Caught in the Messy Middle? Here's the Easy Way Out! with Amy Traugh
- Amy Traugh
- 1 day ago
- 11 min read
🎧 The Metrics Maven: Data Driven Business Growth Strategy for Solopreneurs is streaming on all platforms. Listen here. Also streaming on YouTube.
How to Get Out of the Growth Gap and Finally See Consistent Business Growth
The messy middle of business is real—and normal. Here’s how to stop spinning in circles and start scaling with strategy, simplicity, and data.
What Is the Growth Gap (And Why It Feels So Frustrating)
There’s a phase in business no one seems to talk about, even though nearly every solopreneur goes through it. It’s not the exciting startup stage or the scaling phase with a growing team—it’s that uncomfortable, often confusing stretch in between. I call it the growth gap.
This is the space between where you are now and where you want to be. You’ve had some success. Clients are coming in. You’ve even hit a $5K or $10K month here or there. But nothing feels consistent. Growth has slowed (or stalled), and the harder you work, the more it feels like you’re pushing a boulder uphill.
Sound familiar? You’re not alone—and you’re definitely not broken.
Why No One Talks About the Messy Middle
There are two main reasons this phase feels isolating:
It’s not glamorous.Social media is filled with highlight reels—$25K months, sold-out launches, quitting a 9-5 job. But you’re not seeing the behind-the-scenes moments where revenue flatlined or confidence disappeared. This messy middle often feels like failure, even when it’s just part of the process.
Most solopreneurs don’t realize they’re in it.When you start your business, you have step-by-step guides. When you scale, there are systems and frameworks. But in between? It’s messy. Undefined. And easy to mistake as a personal shortcoming when really, it’s just a natural part of growth.
The result? You start overworking. Buying more courses. Trying every new strategy. All while wondering what you’re missing.
What Got You Here Won’t Get You There
In the early stages, trial and error got you traction. You said yes to everything. You tested freebies, launched offers, sent DMs, and maybe discounted your pricing. Some of it worked. But now you’ve outgrown those strategies.
The next level of your business requires something different: focus, simplicity, and strategy.
Step 1: Clarity First—Then Consistency
The first step out of the growth gap is clarity.
You need a clear vision for your goals and a strategy to align your actions with them. Without this, it’s easy to fill your time with tasks that feel productive—like tweaking your website or refreshing your freebie—but don’t actually lead to sales.
Ask yourself:
Is my calendar filled with revenue-generating activities?
Am I building relationships and increasing visibility?
Or am I just staying busy?
When your actions align with your income goals, your time becomes a growth asset—not a drain.
Step 2: Stop Guessing. Start Tracking.
Here’s where the real shift happens: data.
Data is the bridge between where you are and where you want to be. But too many solopreneurs avoid it because it feels overwhelming—or worse, intimidating. You sit down to look at your numbers, and suddenly you’re questioning everything.
But the truth is: your metrics aren’t here to judge you. They’re here to guide you.
When you track and understand your numbers—like lead sources, conversion rates, and drop-off points—you move from guessing to growing. You stop wasting time fixing things that aren’t broken and start making decisions that actually move the needle.
In fact, according to Harvard Business Review, businesses that leverage data grow 30% faster. That’s not just theory—it’s proof that clarity leads to growth.
You’re Not Failing. You’re In a Phase.
The growth gap is normal. The messy middle is expected. You’re not falling behind—you’re at the exact point where growth wants to happen, but it requires a smarter, simpler approach.
This is what I help solopreneurs do every day inside Metrics Mastery—cut through the noise, reduce the overwhelm, and grow with clarity, confidence, and ease.
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Transcript for Episode 415. Caught in the Messy Middle? Here's the Easy Way Out!
@0:04 - Amy Traugh (Amy Traugh)
There's a phase in business that so many soloprenomers find themselves stuck in, but yet no one's talking about it.
You might know this as the messy middle, but I like to call it the growth gap. The growth gap is that awkward, uncomfortable space between where you are right now and where you know that you want to be.
For some reason, you cannot bridge the two. You've been in business a while. You've had some success. You're getting clients.
Maybe you've hit a 5K, 10K a month here or there. Things are working, but not consistently. It almost feels like you're pushing a boulder uphill because you're working so hard.
