down and getting long-term, consistent support (instead of hopping between coaches or programs) is what actually protects your time, energy, and capacity as you grow your practice.

Connect with Steph:

• The Strategic Hiring Audit ($99): Make your next right hire to scale
• Instagram: @scalingwithheart

Connect with Amanda:

• Follow on Instagram: @amandakbcoaching
• Check out the Amanda KB Coaching website

Register for the Therapist Scaling Intensive Workshop: A half-day, hands-on virtual workshop for therapists who want to scale beyond private pay therapy sessions

Make sure to hit follow/subscribe so you never miss an episode!

Sponsors:

• This episode is sponsored by Alma – learn more here
• This episode is sponsored by Jane – use code: AMANDA2MO for a 2-month grace period

Resources & Links:

SEO for Therapists Membership

Therapy Intensives Academy

Happy, Healthy, & Wealthy Mastermind

Free Training: 3 Steps to Booking Your First Therapy Intensive

Free Guide: 3 Steps to Double Your Income

SEO Freebie

Just a quick heads up, everything I share in this podcast is for informational and educational purposes only. It’s not legal advice, financial advice, or tax advice. Every practice and every state has its own rules. So if you’re wondering how something applies to your situation, make sure to check in with an attorney, accountant, or another qualified professional who can give you guidance based on your specific circumstances.

Transcript:

Amanda (00:00)
Hey, Steph, thanks so much for joining me today.

Steph Orosco (00:03)
Thank you so much for having me. I’m so excited to talk to you.

Amanda (00:06)
Yes, I think this is a super important conversation that my audience misses out on a lot. We have a lot of conversations about scaling your business and growing your business, but no one really knows what goes into that. What’s the difference between scaling just to scale and how do we scale in like an effective and a sustainable and a profitable way. So I just really love that you’re here to talk about this zone of genius that you have. So.

For those of you who don’t know you, can you share just a little bit about who you are, what it is you do?

Steph Orosco (00:38)
Yeah, ⁓ by the way, I feel the same. feel like this is a conversation that we don’t know to have until we’re like in the middle of scaling. And then we’re like, ⁓ okay. I wasn’t aware of all of these things. So I’m really excited to talk more about it. ⁓ I am currently a high level coach in OPM and I’ve been in business eight and a half years. I support my clients ⁓ now with growing, scaling successful six to seven figure businesses.

Amanda (00:49)
huh.

Steph Orosco (01:07)
And I do that in a couple of different ways. So one, as a one-to-one business coach, and then in the other side as an OPM, which we’re going to talk more about what I do in that realm and how I support clients and actually like holding everything that comes with scaling your business behind the scenes.

Amanda (01:24)
Yes, yeah, so let’s dive right in of what is an OBM? What does that stand for? What is the role? Like, what is it? What do do?

Steph Orosco (01:33)
Yes. So it’s an online business manager and it is someone who is there to hold the operations side of things. ⁓ You know, as you’re scaling, you can get started and you can create success basically with like you and a Google Doc, right? Like you can go pretty far with that, but you will become a bottleneck in your business at a certain point. And

Amanda (01:50)
Yep.

Steph Orosco (01:59)
I thought it might be helpful if I said like, what is a VA as well versus OBMs to kind of like differentiate. ⁓ So VA’s are there strictly to support with execution and they’re more, you know, task doers. And that is wonderful when what you need is simply to get back some capacity and you have some repeatable tasks and you’re like, okay, this gets me out of the weeds a bit of my business. And this is something someone can execute on kind of without me having to think about it each time.

Amanda (02:03)
Mm-hmm.

Steph Orosco (02:29)
great, we need a VA. I think those are just so incredibly important as you’re growing. But even with VA’s, you can get to a certain point where as you’re scaling, there’s more moving pieces, there’s more to manage, there’s more to think about more team members, more clients, more revenue, more offers. And so VA’s are not there to support with that side of things. They’re more there to execute on the task that you

give them. And so that is when an OPM can be really beneficial to, I think of it as just kind of like managing, you know, team projects, systems, and overseeing the operations for you so that you can be supporting clients or focused on your marketing and not having to be the one in all the things.

