The real reason your biz is struggling.
I've got strong words to share today, friend. I want you to know this newsletter comes from a place of love and a strong desire for your business to be around for years to come.
But sometimes, hard choices need to be made before a business can really grow.
I'm being cryptic lol. Let's dive in. ➡️➡️
I’ve read a lot of articles and books written by Jim Collins.
I’m sure you have too: he’s the author of ‘Good to Great’ which, in hindsight, wasn’t so great at identifying the best companies - many of them collapsed during the 2007/08 financial crisis. I digress..
Anywho, *some* of his advice has stood the test of time, including this nugget:
“You can either build a great team or write great books, but it’s hard to do both at the same time because they require different focuses and energy. Writing great books is often a solitary endeavour while building a great team demands active leadership and collaboration.”
Collins’ point was that pursuing both strategic objectives at the same time requires an unrealistic division of effort. It’s crucial to choose where to direct your focus.
TL:DR - you can build a great team OR be “best in class” at what you do, but it’s very, very hard to go after both strategic objectives at the same time.
Why might you care?
My guess is that you’ve been chasing both goals for wayyyy too long. And it’s not going well for you.
You’ve been adding to your team, engaging in one “panic hire” after another and paying the price of extra time and money involved with onboarding, training, too many direct reports, answering ‘quick questions’ etc etc etc..
You are repeatedly losing clients to the same competitor .. you know it’s because you don’t have a proper review structure in place, but you know your biz’s work hasn't been meeting your own high standards. And your clients and competition don’t shy away from saying that either.
You’re able to bring in the work because clients see value in what you do (revenue) but you’re not able to work efficiently (lower net income than you'd like) because you don't love managing a big team.
Real talk: all of these scenarios are just symptoms.
You don’t have an HR problem.
You don’t have a work quality problem.
And you probably don’t even have an efficiency problem.
You have a strategy problem.
And until you can choose what you want to pursue now - building a great team/company OR providing ‘best in class’ work product - you are going to continue to suffer the consequences of not making this strategic trade-off.
Believe me - I've been there too. It's challenging to figure out your big-picture-plans when you're playing whac-a-mole with operational issues that your team should be able to handle. I get it. But you (and I) just have to.
Now, I can almost hear you saying:
“But but but - if I focus only on doing better quality work, my revenue will stop growing because I can't earn a margin of 30% on a growing team's time” OR “if I focus only on building out my team, we’ll never do top-notch work”.
Ha.
You wouldn't still be reading this if you really believed either of those statements were true, friend.
✅ You do excellent work? People talk. Your revenue will grow from more referrals and your stellar professional reputation.
✅ You have a growing team? Awesome. How does expansion into a second location + some top-notch SOPs to ensure a consistent work product sound?
Both roads move you towards growth. But you have to pick: by chasing both goals, you're actually diluting your focus/energy which is likely the thing that is holding back your biz from growing.
So, if I’ve caught your attention, I’ve got some homework for you. I'd love to hear back from you on two reflection questions:
How have you been balancing the objectives of building a great team and delivering top-quality work? Is this something that challenges you?
Are you willing to make a strategic trade-off in the next 6-12 months to focus on prioritizing team development or delivering ‘best-in-class’ work? Which choice aligns more closely with you, as the CEO?