Why is it that the failure rate of businesses in years 1-5 is pretty similar to the failure rate of businesses in years 6-10? Why is there no ‘experience dividend’?
When you look at business growth in the context of business plans, it’s hard to see what can go wrong: progress is typically steep, evenly-paced and uninterrupted.
The daily reality can clash with expectations as your hopes for rapid, stress-free business growth become mired in fire-fighting. It can feel like a grind-a-thon of tackling the same old issues – like a business Groundhog Day.
It’s easier to view business growth as a spiral.
On each loop you’ll be faced with the same limited number of challenges. Either because your previous attempt at addressing it wasn’t good enough or (preferably) the business has outgrown the last ‘fix’.
The quality of the solution and the conviction with which you implement it dictates how steep your growth spiral is.
When challenges are ignored or the solution to them is short-term, your business growth spiral will flatten and ultimately begin to fall. Equally, spend too long fixated on perfecting the ideal solution in one area and the challenges will stack up elsewhere. With the same consequences.
If you are pulled towards fire-fighting, the nature of your solutions will be quick fixes. They’ll break apart sooner forcing you to go back and patch them up. It’s a self-fuelling problem and there are only 2 ways to get back control.
The worst case is that your business shrinks – which brings problems on a different front.
The alternative is to ring-fence time to address these issues proactively. The more pro-active you are in preparing for future growth, the more you will grow.
What can you do to create a rising business growth spiral?
There are only a limited number of basic business challenges. As coaches when we talk about working ON your business as opposed to IN it, we’re referring to being proactive about addressing these challenges.
In short these areas determine your business growth spiral. They are all areas that if ignored today will not have short term negative consequences. But they are all areas which, if ignored over the longer term, will increasingly cause fires which need fighting.
Because your business is either growing – or it’s dying.
The first step is to recognise that sustainable business growth is an adventure where you’ll spend most of your time travelling rather than arriving.
As an early mentor once advised me, “When you run your own business, questions that need answering come at you non-stop. If you view them as problems that need facing up to, you’ll get ground down. If you view them as challenges that need tackling you might just enjoy it”.
As soon as you begin to build a proper team, you’re setting out on a path where you will only be rewarded by doing it properly. By building a great team who operate great systems to deliver your product in a way that consistently gets great reviews at the right margin to run everything and pay you a fair dividend.
As we refer to it in ActionCOACH: A commercial, profitable enterprise that works without you.
This is the life & lot of a business owner. Sustainable business growth is a challenge – a game. It’s one that you must enjoy playing – and must be played to win.
If you would like help to identify your business challenges then complete this goal check and book a free call to discuss the results.