Amanda (03:19)
Yes, yes, because that is certainly even how me and my first assistant that I hired got started was we had a Google Doc of great, here’s the tasks for the list and here’s the deadlines for that. And then the more I added, the more we scaled, we hired another virtual assistant. It was just like, we’re doing a lot and nothing feels organized. And the coach I was working with at that time was like, you need an OPM. I was like, I have no idea what that is. But from exactly how you just described it of someone else to like,

hold your brain with you to protect your capacity. I was like, that does sound like what I need, yes.

Steph Orosco (03:51)
Mm-hmm.

Yes, yes, I love the way you said that. It’s like ⁓ VA second set of hands, which we totally need. And then an OVM is second brain and second set of hands.

Amanda (04:06)
Exactly. And a different set too, because when I am talking with therapists who are scaling, I’m talking with them about like, you know, there is a difference between the task doer of your virtual assistant and where I see a lot of people get really frustrated of like, I hired an assistant, but I feel like I’m having to, you know, even just the time to train them. And then I’m giving all this feedback. Like it can feel like a big burden to even hire a virtual assistant. And so I’m having conversations about.

What does it look like to delegate a task versus delegate also like decision making and sign off? Like how do you teach someone? This is how we know a blog looks good. This is how we know the social media post is exactly what we want it to look like. Like it is a different way of training people and a lot of that comes with experience. But also these days it is so nice for me to not have to train my virtual assistants because

My OBM can do that because I’ve essentially downloaded my brain into her and she knows how I would think about things and that just really helps me feel supported from that. I don’t have to have 117 tabs open in my brain at any given point.

Steph Orosco (05:19)
Yes, yes, that’s it. Exactly. And we are there to to get to know how you think and to think with you and to see also like the big picture with you, right? Like when you as a CEO are looking at your business, it is very different than if I’m just given one task that’s one tiny slice of the overall business and I get what to do for that task. But I have no idea how this connects to everything else or what this impact is on everything else. And so, yeah, we’re

We’re there to be that person who can see that all with you, understand all of that with you. And then yeah, exactly like you’re saying, support team, lead team, help you identify, like, do we have even gaps in the team structure that we need to fill and how are things flowing and all of that. So yeah, I love that. I agree.

Amanda (06:07)
Yeah. Can you talk a little bit about, you know, as you both have grown your own business, you are able to see some of your one-on-one clients’ businesses and the LBM work you do. Like, what are the general gaps that you just said? Like, what are you noticing most people are missing in terms of structure and organization and systems?

Steph Orosco (06:26)
Hmm. ⁓ It’s so varied because I think different people can be at different places of either ⁓ just their business journey in general, or like they’ve had support with some things, or maybe like they had one thing set up by one contractor a while ago, and so that’s kind of kept them going. ⁓ Generally what I’m looking for in terms of systems that we need to have and maybe like aren’t always aware of or

think it’s like a nice to have, but don’t realize how much it would support us in scaling. Our project management systems having some place where I think of it as like an external hub for your business. It’s like that place where we can go and see, okay, where’s kind of like our business HQ set up? You know, where’s that system? would usually, this was 30 years ago and we’re working at brick and mortar. We’d have that big filing cabinet with everything, right? We need that.

in your technology, your tools. ⁓ So I always want clients to have that first and foremost. That’s also what gets some things out of your brain. That’s what allows team to support you. If we have a project management tool and I am talking about, if you aren’t familiar with project management, I’m talking about something like Asana or you may have heard Trello, ClickUp, ⁓ anything like that. But basically what it is, is a place where everything that needs to happen in your business lives and

things about your business live. I even put like the link to our branding folder. You know, our legal documents can be accessed through links there. And so it’s one place where everyone knows to go to learn what’s going on, what needs to happen and where everything is. And I think that can be a big one. It can almost feel like, ⁓ well, like that seems nice for like super organized people, but I don’t have time for that. And it’s like,

No, like that’s what makes you feel like you have the capacity, the mental capacity even to be able to scale. So I think that’s a big one. And then the other two that come to mind are the customer relationship management of some sort. This is different for everyone. This might be like a Dubsado or HoneyBook or something I think can be helpful depending on your business. And then

Amanda (08:28)
Yeah.