You're not actually getting anywhere. And this is where burnout tends to brew. And it's also where a lot of solopreneurs start to really doubt themselves and their businesses.
And the most frustrating part of all is it's not because they're not capable. It's because they're stuck using outdated strategies that just aren't converting anymore.
Their focus is foggy, and they're stuck in analysis paralysis. There is so much fluff out there in the online space about what it really, truly takes to grow a successful business.
And most of the solopreneurs I'm talking to are already doing so much. They're posting, selling, creating on top of the amazing product or service that they're providing.
And then at the end of the day, they end up feeling like they're more of an influencer. And they're left wondering, what am I missing?
I am putting in so much work, yet my income is still inconsistent. And despite the overnight success stories we're hearing, all of these amazing financial wins, all of these unrealistic income claims without context that we're seeing people posting online, this is the reality for so many entrepreneurs, that they're in this phase of business.
And this is a phase that I'm willing to bet all of us, every single person out there, is going to go through.
Most solopreneurs will eventually hit a point where no matter how much effort they pour in, their growth either stalls or significantly slows down.
This is so frustrating, so confusing, and it's so much more common than you think. It's the most misunderstood phase of entrepreneurship.
Well, why? Because it's not glamorous. It's not celebrated. We're not hearing about this on social media. But after the excitement of launching a business wears off and before sustainable business growth kicks in, we end up in this growth gap.
The phase where we are right now, we get stuck. It shows up when the strategies that got you here, the hard work, the trial and error, the yes to everything mindset, it's not enough to achieve the sustainable business growth.
So if you're finding yourself right here, stuck in the messy middle. Frustrated and just not seeing consistent growth, this episode is for you.
So if so many of us go through this phase, at some phase in our business, why isn't anyone talking about it?
And it comes down to two main reasons. I just mentioned one. You know, it's not glamorous. No one's talking about it.
It's not social media . You know, people love to share their wins. I had a 10K month. I had a $25,000 month.
I booked out my launch. I quit my job. But no one's really sharing the part where their revenue is flat.
They had a silent launch. They're questioning everything behind the scenes. Their confidence is zero. And they're working nonstop, but can't figure it out.
And it's not like entrepreneurs are trying to hide this. I know. Thank you. It's that this face is vulnerable, and it so often feels like failure, even when it's not.
And when you're in this period of business growth, it is so easy to assume that you're doing something wrong.
So when you hit a slow spot, shame creeps in. You think, I should have this figured out by now.
And because it feels so personal, you stay quiet, and you just keep pushing. Doubling down on work and hoping that the next strategy will be the fix.
And what ends up happening is we're working nonstop. We're buying all the courses. We're investing in all the places, trying all the new strategies, and not realizing that being in this phase is completely normal.
But it's only temporary when we handle it intentionally. Because the reality is there is nothing wrong with you. You are not broken.
You were just in the messy middle. A completely normal phase of business that just requires different tools, better focus, and a smarter approach than what you did in the beginning.
And the second reason we're not talking about this is because a lot of solopreneurs don't even realize that they're in the growth gap right now.
You know, early stages of business come with endless step-by-step checklists. The advanced stages of business have frameworks for scaling and team building.
But this in-between phase, it's messy. It's fuzzy. It's undefined. It's quiet, which makes it easy to feel like you're the only one stuck there.
And even easier to start telling ourselves stories and making assumptions that something must be wrong with you or your business model.
There's really no playbook for the messy middle. And to make matters worse, the business world tends to reward hard work over refinement.
We're told to just keep pushing, do more, stay visible, keep taking action. But the growth gap isn't solved by adding more to your already full to-do list.
It's solved by doing the right things consistently and intentionally. Guided by clear data, smarter strategies, and simple systems. But no one's talking about that.
And most solopreneurs don't realize that this piece of business, yeah, it's normal. It's to be expected. You've hit a rough patch.
And this is the point where growth wants to happen. If you shift how you're operating. So This being said, well, then what's the way out?
How do we navigate through this phase of entrepreneurship that, let's be honest, it sucks. When you first started your business, everything was trial and error.
You did what everybody else was doing. Freebies, launches, DMs, discounts, and some of it worked. But now you've outgrown the basics.
Those tactics aren't cutting it anymore. And you're unsure how to get there without burnout. But it's actually easier than you think because it's not about working more.
