As an entrepreneur with an annual revenue of $350,000–$500,000, you are in a great position to grow your business more quickly. Numerous opportunities await you. However, growth at this level requires precision and priority. The challenge is often about selecting the best opportunity to leverage for growth, which requires clarity, focus, and strategies to generate the most impact on your business. 

During the early days of your startup, it might have been easier, albeit chaotic and stressful, to venture down multiple paths. However, as your enterprise expands, it becomes more complex and uncertain. This marks the point where the real work of growing your business truly begins.

A change in mindset is beneficial to reduce the overwhelming chaos and stress and experience continuous growth with ease and grace. The actions that brought you to your current position are not necessarily the same ones that will continue to propel you forward. 

Photo by LUM3N on Unsplash

Strategize With the End in Mind

Since you’re moving forward, why not have some clarity about the destination you intend to reach? It makes choosing the correct route much more apparent. 

Consider your personal objectives since your business is often a tool for achieving them. Business, by itself, is not the complete end game.  End game options may look like selling the business for $X, retiring at the age of 45 with an annual income of $X, working fewer hours, traveling the world while you still can, owning an ocean and a mountain home, or being more available for those little people in your orbit. Whatever you choose is yours to hold and shape your business direction and decisions. 

What happens if you’re not clear on the end game? Fret not. Go as far as you can see, and when you get there, you’ll be able to see further. 

Plus, don’t waste time on detailed long-term planning. For now, you want a framework for your end game. With the rapid pace of change in business, keep more detailed planning to one year with a moderate amount of framework for years 1–5. 

Know Your Numbers 

Gut intuition and hunches are powerful tools, although most strategists would pooh-pooh the idea (Me? I’m not like most strategists.) Even so, it’s beneficial to have the best of our gut feelings backed up by solid data. 

Data guides our decision-making. It doesn’t lie. It always speaks truth to power even when you don’t like what it’s telling you. And, when you base your decisions on data rather than what you read on Linkedin as a solution, you’ll never go wrong.  

When I was in sales, I optimistically shared my goals with a trusted friend, which she immediately pooh-poohed. She wasn’t wrong. The notion of what I intended to accomplish was a bit “pie in the sky”—until I began to look at the numbers. I used data to guide my decisions. Within nine months of that honest interchange, I achieved what I intended. Numbers matter. 

What data does one collect? That’s an excellent question. With technological advancements, one can drown in data, so selecting the critical numbers is essential. These metrics could include revenue, profit margin, realization rate, customer acquisition costs, social media impressions, website visitors, or something entirely different. 

Again, your business and its destination are unique to you. The data or metrics you track should be as well. 

Hire Top Talent

Oh, this is a big one. Often, as small business entrepreneurs, our budgets are limited. Consequently, we look for the best talent we can hire for our budget. That makes complete sense unless you want to grow your business more quickly and with greater precision. Hiring top talent is a priority. 

One of my clients recently learned that valuable lesson when hiring a “junior” technician due to budget concerns. After months and months of training, the employee was still struggling to keep up. This was followed by more training and further coaching, adding extra costs. 

All of this additional time and the subsequent cost to “train up” a lesser qualified or experienced individual really adds up—especially when it’s your time as the owner. 

This wasn’t the end of the story, however. The employee ultimately made critical mistakes, resulting in client loss. It happens, right? Even though the disciplinary action didn’t result in termination, the employee stopped showing up for work. Egads! 

It was an incredible learning experience. Although the idea of training up talent is enticing, it adds unexpected costs and isn’t so budget-friendly after all. Plus, it slows down business growth. There’s a huge and hidden cost involved in hiring lesser talent. 

My advice (and that of many of my clients in the Messy Middle) is to stretch yourself and hire the best you can. 

Focus on High-Impact, High-Value Tasks

One of the most common missteps we often fall victim to is the tendency to take on every task ourselves. With the myriad responsibilities of running a business, it’s easy to get overwhelmed. As the CEO, it becomes crucial to hone in on the tasks that can significantly impact your business growth and success.

When it comes to prioritizing tasks, focus on those that have the potential to generate substantial revenue, minimize costs, or enhance overall efficiency. By identifying and prioritizing these high-impact tasks, you can allocate your precious time and energy in ways that create tangible value for your business.

Additionally, it’s essential to recognize that not every task needs to be managed by you. Delegation and outsourcing can be crucial in streamlining your workload and optimizing productivity. Handing off assignments to others allows you to free up your valuable time and attention for those critical, high-impact duties that truly demand your expertise. And, when you’ve hired top talent (see above), you will spend less time managing their work. 

Achieving business growth demands a disciplined and systematic approach and an unwavering focus on priority tasks and strategies. You can confidently drive business growth by beginning with the end in mind, prioritizing high-impact tasks, investing in top talent, and implementing precise metrics. 

Sustained growth takes time and consistent, purposeful actions to deliver remarkable results.

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Growing your business is not about doing more; it’s about doing it smarter. That’s where precision and priority—and Synnovatia—come into play. Schedule your first free consultation today.

Have you heard of the Messy Middle? Few entrepreneurs don’t realize it’s their everyday experience until they read the description.  Suddenly it clicks — “That’s me!” These savvy individuals can discern symptoms, identify pain points, and empathize with other businesses experiencing the same predicament. Arriving at this moment of clarity for oneself is a game-changer. It shifts the focus from chaos to clarity, empowering entrepreneurs to take action toward a more progressive outcome. 

