Small Business Growth: Goals, Systems and Sales with Cam Elliott

What if growing your business wasn't about working harder, but building better systems?
Why do so many business owners spend every waking hour working in their business, yet still struggle to create consistent, profitable growth?

In this episode of **Money Secrets**, Fi is joined by entrepreneur, sales strategist and founder of The Growth Engine, Cam Elliott, for a practical conversation about what really drives sustainable business growth.

Listen to Episode 78

What You’ll Learn in This Episode

Why working harder won't automatically grow your business. Discover why many business owners spend almost no time on activities that actually generate future revenue.
The biggest mindset trap keeping businesses stuck. Learn why believing "if I build a great product, customers will come" often prevents businesses from reaching their full potential.
Cam's four-part Growth Engine framework. Understand how goals, processes, people and technology work together to create predictable revenue growth.
Why every business needs a written revenue goal. Discover how defining a clear destination makes every business decision faster and more strategic.
How to build systems that free up your time. Learn why documenting your sales and business processes is the first step to improving them.
The difference between using technology and relying on technology. Understand why AI, CRMs and automation only work when they're built on strong processes and capable people.
Why one exceptional business development strategy beats ten average ones. Explore why mastering a single growth channel often outperforms trying to be everywhere at once.
The surprising power of repeat customers. Learn why generating more value from existing clients is often easier (and more profitable) than constantly chasing new ones.
How to stop leaving money on the table. Discover practical ways to improve your sales process, from discovery calls and proposals to follow-up systems that increase conversions.
Why systems don't have to be complicated. Hear how simple dashboards, measurable processes and regular reviews help businesses make smarter decisions with confidence.
The "61% Rule" for business focus. Why dedicating the majority of your attention to one core product creates stronger long-term growth while still leaving room for creativity.
The first step to building a more profitable business. Walk away with a simple challenge that will help you identify exactly where your time is (and isn't) creating future growth.

Stop leaving money on the table with Cam Elliott (EP#78)

Introduction

We've made a lot of progress as a society in many areas, but one thing that hasn’t changed enough is our relationship with money. If we want to tip the scales in favour of marginalised people, we need to understand the secrets to making money in small business.

The more we talk about money — especially the secrets that usually stay behind closed doors or on the golf course — the more empowered we become. My mission is to get more money into the hands of good people, specifically business owners like you.

Because I believe small business can change the world. And to do that, we need to be making more money.

Acknowledgement of Country

This episode was recorded on the lands of the Wurundjeri People of the Kulin Nation. I’d like to acknowledge them as the Traditional Owners and custodians of this land and water that I live, work and play on.

I pay my respects to Elders past and present, and recognise that sovereignty has never been ceded. This always was, and always will be, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander land.

How to Build a Business That Makes More Money Without Just Working Harder

If you want your business to make more money, the answer probably isn’t squeezing another five hours into your week.

In this episode of Money Secrets, Fi sits down with Cam Elliott, founder of The Growth Engine and a lifelong entrepreneur whose business adventures started at six years old — attempting to sell pencil shavings in the schoolyard.

Since then, Cam has built businesses across content marketing, craft beer, corporate training and business growth. And through all of those experiences, he’s learned something important: growth doesn’t happen simply because you work hard or deliver a brilliant service.

It happens when you intentionally build the systems that create it.

Fi and Cam unpack why focus matters, the mindset shifts that can unlock more revenue, why existing customers might be one of your biggest growth opportunities, and how to create a sales system that doesn’t rely on you remembering absolutely everything.

Your Business Needs Focus

One of the biggest themes in Fi and Cam’s conversation is deceptively simple: focus matters.

Small business owners are creative people. We see opportunities everywhere. A new service. Another target market. A second business. A different revenue stream.

But every new thing requires resources — your time, energy, money, marketing and attention.

Cam sees this regularly in the businesses he works with. Even when someone technically owns one business, they may effectively be running several different businesses inside it because different products or audiences each require their own marketing and sales approach.

Fi puts it simply: boring is rich.

The more focused you can become on a core product and ideal client, the easier it becomes to direct your resources towards doing that thing incredibly well.

That doesn’t mean you can never experiment.

In fact, Fi and Cam jokingly created their own “61% rule” during the conversation: what if at least 61% of your attention stays firmly on your core business, leaving the remaining 39% for creativity, experimentation and other opportunities?

The exact percentage might not matter. The principle does.

Something needs to be the priority.

Working Hard Isn’t the Same as Growing Your Business

Cam asks business owners a confronting question:

How many hours did you spend last week doing something specifically designed to grow your business?

For many small business owners, the answer is surprisingly close to zero.

Not because they’re lazy.

Quite the opposite.

They’re incredibly busy delivering work, answering emails, helping customers, managing their team, fixing problems and doing everything required to keep the business operating.

But maintaining a business and growing a business are different activities.

Cam identifies mindset as one of the biggest barriers he sees to revenue growth. Fi connects this with the belief many business owners carry that making more money automatically requires working harder.

The alternative isn’t necessarily adding more hours.

It’s asking whether some of your existing hours need to be spent differently.

Being Brilliant at What You Do Isn’t Enough

There’s another belief Fi and Cam see regularly:

If I do really good work, people will find me.

Delivering something genuinely valuable matters enormously. But a brilliant product nobody knows about is still a brilliant product nobody knows about.

Successful businesses actively create demand.

That might mean becoming excellent at SEO. It might mean strategic partnerships, networking, speaking, referrals, paid marketing or getting in the car and having coffee with the right person.

You don’t need to do everything.

