Alex asks: "I'm getting leads, but it only works if I'm constantly chasing people. If I take my foot off the gas for even a few days, everything slows down. I didn't start this business to live inside my inbox. How do you build a follow-up system that doesn't feel cold or robotic, but also doesn't require me to personally remember every conversation?"

In this episode, Scott reveals why Alex's real problem isn't follow-up automation—it's that he's still the salesperson and the business bottleneck. You'll learn the Braided River system for combining humans and automation (humans for active leads, automation for dead leads, humans again when they raise their hand), hear Scott's sports team consulting story about fixing low contact rates, and understand why the business will only grow to Alex's capabilities as long as he's stuck in the inbox.

The bottom line: Build the system. Get yourself out of it. The braided river works—but only if you're not the one personally doing all the rowing.

Got a business question? Ask Scott here: scotttodd.net/ask

Jessica asks: "I've been hovering around $10,000 a month for a very long time now, and it's starting to mess with my head. Every month I tell myself, this is the month it finally moves. And then I look at the numbers and it's basically the same again. I'm working all the time. If I step back even a little, things slow down. If I stay fully involved, we hit $10,000 again. Is this the upper limit of my business?"

In this episode, Scott reveals why revenue plateaus aren't ceilings—they're capacity constraints in your systems, how to use the "weakest link" framework to diagnose where you're stuck, and why adding more people or leads is the wrong answer. You'll hear Scott's own bottleneck discovery (26% more website traffic but zero lead growth), learn how to walk through your business step-by-step to find constraints, and understand why doing more with what you have beats adding more resources every time.

The bottom line: Your business isn't at its ceiling. Your systems are. Find the bottleneck, remove it, watch revenue flow to the next constraint, then repeat. That's plateau busting mode.

Got a business question? Ask Scott here: https://scotttodd.net/ask

David asks: "I started my business 11 months ago and it's still losing money. I'm sure it's just the startup stage—my sales haven't caught up to my expenses yet. I feel like I just need more sales, but I'm bleeding cash. I think I'm lean. You'll tell me to cut expenses, but I don't want to cut marketing, VAs, or technology. If I cut those, I've wasted my time."

In this episode, Scott reveals why "I just need more sales" is rarely the right answer when you're bleeding cash, how to distinguish between investments (marketing that returns multiples) and expenses (overhead that doesn't), and why protecting sunk costs will kill your business faster than cutting them. You'll hear Scott's own lean startup story about managing leads with index cards, learn how to think about VAs correctly (per-task, not per-month), and face the stark choice every bootstrap founder must make: lose your time investment or lose your business.

The bottom line: Cut expenses now. Protect the dream, not the automations. You can always rebuild systems—you can't rebuild a dead business.

Got a business question? Ask Scott here: scotttodd.net/ask