Steph Orosco (08:50)
Email marketing usually of some sort if we have email marketing as part of the, you know, what they’re using for marketing.

Amanda (08:58)
Yeah, I mean you’re talking about a lot of the the tech and systems which generally a lot of people are like I didn’t even know those things existed and then we see all the options and we get the decision paralysis and decision fatigue of just there’s so many things out there that I think that is where a lot of people just Give up prematurely and say like I’ll just figure out something else that works for me but it literally was a life changer for my team to move from Google Docs to Asana and to actually have

Steph Orosco (09:11)
Yes.

Amanda (09:26)
all of this stuff organized. And even these days, like, I think we were we were just doing a launch this month and I was like, I don’t need three separate cards in Asana of like, this is the link for that. That’s the Google Drive for that. Like everything needs to be in one place so that I know exactly where to click it and where to find it because it does literally save time just to not have to click into a of different things. And so all these tiny things that really do add up in terms of being overwhelmed and frustrated.

Steph Orosco (09:50)
Yes.

100 % like what you just said, if you’re in the middle of a launch and you’re having to, you know, go on Instagram stories, and you’re talking about it over here, and you want to someone the link and you’re like having to flip through your notes app or whatever every time to find that link. It’s just so much time and energy, which as you’re scaling, we are trying to protect your time energy capacity. And so little leaks like that really do add up and prevent you from doing as much of like what is specifically

Amanda (10:07)
Mm-hmm

Steph Orosco (10:24)
in your zone of genius or what is the highest impact kind of like visionary selling side of things that we want you to be able to focus in because that’s what’s going to move the needle most for scaling.

Amanda (10:37)
⁓ 100%. I think the other area where a lot of us entrepreneurs get stuck is we all have 15 million ideas of I could be good at this and I can do that. And if I’m just going to scale, like I’m going to launch five offers at once. So from your perspective, what is the best way to start when you know there are multiple things you want to do? How do you avoid the overwhelm?

Steph Orosco (11:03)
⁓ I love this because it’s kind of like a blend. Like I think even part of that ⁓ is the more strategic thought partnership that I get to bring for my OPM clients where traditional OPMs are what we talked about managing operations and overseeing that side of things. I do that as well. And then I just love getting to like, I understand sales, marketing, scaling, and I love getting to be a thought partner with them who can kind of.

look at the whole picture like we talked about and say, does this make sense for you? Is this aligned? What’s the most supportive thing here? And how can we kind of maybe rein in the excitement of it so that we can do it strategically? ⁓ So I love that. I think it depends, of course, like on ⁓ goals and what we’re working toward. But a lot of times it’s like, we have probably a lower hanging fruit option.

Amanda (11:39)
haha

Steph Orosco (11:57)
where maybe something is working well and we just want to turn up the dial on that a bit to get more from that. Or ⁓ maybe it, like for my clients who scale beyond one to one, we generally are being very mindful of their time energy capacity because they don’t have as much. If you’re on one-to-one calls all the time, you don’t have a ton of time to go start the other things.

Amanda (12:19)
Yes.

Steph Orosco (12:23)
So we’re looking at what makes the biggest impact for you in terms of moving the needle and requires less capacity. Sometimes it’s like, okay, I want to go straight into, I don’t know, building out a course. That could be wonderful, but like, let’s just be aware of the trade-offs that we’re gonna need to record all the modules. We’re going to need more volume for a lower ticket course. We’re going to, you know, here’s what I’m gonna need from you when I’m setting up the tech and all the pieces I’m gonna need to put in when you’re selling that for our funnel.

So kind of just being aware, I think, of the trade-offs and being there to reflect to them, like, that’s great, we can totally make that happen. Here’s the trade-off that we’re accepting when we decide to make that happen. Are you okay with that? Like, does it feel good to accept that trade-off or does that take away from the ultimate goal of what we’re working toward? And then, you know, being realistic in that realm so we can actually make it happen and get where they’re wanting to be.

