Squeezing Maximum Juice with Minimal Effort

I am fascinated by the concept of leverage and scalability.

Thinking about how you can squeeze as much juice as possible with minimal effort?

From a business perspective, the traditional model to scale and leverage a business has been to set up systems. Then to get people to operate the systems.

If the systems are sufficiently robust, then you should be able to get pretty much anyone to operate them.

Think McDonald's as the archetypal systematized, scalable business.

However, this McDonald's model becomes more difficult with 'expertise' businesses (e.g. law, accountancy, architecture, health professionals etc) or 'star-player' businesses (e.g. top chefs, author/consultants etc) because, as good as the systems may be, the operation requires at least some advance knowledge or qualifications, or in the latter case, the involvement or appearance of the star-player themselves.

Advances in technology will no doubt help in these areas, for example, augmented reality could allow for star-players to be "there", but this is in the future. We're not there yet.

The preferred scalable business model that I can see for expertise and star-player businesses today is a hybrid of:

1. Systematised product/service offering with premium pricing (delivered by a small group of team members)
2. Leveraged group sessions (delivered by the "experts" and "star-players"

Option 1 is standard fodder and has been the default modus operandi for expertise businesses for decades. I would, however, emphasise the premium pricing aspect and consequent small team - there is no point in building out a huge team and then taking on sub-standard or poor margin work to "keep the (extended) team busy".

Option 2 is a new and emerging model made possible by today's web conferencing technology. Here the expert or star-player can be "rolled out" to deliver training sessions or high-level coaching to groups of individuals. Note "groups" - not one-on-one. This is where the leverage comes in. In the example of say star "chefs", the preferred model might be cooking sessions (in person) for an audience of paying fans. Again, leverage in the one session delivered to multiple viewers.

I would be interested to learn how you are scaling up or leveraging your expertise or star-player business?