It’s been said that all businesses are experiencing pain…it’s either growing pain or shrinking pain. So, if growth is the (sometimes elusive!) goal, how do we get there?
In the business world, we frequently think of growth as linear – invest in new resources (factories, people, capabilities, etc.) and see increased revenue…easy, right? In real life, markets determine if our work delivers the goal, and the increase is often proportional to the investment (ex: increase marketing à increase sales).
Linear growth is good (and results in growing pains which are, in my opinion, much more fun than shrinking pains)…and there’s something even better. We call it scaling.
Let’s look at the world of architecture for some context. Although it can take a long time to lay the foundation of a building, thankfully, the depth of the foundation typically doesn’t have to be equivalent to a building’s height. For example, the Empire State Building stands at 1,454 feet above ground with a foundation just 55.7 feet deep. At the Willis Tower in Chicago, a foundation just 10 feet deeper allows it to be 351 feet taller than the Wilshire Grand Center in Los Angeles (11% increase in depth, 32% increase in height).
That’s what scaling is all about. Growth that is significantly higher than the investment needed to obtain it.
In our work with growing companies, we’ve found seven secrets to successful scaling that we’ll be sharing in 2022:
Having a clear vision of the future
Understanding the state of your business
From today, forward…and tomorrow, backward
Analyzing your competition and the ecosystem
Simultaneously “changing” AND “running” your business
Sticking to the plan
Finding the right coordinator for this work
So, take a break from digging today to ask yourself “is this work going to provide linear growth or exponential growth”? If it’s not the latter, ask yourself if you have the seven things above and start working on the gaps!
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