Amanda (13:19)
Yeah, yeah, exactly. like that. You know, ultimately what this strategic partnership is about is really just someone to help you slow down a little bit of I get very excited about all the ideas. My my OBM gets nervous when she gets a message from me that’s like, I have an idea. She’s like, OK, because right. Exactly. It’s like before we had really embraced this whole.

Steph Orosco (13:29)
Yeah.

Amanda (13:45)
Because she was my VA who I’ve worked with long term and she’s kind of graduated into the opium role with time So we’ve had to make some you know learning adjustments together of what is her role now versus what it used to be and now that we’re more in this flow of you know, You help me make decisions and you help me oversee things She’s getting a lot better with slowing me down instead of like cool. Yeah, when do want me to do that? Should I do it before this task or this task? ⁓ That alongside my business coach, right? So this is the

Steph Orosco (13:47)
Mmm.

Yes.

Amanda (14:13)
important component of having a team that is ultimately there to support you, but it may not always look the way you think it’s going to look. Like it’s not always about just like following you immediately, but helping you slow down and be intentional and be strategic.

Steph Orosco (14:30)
Yes, yes. And I think like with all of those roles, whether it’s a VA, a coach or an OBM, we’re all there to solve the same problem. You want to move the needle forward in your business. You want to grow and scale. Hopefully, know, sustainably is a part of that. And so we’re there to support you in doing that. And yeah, we almost need like some safeguards from ourselves sometimes, I think as CEOs where it’s like, hold up, let’s check in with what actually makes sense for you and what is going to like

not only feel the best, also be most aligned long term because that’s what’s going to create the best results long term.

Amanda (15:06)
Exactly. And that’s ultimately what we are looking for is it’s fun to get the short-term wins of, you know, I do this thing and clients are coming in and sales are coming in. Like that stuff is fun, but it’s not fun when I’ve shared this story on the podcast a few times of I went through my own coaching program around how to launch my coaching business and it was effective. It was a three month program. clearly like, I launched it. I got it all out there, but I built something that

As time went on, was like, ⁓ God, I don’t like this. Like I don’t want actually to have this version of a program. And so because I didn’t have that strategic partnership and guidance, it was just do it and launch it and get it out there as quickly as you can. Like, did it work? Sure. On paper, but it didn’t work, you know, emotionally for me, it wasn’t aligned and it wasn’t sustainable. And so I think that’s really important is not just get something out ASAP. It’s actually take your time with it.

Steph Orosco (15:37)
Mmm.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Amanda (16:04)
and get some feedback and really have that well-rounded support so that it is something you want to be with for as long as you want to be with it. I know people pivot and transition all the time, ⁓ even if they love the product, but we don’t want to launch something that we’re not big fans of because that can feel like a waste of time and energy too.

Steph Orosco (16:20)
Yes.

Yeah, it has to be like worth what you’re putting into it too. Like if we just put a bunch of time and energy at it without considering, does this make sense? Is this aligned? You know, and sometimes we don’t know until we test. So I think that’s also, you know, part of it. Like you now have that experience of this isn’t aligned. And so here’s what’s going to feel better. Sometimes that is the case. But if we know it’s kind of like, I’m just excited and I just want to run at something and it feels like whatever, I’ll do whatever it takes to get this going.

Amanda (16:34)
Right?

Haha

Steph Orosco (16:49)
Is

that worth what’s on the other side? Is that worth the revenue or the clients or the experience of supporting clients in that way that you’re wanting? ⁓ You said something before that I wanted to touch on, I thought was really smart. I don’t remember. We can come back to that. I do the same. I was like, I was trying to put a pin in it. I lost it.

Amanda (17:05)
That’s okay. I know I say a lot of things at once and then sometimes people are like, say that back. like, I don’t remember what I All

good, all good. But yeah, I think when it comes to scaling as well, right, like ultimately people are trying to solve this problem of capacity. And so

Steph Orosco (17:28)
Yes.

Amanda (17:28)
with all of the different options of, you you can scale with a course, with a group program, with a lot of therapists I work with are interested in retreats, because, you know, we like going on them, we like being spoiled, and we also like connecting with people in person. Like you said earlier, there’s pros and cons, there are trade-offs to whatever it is you choose to scale into. Are there patterns you’ve seen around

Steph Orosco (17:42)
Yeah.

