Marketing for SMEs: Lydia Lee on Scaling Down a Business Without Sacrificing Profit

A business can be profitable and still feel wrong to run. That is what makes misalignment difficult to recognise: the revenue, clients and public signs of success may all be there while the owner is becoming increasingly exhausted.

I spoke with Lydia Lee, founder of Screw the Cubicle, about what happens when an established owner outgrows their work or the business grows beyond their capacity. We discussed how she gradually replaced an exhausting, launch-heavy model with a smaller business designed around the life she wanted. You can also visit the Screw the Cubicle YouTube channel.

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Introduction

Jeremy: I introduced you as a work reinvention coach because you help established business owners who have outgrown their business, or whose business has outgrown them. It can feel like burnout or the need for a holiday, but the problem may be deeper.

Lydia: I have been in business for 13 years. The story people often ask about begins with my burnout in Moscow while I was still working in corporate, then continues through the different businesses I built afterwards.

When achievement hides an unsustainable way of working

Jeremy: You were travelling for work, pursuing a promotion and performing well. From the outside, it looked as though you were doing everything right.

Lydia: My job had me on the road for about six months of the year. By the time I was in Moscow, I had not taken a holiday for roughly three years and had been working around 65 hours a week.

Lydia: I experienced a severe breakdown and a panic attack in my hotel room. I became temporarily agoraphobic and could not leave the room for several days. My mind wanted to keep going, but my body had reached its limit.

Lydia: Working with a therapist helped me examine the beliefs behind that behaviour. I had grown up in a Malaysian immigrant family where working hard, proving yourself and using extra money to repay debt felt non-negotiable.

Lydia: The job was easy to blame, but I also had to understand my own choices. Otherwise, I could leave and recreate the same pattern somewhere else. That is eventually what happened inside my own business.

Leaving corporate did not solve everything

Jeremy: Did starting a business immediately feel like the right fit?

Lydia: No. The first couple of years were difficult. I had more autonomy and control over my schedule, but I continued making decisions mainly around what the market wanted and where the money was.

Lydia: My first agency worked within the international education industry I already knew. Screw the Cubicle began as a personal blog around 2011, documenting my move from corporate employment into agency and consultancy work.

Lydia: The business eventually made more than I had earned in corporate, which had been my original test of success. But another question appeared: did I believe in what I was selling, and did the work contribute to something I cared about?

Jeremy: Is meaning a luxury? Business owners still need to provide for themselves and their families.

Lydia: A business should be profitable. If someone enjoys solving a problem, finishes the day content and does not need a larger purpose, there is nothing to fix. I am talking about people who feel a genuine lack of meaning in the way they work.

Lydia: Profit and meaning do not have to cancel each other out. Owners can make choices about the clients, products and founders they support. Advertising, for example, can feel less like pushing something and more like communicating a useful solution when you care about the people and work involved.

The profitable Frankenstein business

Jeremy: Years later, you reached another burnout point inside your coaching business. What made that one confusing?

Lydia: The business was making money and receiving media attention. From the outside, it was ticking the boxes of what a successful coaching business should look like. Behind the scenes, I was marketing eight products a year and supporting three full-time staff.

Lydia: Each launch involved emails, a webinar, advertising, landing pages, live training, discovery calls and onboarding. Preparation could take six to eight weeks, and then the process would begin again for the next cohort.

Lydia: I initially thought it was a technical or marketing problem that another tactic could solve. The more important question was whether I had intentionally chosen that size and shape of business, or assembled it because that was what an online coaching business was supposed to look like.

The distinction matters in advertising too. More traffic cannot resolve every problem with an offer or business model. In our own work, clearer services and messaging were part of turning wasted ad spend into reliable leads, while a focused page and aligned messaging helped improve the ad-to-landing-page experience for another client.

Ask what you need from the business

Jeremy: How did you begin changing a model that was still generating revenue?

Lydia: Gradually. I take risks experimentally rather than jumping off a cliff and hoping the parachute opens. For one quarter, I reduced the next three planned launches to one so I could create enough space to understand the problem.

