“Scaling” your business has been a buzzword for the last few years, as if it's the only thing any sensible business owner should do.

It's the right answer for some. But personally I don't want to remove myself from my business and have others do the work I actually find interesting and enjoyable while I sit on top managing and organising (ie doing the kind of work I don't enjoy).

We're constantly being pushed to do “scalable” marketing too. Told that networking or interacting directly with potential clients isn't viable if you want to grow your business. You need to automate and have others do stuff for you.

The problem is that “scaleable” marketing doesn't work so great at the small scale end of things.

Take Facebook or Google Ads for example.

There's a big fixed investment of time or money in learning how to do them well (and these days they're a lot more complex than they used to be). A bigger business can spread that investment over their greater volume.

And then if you want to be able to get a winning ad in a competitive market you need to test lots of different variations, refine and optimise. A bigger business with a bigger budget has a huge advantage – they can test many more variations and find a winning ad much faster.

But look at the “unscalable” marketing that gets disparaged so often.

A big business can't have their CEO reply to all their customer emails personally. You can.

A big business can't have their CEO appear on podcasts or webinars to promote their business. You can.

A big business can't have their CEO talk to potential clients directly on Zoom. You can.

With unscalable marketing you can do things bigger competitors can't or won't. And the difference between getting an email from you vs a customer service person, or speaking directly to you vs a professional salesperson is huge.

If your goal isn't to grow a huge business, it's usually a good idea to embrace unscalable marketing and use it to your advantage.