Amanda (17:55)
Yeah, just those trade-offs and how people choose to make decisions based on like, I’m willing to do the low ticket course knowing I have to get a lot more volume than a high ticket thing and needing less volume. Like, how have you seen people think through their decisions of what to scale into and why?

Steph Orosco (18:10)
Hmm.

Hmm. I think it’s first just starting with like, when we’re scaling, like you were saying, like we can almost lose sight of what do I actually want? And we can be like, can I just scale this thing? Like, okay, we’re in momentum. Let’s do something. Like, let’s keep it going. And so it can be less about this feels so fun and so good. And like, I feel lit up thinking about this and it can be more about, I just want to scale.

Amanda (18:25)
Yeah.

Steph Orosco (18:38)
I’ve gone this far, what else can we do? What’s the next level? And if you’re a high achiever, you’re always moving the goalposts as well, right? So we just got there and now we’re like onto the next. So that can be a part of it as well. if we’re even just having that moment to step back and reflect and say like, what do I truly want? I know for me, that’s one of the most impactful questions my one-to-one business coach asks me like regularly, like I’ll bring something to her and she is there to be that sounding board and check in on.

Amanda (18:45)
Yes. ⁓

Steph Orosco (19:07)
What do you actually want? Like if you weren’t thinking about what you should do or what you could do, what do you actually want? So I think starting with that, and I do think it’s helpful when we can have team reflect to us what that’s going to mean and what that’s going to look like. Whether that’s the OBM or like we’re talking about like coaching and having a partner there to think through these decisions with you.

Amanda (19:11)
Mm.

Steph Orosco (19:33)
⁓ And then if you’re like, okay, I really do want this. Okay, is that true when I know that it comes with this other thing and checking in there? If I know this comes with, ⁓ I don’t know, for my OVM client, this might mean that I’m telling the client, in order to set this up, we’re probably gonna need two to three months. It’s going to cost this much for the platform we’re going to need to host this in. ⁓ I don’t know, just thinking through that might be the scenario there.

Amanda (19:40)
All

Steph Orosco (20:01)
Are you okay with that? And does that still feel like a big yes to you?

Amanda (20:06)
Yes. And I think that’s, know, in this conversation we’re having around like what is sustainable, like that is a key part. Like I have a six month mastermind for therapists who are interested in scaling. And a lot of them feel this pressure because there’s so many other programs out there for, you know, any kind of therapist, coach, like whatever realm of business that you’re in that are so results driven of like, get your money back in X amount of time or finish your thing in 30 days that.

I’ve seen a lot of therapists inside my mastermind struggle with like, it’s month one, I gotta figure out exactly what I’m doing and I’ve got to like, I’m not making any traction. I’m like, first of all, we have six whole months and like, this is the time to slow down and be really thoughtful about this because you don’t wanna start something just to do it, just to like make the progress in the mastermind and then three, four months down the road, be like, crap, I hated that idea. I don’t wanna do it anymore. How do I restart? And so.

Again, slowing down is so hard for all of us high achieving people. So yeah, the emphasis on just go slow, be intentional, just cannot be understated here.

Steph Orosco (21:08)
It is.

It cannot and like in that example, you’re talking about, okay, if we go really hard and we’re just trying to build something quickly, we’re also going to become the bottleneck. If we don’t have OBM support or if we don’t have the right structure in place on the backend, we are going to become the bottleneck, probably burn ourselves out as well. And then it’s going to feel like shit to run the business we’ve just now built or scale, whatever that was. And we don’t have the support we need. And I just, I also think like,

Amanda (21:27)
Yes.

Steph Orosco (21:47)
if we’re talking about sustainability, part of that is allowing ourselves to have the support and resources to make that happen. like, absolutely being in the mastermind and having coaching support and having someone there to reflect what you’re doing for them and, you know, guide them. And then also being like, what do I need in my business to make this happen? Because if I really do want to increase, whether it’s like the volume of clients I have, the number of offers I have, or, you know, whatever that is,

I can’t be doing it all just like managing it in my head and juggling 2,500 things at once.

