Freedom, security, creativity, and legacy… these are the main drivers for many entrepreneurs.

But even with these great motivations, most will never reach $1 million per year in revenue. Sometimes, the tunnel vision that got an entrepreneur to six figures has him so focused on “hustling,” that he doesn’t have a clear view of what he’s doing. If he were a painter, it would be like he is trying to paint a masterpiece with his nose against the canvas.

He’s too close to the work to look at things from a distance. Because of this, he don’t realize what he’s doing isn’t scalable.

$1 million in revenue isn’t $1 million in profit.

Seven figures is a huge milestone, but hitting that revenue number isn’t always the holy grail some make it out to be.

Those building service-based businesses normally see profit margins of around 25% before taxes. So even after reaching $1 million per year in revenue, these businesses are left with about $150,000 after taxes.

That’s the financial reward for building a million-dollar service business. At least that’s what you’ll have to show for it – after all the hustling, hard work, headaches, and struggles.

Let’s say that entrepreneur beats the odds, and he actually becomes a millionaire through his business. Did you know it normally takes someone becoming a millionaire three times before he can maintain it? That means crashing and burning, miserably – at least twice – before he’s able to keep the rewards of his work.

This will make some want to give up. Others might just grow more motivated.

There’s another reality check we also need to cover… it’s about how “well” entrepreneurship pays for those who aren’t able to scale.

Most entrepreneurs are actually broke.

After meeting thousands of entrepreneurs over the years, I’ve learned most are making far less than seven figures. In fact, they are making so little, they’re broke. It’s not that these entrepreneurs aren’t smart. It’s that they don’t know how to scale their businesses.

They think hustling is their answer but that couldn’t be further from the truth. In fact, after all their costs are factored in, they’re normally making less money than a manager at McDonald’s.

This really sucks… because they deserve more.

That’s why LeadCraft was built: to fix this problem; to help entrepreneurs get unstuck. If you’re an entrepreneur, here are four painful reasons you might be blocked from reaching your full potential.

Reason #1. You swim in shark-infested waters.

You are a carbon copy of the next person in your space. You have the same offer, the same marketing, the same everything. You lack differentiation… so no one will recognize your genius.

We all have unfair advantages… but because you’re obsessing over keeping the lights on, you never get to show what really makes you stand apart. (Hint… it comes down to your content.)

You choose to keep swimming in shark-infested waters… bloody red oceans where people aggressively price shop (since everyone looks the same).

Further, since you have no process for nurturing prospects and turning strangers into customers, you have no control over how people are indoctrinated into your methods. People form the story about your company in their head without you even having a say.

ZERO. COMPETITIVE. ADVANTAGE.

Reason #2. You rely on “hustle” to get leads and customers.

Messaging people on Facebook, hosting a launch, creating a new product, outreach by phone or LinkedIn, blasting your email list to “book a call…”

Every single way you generate leads is based on your “hustle.”

The more you hustle, the more money you make—at least, up until a point. This is the default for those growing from $0 to $100K.

It’s fine. (And in some cases necessary early on.)

However, to have a great life and a great business, you must be able to automatically generate sales (or at the very least, people who want to buy).

Without this ability, you’re done. You’ll completely max out.

Even if you have a sales team, without fresh leads coming through the door you can kiss your profit margins goodbye.

And if you think that running launch after launch will save you… you’re asking for a mountain of infinite stress. (Goodbye, life!)

Reason #3. You’re a “tiny fish” in a HUGE ocean.

If you’re like most entrepreneurs, you want to make a huge impact. With that vision of impact, you likely started out trying to serve the entire market. But, when you do that, you’re trying to compete in a HUGE ocean… as a tiny fish.

It’s absolutely necessary that you get specific on who you’re going to serve. When you do so, you’ll start attracting those who have the same beliefs, values, and mindset as you and your brand.

You need to double down on creating your own TINY pond, so that you can be its only BIG fish.

I created a multi-million dollar company with less than 12,000 email subscribers. If I could go back in time I would be able to do it with just 2,000 email subscribers.

In fact, a client of mine has an email list of 1,400 and they’ll do $1.7 to $2 million this year. It’s not always the size of the list, it’s who’s on it and whether you have a relevant solution for them.

Even today, my “tiny pond” is about 75,000 entrepreneurs. Though it’s not an audience of millions, for them, I’m everywhere.

Be influential and an authority to a SMALL group of people, in a tiny pond, then establish rapport and you’ll be able to grow massively.

Reason #4. You neglect your zone of genius. (It’s all about the #HustleMode)

Contrary to what the world wants you to believe… life is TRULY NOT about hustle. I wrote an article on Entrepreneur about “Hustle-Mode” and how it’s literally trapping thousands of entrepreneurs on the “Six-Figure Hamster Wheel.”

Here’s the thing… the only way to grow a business is by working from your zone of genius while you are highly leveraged. In order to do that, you must fix reasons 1 through 3 which we covered above.

When you do this, it’s the exact moment that things “click,” and you go from “hustle-mode” to true leverage.

In order to manage my company, it takes 22 hours a week. The rest of the time, I get to do what I want. For me, that’s my content time, creation time, connection time, and thinking time.

Yet, it wasn’t that long ago that I would work 70 hours a week, trying to do everything. Once I fixed where I was falling short, focused on my zone of genius – and hired for anything outside of it – everything else fell into place.

Sure there’s more to it… and it’s not that simple. But if we’re honest, most people like to make things far more complex than they are. Depending on where you’re at in your journey, you might just need to sit back and say…

“Let’s take my head out of the ground.

Let’s accept where I am.

Let’s make a plan and let’s execute.”