247: The One Stage That’s Slowing Down Your Entire Business
Feeling like your business is almost there, but something's just... off?
In this pivotal episode of the Creator’s Growth Flywheel series, I walk you through the exact reason your business might feel stuck—even when you're doing all the right things. You're showing up, creating content, building funnels, and nurturing your audience. So why isn’t it all clicking?
The answer lies in your growth flywheel. When one stage is weak or disconnected, the whole system slows down. I’ll help you identify which stage is creating the bottleneck, explain why this clarity is game-changing, and show you how to focus your efforts where they’ll truly move the needle.
What You’ll Learn:
Why doing “all the right things” might not be enough
The 5 stages of the growth flywheel and how they interconnect
The common mistake of fixing the wrong part of your business
How to identify the true bottleneck that’s slowing everything down
Why focusing on just 1–2 changes each quarter leads to faster results
The power of a simple diagnostic tool to pinpoint your exact next step
How clarity in your growth strategy can immediately reduce stress
This episode is where it all clicks into place. Don’t miss your chance to finally get clarity on what’s holding your business back. Take the 5-minute Sloan diagnostic at destinycopp.com/sloan, then hit reply and tell me your result. I’ll personally send you tailored insights from our Creator’s MBA Playbook to help you take the next step. Let’s get your business unstuck, starting today.
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TRANSCRIPT:
[00:00:00] Welcome to the Creator's MBA podcast, your go-to resource for mastering the art and science of digital product entrepreneurship. My name is Dr. Destini Copp, and I help business owners generate consistent revenue from their digital product business without the need to be glued to their desk, constantly live launching, or worrying about the social media algorithms.
I hope you enjoy our episode today.
Hi there, Dr. Destini Copp here, and welcome back to the Creator's MBA podcast. Today we are continuing the Creator's Growth Flywheel series with one of the most important episodes so far. As we wrap up the series this week, I'm going to help you diagnose which stage of your flywheel is slowing everything down, why it matters, and how fixing it changes everything you’ve been experiencing in your business.
This is the episode where the entire system finally clicks into place. Just so you know, this is the second-to-last episode in the series. Tomorrow, I'm going behind the scenes into my HobbyScool brand so you can see how I audit my own growth flywheel and decide what needs to change as we head into 2026.
But first, you need this episode because it gives you the lens to diagnose your own system. Let’s talk about why your business feels close, but not quite there yet. Most business owners I work with are not confused, inexperienced, or unskilled. They are absolutely not lacking effort or commitment. In fact, most of them are doing all of the right things. They're showing up, creating content, nurturing their audience, making offers, tweaking funnels, listening to feedback, and implementing constantly.
The real issue is not the work they're doing. The issue is that their business has pieces. Good pieces. Strong pieces. Pieces they’ve worked very hard to build—but those pieces are not working together. And when the pieces are disconnected, everything starts to feel harder than it should. Funnels stop converting. Sales become unpredictable. People are engaged, but they’re not buying. Traffic may spike, but it doesn’t lead to revenue.
This isn’t because something is broken in you or your audience. It’s because your system is incomplete. This is exactly what the Creator’s Growth Flywheel reveals. Let’s do a quick recap of what we’ve talked about this week.
[00:04:00] The first stage is Attract. That’s where people first discover you. Then comes the Engage stage—where they take action and become subscribers or even starter customers. Next is Nurture. That’s where trust deepens and your voice becomes familiar. Then you move into the Retain stage. That’s where people understand the transformation you lead and decide to go deeper with you. Finally, we have the Advocacy stage—where your audience begins to champion your work and spread it for you.
These stages aren’t random. They’re interconnected and rely on each other. Even if one stage is weak, the entire flywheel slows down. This explains why you might be doing almost everything right and still not seeing the growth you want. The effort isn’t missing. What’s missing is the connection between the stages.
And here’s the big problem. When business owners feel stuck, they often focus on fixing the wrong things. They might tweak a funnel that’s not the bottleneck. They may write more content when content isn’t the issue. They might rebuild an offer that was already solid. Then they try four new tactics because they’re convinced they’re not doing enough. Or they think they have a sales problem when really they have a retention problem.
[00:07:00] When you fix the wrong stage, your business doesn’t improve. The frustration grows. It feels like nothing is working. It feels unpredictable. It feels like there’s no clarity on what to do next. But the truth is, the problem isn’t everywhere. It’s in a few select areas. And when you identify the stage causing the bottleneck, everything starts to change.
Everyone I’ve worked with who felt stuck had one thing in common: they thought the issue was spread across their whole business. But when we dug in, the bottleneck came down to one stage. Just one. That stage was slowing everything else down because it was carrying too much.
When people recognize opportunities in their business, they often try to fix all ten at once. That’s just too much. I generally recommend that each quarter, you focus on just one to two things. It doesn’t mean you can’t get to the others later. You absolutely can. But by focusing on one to two things in your Growth Flywheel and really honing in, you’ll start to see fast results.
When you focus on 1% improvement every day, conversions increase, retention improves, referrals go up, and the stress goes way down. Things start working with less effort—not because you’re working harder, but because you’re working smarter. You’re focused on what actually moves the needle.
[00:09:00] So let’s talk about diagnosing your business. You have two options: you can guess and try to fix ten different things and hope one of them works. Or you can run a simple diagnostic and let the system show you what’s slowing you down.
You can take a free five-minute diagnostic with Sloan at destinycopp.com/sloan. Sloan will walk you through each stage of the Growth Flywheel and help you pinpoint exactly where people are getting stuck. You’ll discover your biggest opportunity. That one stage, if addressed, can unlock your next level of growth.
Sloan is fast, simple, and removes all the guesswork. People who’ve shared their results with me say it made everything clear—no wonder it felt so hard before. That clarity alone can change things for you.
Once you take the diagnostic and see your stage, I want you to reply and tell me your result. Just one word: Attract, Engage, Nurture, Retain, or Advocacy. I’ll reply with thoughts and send you a private excerpt from our Creator’s MBA Playbook that matches your stage. That one small shift can give you a big lift.
That’s your starting point. Take the diagnostic. Let me know what Sloan said. And let’s get your flywheel turning again.
Thanks for listening all the way to the end. I hope you enjoyed this episode. If you love the show, I’d appreciate a review on Apple Podcasts or your favorite podcast platform. Have a great rest of your day and bye for now.