Amanda (22:23)
Yes, I think it’s funny. I just met with my OBM this morning and she was like, it’s so funny the number of things you task me with of like, let’s circle back to this in two or three months and then we do it and you’re like, I assigned you that? No, that sounds like a horrible idea because yeah, right? That’s the difference between ideas are good. We literally have a running list of eventually we do actually want to get to this, but it’s not the priority right now. But sometimes like you can have an idea and actually you just don’t like your own idea because it comes from

For me, what I notice is sometimes it’s places of scarcity of like, gosh, I don’t know if that thing is actually gonna sell. Maybe I should come up with another offer of this or maybe I need another way to get more people into my funnel and onto my email list. But then I don’t actually like the idea or I don’t want all the time energy and teamwork that’s gonna go into it. So again, just to have that support of like, is it a good idea? Is it worth it? And so yeah, I love having a right hand on my team.

Steph Orosco (23:11)
Yes.

Yeah.

Yes.

Amanda (23:23)
It’s been funny when I’ve explained to people who have no idea what an OPM is, I say like, it’s my OPM. What does that stand for? It’s my online business manager. Wait, you have a manager? I thought you were your own boss. I’m like, right, but I need someone to manage me.

Steph Orosco (23:36)
Yeah, yes.

And help you manage the business. Most of us, I just happened to work in operations before I started my business. That’s why I started as a VA, because I was like, oh, this comes really naturally to me. I know how to do this. But most of us, we’re not going into business because we want to manage a business. We’re going into a business because we want to help people or we want to make an impact in this certain way.

And so having someone there who does have that like, you know, operational analysis kind of strategic side of things to support you in getting your zone of genius out into the world and making that bigger impact, I think can make such a difference as well.

Amanda (24:18)
And I know you’ve probably seen this just as much as I’ve had is there’s a lot of fear there these days of, you know, with the economy, with there being so much competition, especially on social media, when you are a coach or you have a course or a program or something like that. I think a really big fear is I want to scale. But, you know, is there even any demand for this or is there too much competition or am I too late or do people not even want to buy these things these days?

Steph Orosco (24:42)
Hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Amanda (24:48)
What

are you seeing in your own business and your clients’ businesses? Because I know what I’m seeing is people are definitely still investing. People are definitely still looking for support. So can you just say on your side? Because you target people a little bit differently than I do.

Steph Orosco (25:00)
Yes, 100%. I am seeing people investing. feel like, yes, there was kind of like trust recession and that was very real. ⁓ But lately, like my clients’ businesses have been booming. I have seen them raise rates and sign clients at those new rates or launch new offers and fill their programs. And so definitely I ⁓ echo what you said. It is, I think there’s been so much fear mongering.

but I don’t think the reality of what that’s looking like behind the scenes lines up with that.

Amanda (25:30)
Yes.

Exactly. I think what I encourage a lot of people to do, and I have to remind myself to do this, because we all spend so much time on social media, whether it’s for our business or whether it’s, you know, we’re just scrolling for personal scrolling sake, like we are all seeing content and I get served a lot of ads on, you know, what you’re missing in doing in your own ads or here’s this reason you’re getting poor fit leads and how to make it like anything that you see that tells you that there is a problem to be solved is probably because

there is someone trying to make money, right? There’s someone who’s trying to get your business, but that doesn’t necessarily mean you actually have a problem. Like something can be working great. Something can be performing really, really well, but you think you have a problem because you saw an ad about it because someone is trying to get their own business.

Steph Orosco (26:09)
Yes.

Yes.

Absolutely. Some of my clients are wonderful at what they do and they will see something and decide they need to go take a course on this certain skill set because so-and-so said, you need to do it like this or they don’t have this missing thing. And I’m like, no, no, no. Like that’s actually going to distract our focus. If you go take a course and build more client delivery skills when what we want to focus on is probably, you know, if I’m coaching them, it’s marketing skills, sales skills, really looking at like offered creation and things like that.

that’s going to distract from that. It’s going to feel really good and self-soothing for us because we feel like, ooh, I got this better, more developed skill, but it’s not actually serving us. I think the clients I’m talking about whose businesses are booming, who are having great results right now, they are much more focused on thinking like a CEO in general. So whether that’s in coaching and we’re looking at that CEO skill set and we’re looking at strategy and offers and all of that.

or that’s when they’re OVM and they’re thinking about how do I scale sustainably as a CEO? What structure do I need in place? What does this look like on the team side? What does this look like for my offer suite? That’s what they’re doing. They’re doing less of, I need to learn every tool there ever was, or I need to learn every possible skill set in my industry that I can to be great at what I do. I think that’s kind of like the difference.