We just need more intentionality. Step one is to get really super clear on our goals and align your actions.
Now, this is something I really dove into in part one of my book, The CEO Method and Entrepreneur's Guide to Business Success.
I'll put a link in the show notes, grab a copy, just a couple bucks. over on Amazon. It is so worth it to really unpack this clarity.
So there's no shortage of options for how to grow your business, which is a blessing and a curse, right?
It's exactly the problem because all of the methods work, but what's going to work for you? The messy middle is so full of noise.
We're thinking things like, you know, should I launch again? Should I niche down? Should I start a podcast? Should I invest in ads?
Like all of these things are bouncing around. But more offers, more platforms, more strategies, it doesn't automatically mean more results.
What actually happens then is we end up consuming more than we're creating. We're trying too many different things at once and we're even more scattered and our results stay inconsistent.
This is what happens when content overload kicks in. We're consuming because we're searching for that missing piece when in reality, we know what to keeping other do.
The challenge isn't information. It's consistent and strategic execution of the right information. Clarity is not a negotiable thing. It is a growth strategy because without it, you end up doing work that feels productive, batching content, revising copy on our website, updating our lead magnet.
But it's not actually leading to sales. And this is the difference between growth and stagnation. Your time really needs to be aligned with those income-producing activities, the actions that are increasing your visibility, building relationships, and moving people closer to a buying decision.
And if your calendar doesn't reflect that, it's time to make some shifts. So you can ask yourself, am I really treating my business like a business?
Am I spending my time on those income? Is my week filled with things that grow my revenue or just keep me busy?
And if your answer is unclear, that's okay. Because the first step is awareness. And when we have that awareness, we can quiet the noise, reduce consumption, and realign our actions with our goals.
So once we've done this, step two is what I just love to shout from the rooftops. It is stop guessing and start growing by leveraging data in your business to drive your decisions.
Data is the bridge over that growth gap from where you are to where you want to be. And deep down, most solopreneurs know that they should be tracking and leveraging their data.
But it feels overwhelming or even worse, intimidating. Because what if it confirms your worst fear? What if you're not doing as good as you thought?
What if your business didn't grow last month? It's overwhelming. And when you go to sit down and attempt to face this fear, to start to look at it, you quickly become even more overwhelmed because you have no idea what to actually do with the numbers on the screen.
So we ignore it. We rely on feelings instead of facts. We're chasing what's urgent instead of what's actually strategic.
And without clear metrics, every decision we're making becomes a gamble. If you don't know where your leads are coming from, if you don't know how well your offers are converting, if you don't know where people are dropping off, then you're guessing.
And guessing is not a growth strategy. Without that clear understanding into what's actually working and what's not, we stay stuck in reactive mode.
Guessing, chasing shiny objects, overthinking, adding more offers, adding more tasks, adding more busy work. And instead of growing, we end up burnt out, stressed out, and overwhelmed.
We're wasting time and energy by investing in solutions that aren't actually the root cause, that aren't really the issue in our business.
I'm telling you, data is the bridge. It is the quickest point from where you are to where you want to be.
And when you learn how to track and interpret your data, you stop guessing. You stop relying on assumptions or gut feelings because now you know exactly where those gaps are.
And you can make focused strategic decisions that lead to sustainable growth. Your metrics are not here to judge you.
They're not here to tell you you're failing. They're here to guide you. And when you learn how to track and interpret your data, everything.
Because you stop wasting time fixing things that aren't broken and start spotting where those actual gaps are so that you can make focused decisions that lead to sustainable growth.
This works. According to the Harvard Business Review, businesses that leverage data grow on average 30% faster. Why? It's because data clears the fog.
It clears the confusion. It quiets the noise. And it turns confusion into clarity. One metric at a time. The growth gap is normal.
The messy middle is normal. This is not a sign that you are failing. It's just a signal that you need better focus, simpler systems, and data-driven decisions.
And this is exactly what I hope. Solopreneurs do inside of Metrics Mastery. So if you are ready to get out of the messy middle, visit amytraugh.com to get started for free and start learning exactly what to track, how to use your data, and what to shift in order to grow your business with clarity, confidence, and ease.
I am here cheering for you, and until next time, stop guessing and start growing.
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