Most of us in business start our businesses with dreams of huge success. We want to enjoy that elusive time and financial freedom we hear about from others and leave a legacy for our loved ones to remember us by.
And many of us achieve it.
Or, at least, start to.
And then, as we start to see the growth we dreamed of, we stumble. It’s hard to say what happens. We just know that something doesn’t quite work out.
I was lucky enough to work with an amazing team of people with a fast growing company for two and a half years. That may not sound like a lot, but time at a fast growing company is kind of like age in dog years. It multiplies!
So anyway, while I was there we took the company from low 8 figures to high 8 figures and launched another company that quickly grew to several million annual in the time I was there.
Suffice it to say, it was an awesome experience I am very grateful to be a part of. I learned amazing lessons that I carry with me today. I led an amazing team of dedicated professionals, many of whom I still work with today. I learned from some of the most interesting people in the business and marketing world.
And I got paid to do it.
There’s no question. I was incredibly lucky.
I was also tired. Very, very tired. 🙂 And excited. And energized. And a whole host of other feelings that came up at one time or another.
But ultimately, lucky overshadowed it all.
I learned a lot while I was there. We made a lot of mistakes. And we did a lot of things right.
There were some lessons that stuck out. And today I’d like to share them with you here.
Let’s go…
“Happy employees lead to happy customers, which leads to more profits.”
People will make or break you
Your team is everything. And that is never more true than when you are working to accomplish the usual.
Building a fast growing company takes work. Tireless hours. Dedication and commitment. Persistence. A dogged attention to detail.
And people. Amazing people.
When you are scaling a company there are a lot of moving parts. And those parts must be managed by your people.
But the team that will see you through your fast growth is not just any team. They are also likely not the same team that will see you through your earlier phases of growth, or your later phases of growth and your exit plan.
Your growth team is special. They have the same skills as others in their position, but they have a unique, and rare, shared commitment to your goal. They are willing to work long hours, to handle emergencies when they arise (and they will arise!), to shift quickly and to do so with positivity.
Their mood and emotional makeup are critical to your growth. They will lift each other up when they are feeling good and lean on each other when they are struggling.
You will need people who are great problem solvers. Fast growing companies often run into unanticipated problems. When you are doing something few have done it is inevitable that you will run into issues you don’t foresee.
You need even keeled people. You know the kind. The people that you have around you who seem unflappable. They can keep a level head even in the most turbulent waters. These people will be your go to.
Treat your team well during this time. While time off may not be feasible, there are a number of things you can do to support your team. Send small gifts. Shoot them a quick email telling them thank you for all they are doing to support the business and the mission.
Hold weekly meetings so your team can plug into your energy. Show up powerfully for them. Be positive. Your role during these meetings is to lift up your team so they can perform at their best for another week.
The average company loses over 25% of its productive power to organizational drag.
Systems are everything
As companies grow, so do problems. Manual work that is being done increases exponentially at very high rates. This can overwhelm your systems and your team quickly. It can also tank your retention of your current clients.
Putting systems in place for anything you do that’s repetitive is one of the keys to successfully scaling a company.
Systems you’ll want to have in place before any rapid growth include the 5 Key Revenue Generation Systems as well as systems for hiring/terminating employment, communications within the company, reporting and more.
To do this you will need some operations minded people on your team. Those who can think through what is already a constraint in your business, and new constraints that are likely to pop up.
You can find these people by hiring someone to headhunt for you (this carries with it the cost of the headhunter and much higher salaries for someone who’s already done this kind of work) or you can find people with the right thought processes but maybe haven’t had the opportunity to work with a fast growing company before.
Both types of people can be incredibly successful in these roles and can help you get where you want to go. Understand that they also both come with their own challenges. And perhaps you hire one type initially and then hire experienced people later on.
There are options here.
What’s important is to know the key personality factors that are essential to growth. And hire for those. Experience often takes a back seat to personality and commitment in these early hires.
And that’s ok.
Finding the leaders who can join your team and help you set up systems that will carry you forward is critical to the success of your growth plan. Whether they are tech systems, revenue generation systems, internal systems or HR systems…they are one of the most important factors to your success.
“Many companies get trapped by the paradox of hitting numbers ‘now’ versus improving sales for future quarters or years ahead.”
Building without the outcome in mind will cost you time and money
Oftentimes rapid growth hits unexpectedly. You may know you have a good idea, a good market and a good team…and there is still an element of “luck” for rapid scaling to happen.
It can also get going so fast that you can feel like you’re on a roller coaster with gravity driving your every turn. You may not know where you’re going. All you can do is hold on and enjoy the ride.
While this can be an effective way to keep from losing your mind during this kind of growth, it’s not the most reliable strategy to grow the business you originally dreamt of.
Nor the vision you’ve grown into.
As you grow you will begin building more systems, more teams, more processes to support your growth.
One of the biggest dangers of fast growth is building systems under pressure and not keeping the end in mind. If you do this, as so many before you have, you will have to rebuild them later as you continue to reach new heights.
One of the most valuable things you can do is, whenever there is something new that you need to build, give yourself an hour to get really clear on your intended outcome of that build. Make sure that you know exactly what you want to get out of the new “widget” before you ask your team to move forward.