Amanda (27:47)
Yeah, exactly. And I think there’s obviously a lot of what we’re talking about because we’re talking about role of OBM and why you need this support in your business to scale. So we’re talking a lot about the systems in place because systems are super important and strategies are super important. And you and I both work with the same business coach who also emphasizes a lot of the mindset component too. And I think that is where the slowdown process for me has been so helpful of slowing down with like

Steph Orosco (28:14)
Hmm.

Amanda (28:16)
Okay, I have another idea for a new offer and just to be gently or sometimes she’s very direct with me because I told her I need sometimes you to be very direct and just call me on my shit when you see it. And she’s like, is this a you trying to distract yourself from your success problem? Is this you’re worried, you know, all of a sudden all these offers you always sell out are going to stop selling out problem? Or is this actually strategic of, you know, will this actually help more people sign up for one of your programs?

Steph Orosco (28:26)
Guys.

Hahaha

Mm-hmm.

Amanda (28:45)
But yeah, even just to have mindset come into play into the conversation for me has been huge because strategies and systems like, yes, that will get you so far. But again, like, why are we launching some new offer, burning down some other offer to the ground? Like, why are we doing what we’re doing?

Steph Orosco (29:01)
Yes.

Yes, I love her so much. I also tell her the same thing, like, tell me how it is, call me on my shit. All good. Like, I want to hear it because we can be the barriers to our growth as CEOs in so many ways because of our mindset, right? Because we are like, we feel like we have to do it all alone and we have to handle everything by ourselves or we’re like perfectionist, people pleaser. Like there’s just so much that can come up that can…

Amanda (29:07)
Uh-huh.

Yes.

Steph Orosco (29:30)
affect how we look at everything. Like even how you’re looking at your strategy, how you’re thinking about being supported with your team, you know, like, or the offers you create, like you’re talking about, like, it just affects every facet of that. So for me, having her support, I’ve been working with her for, I think, five and a half years at this point. It’s just so like, it is the reason I am still in business and successful and able to show up like neutrally for my clients.

Amanda (29:59)
Yeah, 100%. I think a lot of us kind of coming back to like the, some of the like money scarcity mindset and concerns that we can have like, yeah, like money is always going to be a real problem for a lot of people. And I think I noticed I’ve been in areas earlier in my business where when I thought about, you know, a virtual assistant or even a business coach or even OPM, I’m like,

these are short term investments. Like I just need a little bit of something until I can do it all myself because then I can keep all of my profit, right? That’s less expenses. But then I’m like, no, I would have made so many more mistakes. I would have not been more strategic. would have I would have burnt out and I would not have been here where I am now. And so I think that there is also. Yeah.

Steph Orosco (30:29)
Yes!

Oh my gosh, like it cost so much money. Like you would, like I

would have wasted hundreds of thousands of dollars probably in like trial and error, you know, doing things that weren’t aligned, like not all the things you said, it just actually would have cost me so much more than what I have invested in five and a half years with a high level coach. So yeah, very much agree.

Amanda (30:49)
Yes.

Yeah.

Yeah,

exactly. Yeah. Which is, think the difference between, you know, obviously our shared value around like long-term partnership together, because the more someone gets to know you, the more you’re able to get to know your OBM clients, like the more they know you, the better they can support you. So I see this trend of people like hopping between coaches and hopping between programs. And they’re like, why am I not getting results? Well, because like you’re confused and you’re not getting, you know,

Steph Orosco (31:20)
Guess.

Amanda (31:31)
cohesive guidance and the focus keeps changing. working with team long term has absolutely been the biggest thing and the best expense. I am happy to pay my team and my coach at the end of the day.