Lydia: Founders regularly ask what the business needs from them. They ask how much content, marketing, staff support or delivery it requires. They do not ask as often what they need from the business to feel fulfilled.

Lydia: Money is one measure. The other questions concern the clients, the model, the way you market and the rhythm you can realistically maintain for the next five or ten years.

Lydia: Start an audit with what frustrates you. It can be difficult to say what you want immediately, but you usually know which activities feel heavy. In my case, podcast conversations and video felt natural, while constant written content and launch marketing did not.

Two ways a founder can outgrow a business

Jeremy: Who do you now work with through Screw the Cubicle?

Lydia: Established entrepreneurs, usually at least three years into business. Many of my current clients have been operating for around eight years. Their business no longer fits who they are or who they are becoming.

Lydia: The first pathway is that the owner has outgrown the work. They may still be capable of delivering it and known for it, but the clients, problem or offer no longer interests them. Changing direction is difficult because the existing positioning and audience carry weight.

Lydia: The second pathway is that the business has outgrown the owner. They may still enjoy the work, but the marketing, number of offers, team structure or delivery model has grown beyond their capacity to sustain it.

Lydia: Before pulling apart the business model, I look at the human part. What the owner wanted in year one may be very different from what they want in year eight. Success may now mean walking the children to school, having lunch with a partner or working four days a week, but the business is still operating against the original measures.

Smaller does not have to mean less profitable

Jeremy: What does a redesigned business look like once the unnecessary weight is removed?

Lydia: It is usually leaner and more minimalist, but there is no paint-by-numbers model. Some owners retain a small group of specialists rather than a larger employed team. Some rely more on relationships, partnerships, collaborations or physical events instead of trying to maintain every online channel.

Lydia: The shared philosophy is lifestyle first. We define how many hours the owner wants to work and how much money their actual life and financial goals require. A revenue target should have a reason behind it, rather than being chosen because “seven figures” sounds successful.

Lydia: Owners often end up doing fewer things better. They choose one or two profitable, aligned offers and a lean marketing plan they can continue without dread. The model may produce more take-home profit because it carries less overhead.

Jeremy: A smaller client base also requires the owner to be very good at work that clients value highly.

Lydia: Yes. The question is not only how to find clients who will pay more. It is what you can do that is worth that amount. In an age when junior and administrative work can be completed cheaply or assisted by artificial intelligence, owners need to understand what is difficult to replace in their experience and judgement.

Lydia: That value is not only the technical skill. It can include how you understand a client, ask questions, recognise nuance and act as a sounding board. Those human qualities are part of premium, personalised work.

Reinvention should be gradual, not a reaction

Jeremy: Before the conversation, I wondered whether burnout had simply pushed the pendulum too far in the other direction. But your current model was not a knee-jerk rejection of work or ambition. It emerged through years of small experiments.

Lydia: Reinvention is not a one-step story. I made mistakes and still have things I want to simplify. The difference is noticing what is happening, observing the effects of a decision and giving yourself permission to make another choice.

Lydia: I am allowed to have a smaller business and define success differently from someone else. I do not need to build an empire or become famous. My decisions now have to coincide with the life I want to lead, rather than what looks good from the outside.

Five ideas to take from the conversation

• Profit does not prove that a business still fits. A model can generate revenue while exhausting its owner.
• Look beneath the immediate problem. Changing tactics will not help if the real issue is the size, structure or purpose of the business.
• Audit frustration as well as performance. Ask which clients, offers and marketing activities you can genuinely sustain.
• Test changes gradually. Reducing one launch, offer or channel creates evidence without putting the whole business at risk.
• Define enough. Set revenue and workload goals against the life the business needs to support, not somebody else’s picture of success.

For more practical conversations about building and marketing a business that fits its owner, you can also explore Digital Goliath’s approach to founder-led advertising.

Learn more on the Screw the Cubicle website, connect with Lydia Lee on LinkedIn, or visit the Screw the Cubicle YouTube channel.

This conversation was recorded for Marketing for SMEs with Jeremy Yang. You can watch the full episode on YouTube or listen on your preferred podcast app.