The Messy Middle vortex, or stage two of business growth and development, is the natural progression following establishing your start-up foundation. You’ve proven your business model. Your marketing and sales funnels are functioning beautifully and creating a consistent stream of clients for your business. You are growing your team in numbers and skill.  Essentially, you have successfully ironed out many of the kinks associated with your start-up and have created some sustainability and resilience in your systems. 

Even so, revenue can be sluggish, anywhere between $350,000 and $1 million annually, depending on your industry and service. Despite the expansion of your team, the talent pool looks cloudy. Cash flow is shrinking. And the worst part is being swamped with day-to-day operations when all you really want to do is focus on growing or scaling your business.

Extended work hours, once believed to be temporary, are now permanent and no longer sustainable. There is no time to think—let alone the time needed to think strategically. (A different thinking skill, BTW, requiring some white space.) The inadequacies of one’s growth system become increasingly conspicuous.

The chaos of the Messy Middle often forces businesses to abandon their successful tactics, including accountability, needed to grow. Business life becomes all about extinguishing fires.

So, let’s talk about accountability—what it is and why it’s crucial for an entrepreneur, especially at this stage of business growth, and the common misconceptions about accountability. 

Entrepreneurs and Accountability to Success Tactics

Webster defines accountability as “an obligation or willingness to accept responsibility or to account for one’s actions.” It refers to the responsibility and answerability of individuals or organizations for their actions, decisions, and outcomes.

For entrepreneurs, accountability is a slippery slope. Often strongly-driven entrepreneurs resist personal accountability. They often see it as a sign of weakness or failure. Or accountability can often be associated with micromanagement and excessive control, which stifles creativity and freedom. 

And yet, in business, owner accountability is a crucial aspect of the growth process. It builds trust and credibility, promotes team engagement, enhances the business’s overall performance, and, most importantly, fosters a more disciplined approach to our decision-making. Holding ourselves accountable encourages critical thinking and helps us avoid impulsive decisions. 

Navigating the Messy Middle: How Accountability Helps Tackle Challenges

I’ve touched briefly upon entrepreneurs’ challenges during the Messy Middle stage, where things can become chaotic. Clarity and focus provided by accountability, whether to oneself, a mastermind group, an accountability coach, or a system, are paramount for rising above the noise. And its effectiveness is multifaceted. 

• Improved performance. Accountability promotes establishing clear goals and encourages entrepreneurs to strive for excellence, take consistent action, and achieve better results.
• Strategic decision-making. Rather than making ad-hoc or impulsive decisions, entrepreneurs committed to accountability gather the relevant information and weigh the risks and benefits to ensure their choices are intelligent and thoughtful.
• Enhanced trust and credibility. Stakeholders are more confident doing business with you knowing your word is your bond. 
• Engaged employees. Someone said, “The speed of the leader is the speed of the gang.” Members of your team will often mimic your behavior. So, credibility builds when you do what you say you’ll do. 
• Accelerated learning. Accountability encourages business owners to proactively address problems and challenges, which fosters accelerated learning and subsequent growth. 
• Sustainable growth. Entrepreneurial accountability ultimately builds a culture of responsibility, transparency, and ethical behavior that ensures the business operates in alignment with its values, which leads to greater resilience and long-term success. 

Accountability: The Final Word

Accountability, in some form, is essential for business success. Identify the method of accountability that best supports you and your business. Then, take the time to review your accountability measures regularly and adjust as necessary for maximum effectiveness. 

You’ll be glad you did, as it will keep you on track and moving forward. 

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If you’re looking for accountability in your business, check out our Mastermind for the Messy Middle or contact us to discuss how to create a system of sustainable accountability for you and your business. 

Life is hectic, especially when you run or manage a small business. Business growth is challenging. Of course, profitable, sustainable growth is your goal, but how do you get there with all the distractions thrown at you every day? You’re speeding down the highway at 90 miles per hour, windows down, music blasting, kids screaming. Sounds fun, right? Hardly!

But what about all that scenery you took the trip to see? It’s gone in a flash, just a blur in your rearview mirror. Likewise, running a business can sometimes feel hazy and vague without the proper strategic intention.

So how do you take the time to stop and smell the symbolic roses, all while continuing your day-to-day tasks? How about having time to do what you know you should do to grow and maintain your business? Simple!

Determine which of these four stages of business growth your company currently resides, then focus your efforts on the suitable business development activity. 

1. Core Business Development
2. Expansion
3. Professionally Managed Enterprise
4. Organizational Maturity.

 Common characteristics, growing pains, and a primary focus define each stage of developing your enterprise. To know your specific goals, you first need to know and understand your business’s growth and development stage. Awareness of each step’s obstacles allows you to prepare better to overcome them – with the least amount of stress possible.

One of the most important things to remember about growing your small business is that your growth and development stage is not defined by how long you have been in business. Instead, revenue is a better definition of your developmental stage. Not accurately identifying your growth stage is one of the biggest mistakes when strategizing and planning for growth.

You risk focusing on the wrong activities by misdefining your business’s growth and development stage. As a result, you go around in circles rather than streamlining your activities to overcome the obstacles and leverage the opportunities you’re facing in your current stage.

The first two growth stages are when most business owners feel the highest amount of pressure and discouragement. They involve finding your niche, developing your products or services, getting your business up and running, learning to manage your resources, and creating functional operational systems. These steps set the tone for the rest of your business’s lifespan.