Steph Orosco (31:42)
Yeah.

Yes, me too. And I think it really is so confusing, whether it’s a coach or a team member. Like I operate in a certain way as an OBM and I’m thinking of things in a certain way. And so if we start getting things going well and then you were to switch, not that you can’t, obviously everyone can, but it’s just, I think a little bit like.

destabilizing is maybe the way I would frame it where like, this person like kind of thinks of things differently. And the way I was thinking about it doesn’t match up now. Now we’re switching their process or they like this other system. And I think that can happen a lot with coaching too. I just don’t understand like the idea of having constant different opinions and trying to make a decision. Like that feels so overwhelming to me. And

Amanda (32:09)
Yeah.

Steph Orosco (32:36)
I know we’re all inundated with noise already from people we’re not even paying, but if you’re in multiple different programs or you’re hopping from program program, I think it just can be very hard to, like we were talking about before, prioritize, use your discernment to determine what makes the most sense for you, get clear on alignment and your specific strategy. I just think all of that can be a lot harder. ⁓ So I am very much on the same page as you. I value deep, long-term partnerships. I love getting to…

Amanda (32:40)
You

Steph Orosco (33:06)
be there to support my clients long term and getting to know them and how their brains work and kind of like what to look out for. Like you mentioned with your OPM, like, ⁓ tell me more. You have an idea? What does this mean? And understanding you and what you’re working toward, like the big vision of the business. I think it’s so helpful when you have people who see that big vision with you.

Amanda (33:13)
Yes.

Yeah.

Absolutely. Yeah. And so I’m excited because you created a special offer for my audience. Can you talk a little bit about what that is and why they definitely want to take advantage of it?

Steph Orosco (33:38)
Yes. knowing we were going to be talking about this, I created a special call. It is a strategic hiring audit. I know when you are, you’re growing, you’re, ready to scale or you’re in the middle of scaling and you’re kind of like, okay, we need some support here. You’re not always able to know like, what do I need though? Like, do I need a VA? I heard people talking about OVM. Is it like now AIs have teams that they can run? Like, what do I need? So I created a strategic hiring audit.

Amanda (34:03)
huh.

Steph Orosco (34:07)
for you to help you identify the next right hire for your business, what’s going to support you on the team side, what your team needs are, and then what makes the most sense for your business and the stage you’re at currently.

Amanda (34:20)
Yeah, I love that. And I think that’s super helpful. And a lot of the therapists I work with, even inside the mastermind, they joke of like, you know, I’m messaging with ChatGBT late at night and giving me lots of ideas and telling me my ideas are great. like AI is fantastic for hyping you up. And at the end of the day, you will always need a human to do this kind of audit with you, to give you this kind of feedback, to help you with your blind spots, which

Steph Orosco (34:31)
Ha ha ha!

Yes.

Amanda (34:47)
Yes, chat GBT or whatever AI you use is not going to do. So if you are listening and you want some real human feedback on what’s going on in your business and best and accepts for you, definitely reach out to Steph because I’m sure that that’s going to be super, super helpful.

Steph Orosco (34:51)
No.

Yes, I would love for you to take me up on it.

Amanda (35:04)
Well, anything else that any other like reminders, things to think about, words of encouragement that you have for people who listen to this episode today?

Steph Orosco (35:14)
I think we’ve covered everything. think the reminder is just like noticing, kind of our overall theme was noticing what you actually want, noticing what’s aligned for you, and then noticing what support do I need to get there. That’s going to be different at every stage for, depending on what your goals are, where you’re at in business. But I think in general, the clients and CEOs I support who are creating the most.

The most success, but the most sustainable success are thinking from that lens and prioritizing the alignment and the support that helps them create that and sustain that.

Amanda (35:54)
We’ll so appreciate having you on today. It was so fun talking and I know we’ve been messaging, but this is our first live conversation. So thanks for sharing your expertise. And again, thanks for making that offer for this audience. And we’ll link everything in the show notes if people want to check out that audit and ways to work with stuff. And otherwise, thanks so much for listening. Hope this was helpful today and we’ll talk to you next week.

Steph Orosco (36:02)
Yes!

Thank you for having me.