And share with them the outcome. You want to allow your team the space to build things using their expertise. And to do that they will need context. They need to know not only what you hope to accomplish with this new “widget” (process, system, product, etc) but also how you want it to impact your team.
These are all things your experts can take into consideration if they are given both the context/outcome and the space to do their thing.
You are a HUGE part of the success or failure of your fast growth plan
The actions of the leader of the company matter more than almost anything else.
Anything.
I was lucky in that our company was led by two brilliant people who were willing to listen, to learn, to teach and to lead.
They put their own immediate desires aside to do what was right for the company. At all costs. They made sacrifices. They had tough conversations. They led with honor and transparency.
Does this mean they were perfect?
Nope.
What it means is they were willing.
And this is the difference we see with all business owners we work with.
We’ve worked with people at all levels of their business. From start up to 9 figures. We’ve seen them grow. We’ve seen them shrink.
We’ve seen them sold. We’ve seen them fold.
And what we can tell you, without exception, is that the leader is the #1 determining factor in the success of a business, and it’s ability to scale.
We’ve gotten to the point where we can often tell in our initial conversations. Sometimes they slip through for a bit, if they’re good at pretending.
But once we get to know them, have some conversations and experience with them…we can always tell.
You may be wondering what you can do, then, to ensure your success. How can you increase the odds of making it through whatever growth stages you are going to encounter?
It’s simple really. Be willing to put in the work. Be humble. Get coaching if you need it. Do what you say you’re going to do. Remember, your team is watching. (They are always watching you and taking cues from you)
“Play by the rules, but be ferocious.”
Know your numbers
This one is simple. At least, it seems simple.
We all know that data is important. We all know that the best business owners are ones who make data driven decisions.
And if that’s the case, why is it so damn hard to get the right data at the right time in the right format?
There’s a ton of reasons for this, and every business owner runs into this.
The most common reason we see people struggling with this is that they start by asking what data they need.
Then they go into a spiral of all the numbers they can ask for, every way they could slice and dice their data to get different pieces of information, and metrics they feel like they should be tracking.
And then what they should be tracking turns into what they should be reviewing on a daily or weekly basis.
And that is overwhelming to review, expensive to set up, and typically defeats the purpose of being able to make quick decisions.
So when it comes to numbers there are actually two pieces of the conversation.
The first is what should be tracked. This is the data you want to have access to when you’re ready, to be tracked for historical purposes and available when something goes wrong.
This is NOT what you will be reviewing every week.
The second is the more important, and more urgent, of the two. And that is what questions are you trying to answer right now.
This question will determine what data you should be looking at on a daily or weekly basis, and what you will do with that data.
You see, data for the sake of data is useless. It may be comforting to know you have it, but it is not of any value.
Data only becomes valuable when it is answering an important and timely question that will inform your answers and decisions that you are going to act on right now.
Data reviewed today and not acted on for 3 months will be out of date and a waste of time.
So make sure your team is setting you up for success by putting systems in place to track all the data, and only providing you with the data you need right now to make decisions.
Speed doesn’t come without sacrifice
When moving fast tasks come up, projects come due, and pivots are necessary.
And these things must all be accomplished.
Yesterday.
It’s easy to say “It has to be done, so get it done any way you have to.”
And sometimes that makes sense.
I’m not suggesting you stop asking for urgent action. Quite the opposite actually. I’m simply suggesting you set yourself, and your team, up with fair expectations from that urgent action.
I recommend knowing that if you ask for a five alarm reaction to something that is needed, you know that first, it will get done and be messy.
And your team, understanding and feeling the pressure, will do their best to get it done ASAP. Almost always sacrificing some level of quality.
They do that because they want to please you. They want you to know they understand your request. They want to show you how quickly they can move and that they deserve to be on your team.
And that comes at a cost.
A quick and easy solution to this is to be clear about your expectations and priorities when you make the initial request. Share your desired timeline with your team. Let them know what you expect in terms of quality.
Then, and this is the most important part, ask them how they feel about the feasibility of completing the task and any potential issues they see with the expectations both on time and quality.
Encouraging an open conversation about that at the beginning is key to making sure you are getting what you ask for and your team feels like they can be successful.
“Only those who will risk going too far can possibly find out how far one can go.”
Don’t lose your mission in your growth
Perhaps most important is keeping your eye on your mission. This may sound similar to building with your outcome in mind, but it has an important distinction.
It’s key to keep your mission in mind.
Why did you start your business? Who did you want to help? What impact and legacy did you want to make?
These are the questions that will keep you focused when things get confusing. When the business starts growing and you have input coming from all directions about what to do, when and how…keeping your mission in mind will steady the course.
It will allow you to stay on track. Make tough decisions. Inspire your team.
Keeping your mission in mind will get you and your team through the darkest of days and busiest of weeks.
It is what will drive you when all else fails.
Keep this front of mind and your motivation will be more consistent and you will weather any storm you are faced with.
While there are many other things that are required to successfully run a fast growing company, these 7 are non-negotiables.
If you are building a business they will certainly help you to build a more stable company that will support you as it grows for years to come.
If you are hoping to build a fast growing company, the kind you read about in Fortune and hear about on CNN (yes, our clients have been seen on these channels and more) then these 7 steps are essential!
