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Growth and direction · peer advisory council

Growth and expansion

“We’ve doubled in two years, and it feels like everything is about to break.”

What it often sounds like at the table

Growth is exciting, and it also exposes things a smaller company could get away with. Systems that worked at $3M start to creak at $6M. The people who got you here may not be the ones who get you to the next stage. And the owner is usually the last person with time to step back and see it.

You might recognize this if…

  • Customers are noticing slower response times or more mistakes.
  • Cash feels tighter even though sales are up.
  • Your best people are stretched thin, and so are you.
  • You’re not sure which part of the business will break first.

Questions the room might ask you

  1. Where is the growth actually coming from, and will it last?
  2. What breaks first if you add another 30 percent?
  3. Is the cash ready for this, or is growth running on your credit line?
  4. What are you still doing yourself that someone else should own?
How the council works on it

What happens when you bring growth and expansion to the room.

  1. You put it on the table

    You lay out the situation in your own words, with the numbers and history that matter. Ten or so owners give it their full attention.

  2. Questions before advice

    The room asks questions like the ones above until everyone, including you, understands the real issue. Often that’s where the breakthrough happens.

  3. Experience, not opinions

    Owners who have faced something similar share what they did and what they would do differently. No competitors sit at the table, so nobody holds back.

  4. You make the call

    The group doesn’t run your company. You decide what to do, with a lot more perspective than you walked in with.

  5. Say it out loud

    You name your next step before you leave. Next month, the room asks how it went.

What you leave with

A clearer picture of what to shore up before the next push, and one or two commitments the room will ask about next month.

Bring this to the table Why it matters: Experience you don’t have to earn the hard way

Related conversations

Strategic planning and executionThe hard part isn’t ideas. It’s choosing, and following through.Sales and business developmentSales trouble usually lives somewhere specific.Evaluating new opportunitiesSome opportunities are great. Some are expensive distractions.

Prefer to work on growth and expansion privately instead of in a group? I also do this one-on-one (opens JeffreyRands.com in a new tab).