Business Blog: 7 types of leverage (for entrepreneurs)

Hey, it's Ryan.

If you're working harder than ever but your business still feels stuck, it's not because you're lazy, unfocused, or bad at delegation…

…it's because you've hit a leverage ceiling.

In this issue, I'll show you how to break through that ceiling by climbing what I call The Leverage Ladder™…the 7 levels that took me from doing everything myself to leading businesses that scale without me.

Here's what you'll learn:

The 7 types of leverage that compound results without compounding effort
Why most founders hire too early (and end up with chaos, not freedom)
The "systems-first" rule that turns good people into true multipliers
How to build capital leverage that pays you in freedom, not just dollars

If you've ever wondered why some CEOs keep scaling while others stall, this is why.

Let's get into it…

P.S. I'm looking for 5 business owners who want to work 1-on-1 with my team and me to install a custom "operating system" so your business can scale and so you can exit the day-to-day. Click here for the details.

The Leverage Ladder

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When I was first starting out, I thought the goal was to stop trading time for money.

But I eventually learned that you never really stop trading time for money, you just get better returns on each hour you invest.

The key is leverage.

And leverage isn't one big breakthrough…it's a ladder.

Each rung gives you a little more output for the same (or less) effort.

Stack enough of them, and your business compounds like interest.

Here's how I climbed each rung of what I now call The Leverage Ladder™, and how you can, too.

Level 1: Manual Leverage (Time-for-Money)

I started where everyone starts: trading hours for dollars.

As an intern, if I didn't show up, I didn't get paid. Later, as a freelance web designer and copywriter, the paychecks got bigger, but the problem stayed the same…

…no hours, no income.

At this level, you don't own a business…the business owns you.

To win here:

Track your time as if it were money.
Cut or delegate anything that doesn't produce a measurable return.
Focus your limited hours on the few things that create momentum or cash.

That shift…from worker to investor…is the foundation of all future leverage.

Level 2: Skill Leverage

When I started learning marketing, copywriting, and strategy, something clicked:

I could now make ten times the impact in the same time.

That's skill leverage…increasing your value per hour instead of your hours per week.

To win here:

Identify one skill that will multiply the impact of everything else you do.
Go deep for 90 days. Depth beats breadth every time.
Measure progress in outcomes, not effort.

Eventually, every new skill creates a bottleneck: you can produce more value, but only if you can sell it. That's when sales leverage changes the game.

Level 3: Sales Leverage

Learning to sell was the single biggest turning point in my career.

For the first time, I could generate cash on demand.

But if every sale depended on me, it wasn't leverage…it was just a higher-paying job.

To win here:

Record and document your best pitches and close sequences.
Automate your follow-up so momentum doesn't die when you log off.
Turn your "gut feel" into a process someone else can follow.

Once sales becomes a system, not a skill, you're ready to sell one-to-many instead of one-to-one. That's media leverage.

Level 4: Media Leverage

Media is where leverage starts to compound.

When I turned my sales presentations into webinars and recorded trainings, my message could sell while I slept.

Media leverage means your ideas and systems start working even when you're not.

To win here:

Record once, distribute forever.
Repurpose what's already working: our best emails, slides, or scripts.
Own the channel. If you don't own the audience, you don't own the leverage.

When your message scales without you, the bottleneck shifts from attention to execution, and that's where systems come in.

Level 5: Systems & Tech Leverage

Most founders hit this level and think they need more people.

Wrong. Good people can't fix broken systems. Broken systems break good people.

The goal here is to make success repeatable.

When I documented my web page process and used automation to handle the tedious stuff, my output jumped 10x. Same hours…ess chaos.

To win here:

Document your workflows while you do them. (Skip the dusty SOP binders.)
Automate repetitive steps with tools, triggers, or AI.
Focus on clarity and consistency…not complexity.

Once you've got solid systems, you can safely layer on people…and that's when things really scale.

Level 6: People Leverage

When your systems are strong, people multiply them.

When they're weak, people magnify the chaos.

I learned that the hard way. Before I built systems, every hire just made the mess bigger.

But once the playbooks existed, my team improved them — that's real leverage.

To win here:

Hire for ownership, not assistance.
Delegate outcomes, not tasks.
Bring on people who bring their own systems with them.

When your team can execute and optimize without you, your time becomes infinitely more valuable, and your profit becomes investable.

Level 7: Capital Leverage

At this level, money finally works harder than you do.

For me, that meant taking profits from our operating companies and investing them into other businesses, real estate, and assets that throw off cash.

It's not "passive income," it's compounding leverage.

To win here:

Treat profit like fuel, not confetti.
Create a "freedom fund" that invests in assets producing time and flexibility.
Reinvest first in systems, then in people, then in capital.

At this point, the goal isn't to stop working, it's to work only on the things that create exponential return.

The Big Idea

Leverage isn't luck or timing…it's layers. Each level amplifies the last:

Skills make your time more valuable.
Systems make your skills scalable.
People make your systems unstoppable.
Capital makes the whole thing compounding.

⚡️Action Step: Determine which level of leverage you're operating at right now, and identify one upgrade you can make this quarter to climb to the next rung.

Because freedom isn't found in doing less…it's found in climbing the Leverage Ladder.

Ryan Deiss
Co-Founder and CEO, The Scalable Company