In fact, Cam argues that trying to be average at ten different business development strategies can be much less effective than becoming genuinely excellent at one.

And importantly, your best strategy might have absolutely nothing to do with Instagram.

Sometimes one conversation with the right existing client is worth far more than attending another networking event full of people who aren’t your customers.

Your Existing Customers Might Be Your Biggest Opportunity

Small business marketing conversations tend to obsess over one thing:

More leads.

More followers. More enquiries. More people entering the funnel.

But Cam points out that it is often much easier to generate revenue from people who already know and trust you than from complete strangers.

They already understand what you do. You’ve already built the relationship. And hopefully, you’ve already demonstrated the value you can create for them.

That means one of the most valuable questions you can ask isn’t:

How do I find more customers?

It might be:

How can I create more value for the customers I already have?

And if you suddenly have space in your calendar, Fi suggests starting with the people you’ve worked with before.

Reach out.

Have the coffee.

Ask what’s happening in their business.

There may already be an opportunity sitting inside a relationship you spent years building.

Good Money Club

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Start With the Goal

Before you download another CRM, build another automation or ask AI to solve your sales problems, Cam recommends starting somewhere much simpler.

What are you actually trying to achieve?

“I want more revenue” isn’t particularly useful.

More than what?

Instead, define what you want the business to create.

Perhaps it’s a particular revenue or profit number. Maybe you want to sell the business in five years. Maybe you want a business that generates enough profit while allowing you to work significantly fewer hours.

Once you know the destination, you can work backwards.

Cam’s framework starts with the goal, then moves through process, people and finally technology. Technology and AI can make a good system better, but they can’t replace a system that doesn’t exist.

Write Down How Your Business Actually Makes Money

A surprising number of businesses have important processes living entirely inside someone’s head.

That makes improvement incredibly difficult.

If you want to build a better sales system, start by documenting what currently happens.

Where did your existing customers come from?

What happens when someone enquires?

When do you contact them?

What happens before a discovery call?

What happens during it?

What happens afterwards?

And crucially: what happens when they don’t immediately say yes?

Once the process exists somewhere outside your brain, you can start looking for gaps.

You can identify where leads disappear, where follow-ups are being forgotten and where opportunities are being lost.

Then you can make small changes and measure whether they actually work.

The Money Might Be in the Follow-Up

This is particularly important in service businesses.

Fi sees three areas that deserve much more attention:

Before the discovery call. During the discovery call. After the discovery call.

Before the call, could an automated email sequence give a potential client useful information so that your actual conversation can be more valuable?

During the call, are you asking the right questions?

And afterwards?

You might need to climb Cringe Mountain.

Following up on a proposal can feel awkward. But Fi has noticed businesses requiring more follow-ups in 2026 than they did a couple of years ago.

That’s exactly why follow-up should become part of the system rather than something you have to remember — and emotionally convince yourself — to do every time.

A properly configured CRM can help you see your pipeline, next steps and missed opportunities. But again, the CRM itself isn’t the strategy.

As Cam explains, putting technology over a broken or nonexistent process doesn’t magically make that process work.

Measure What Matters

Setting the goal is only half the equation.

You also need to look at it again.

Fi encourages small business owners to monitor revenue, expenses and profit against their goals regularly rather than setting an annual target in January and rediscovering it twelve months later.

Because once you know where you’re trying to go — and can see where you currently are — business decisions become much easier.

Does this opportunity move you towards the goal?

Does this expense support the strategy?

Is this marketing activity actually generating anything?

Is this networking group worth your time?

A plan doesn’t have to be an enormous spreadsheet.

It can be simple.

It just needs to give you direction.

Want to Feel Better About Money in Your Business?

If you’re a female small business owner who wants to make more money, understand your numbers and feel calmer about your finances, Good Money Club is where we have these conversations every single week.

You’ll learn practical financial literacy, money-making strategies and new ways of thinking about money — without the shame, jargon or weirdness that so often surrounds business finances.

Because understanding your money isn’t just about becoming better at spreadsheets.

It’s about giving yourself the information and confidence to make better decisions.

Check out Good Money Club to learn more and join us.

Final Thoughts

The biggest takeaway from Fi and Cam’s conversation isn’t that your business needs another sales tool.

It’s that revenue growth needs your attention.

Start by looking honestly at where your time went last week. How much of it was spent delivering the business, and how much was spent intentionally growing it?

Then decide what you actually want.

Write the goal down.

Work backwards.

Document the process you already have. Find the gaps. Look after the customers who already trust you. Follow up. Measure what’s working. Put the right people in the right places.

Then ask what technology and AI can make easier.

You probably don’t need to work harder.

You might just need to get much more intentional about the work that actually grows the business.

Outro

Thank you for listening to Money Secrets. If you loved this episode, please subscribe, share it with a friend, or leave a review. Your support helps us get these conversations into the hands of more good people who deserve to thrive in business.

We’ve come so far as a society in many ways, but money is one of the areas where progress hasn’t been enough. If we want to tip the scales in favour of marginalised people, it starts with understanding the secret: money in small business.

In this podcast, Money Secrets, host Fiona (Fi) Johnston—Chartered Accountant, small business advocate, and impact enthusiast—dives into the conversations we need to have about money. The secrets that once stayed behind closed doors (or on the golf course) are finally out in the open.

Fi’s mission? To get more money into the hands of good people, like you. She believes small businesses have the power to change the world, and the key to making a bigger impact is to make—and manage—more money.

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Thank you to everyone involved for bringing this podcast together. We are excited to hear from you with any questions, feedback or suggestions for future episodes that you might have. Send a Direct Message to @peach.business

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