👨‍🎓 Mini-training - Introduction to Stages & Ingredients of Business Growth (SIBG) Pt. 0.0

You can make building a profitable business easy, or difficult.

And the best way to keep it easy?

Recognise the three different stages that every business goes through, the ingredients that go with each stage, and very importantly: 

Not mix up those ingredients carelessly.

If you do mix them up, you're doing the thing that causes so many businesses to fail.

The three stages are:

1: Set Up

This is when you identify your ideal buyer and your USP.

You figure out your pricing, your goto market strategy, your messaging and lead generation process.

2: Grow up

Here, you have traction and results, and you start creating systems.

You formalise processes, you get an assistant, you turn your business into a system you could - in theory - replicate or clone.

Growing up means you create an "E-myth business".

That means everything runs so well and is so structured, you could in theory franchise, create a new branch, sell the business, or go on an extended sabbatical and your business keeps going without you.

3: Scale up

In this phase, you get to do the fun things that really move the needle.

Maybe you hire a team of sales people.

Or you start adding new products and services.

Or you start going into different markets.

Whatever it is, in stage 3 you take what's working, and you put a turbo on that thing. More of what works!

These stages exist in each business, always, and they each have their own ingredients.

Problem is, very often we don't pay attention to which stage we're in, and which ingredients are pertinent for that - and which are the ingredients best left alone for the moment.

The consequence of using ingredients from the wrong stage?

Stress, struggle, problems, or even failure.

Why?

Because imagine you’re setting up, and you’re starting to land clients, and you’re getting your product-market fit and your USP right…

And then you decide to throw money at ads, because hey: let’s scale up!

An attractive idea, to be sure.

But also an enormous risk, because:

If you haven’t yet gone through the grow-up phase yet, with intentionality and precision, and everything isn't running super smoothly yet...

Then an influx of new clients can easily become a massive problem:

You start getting overwhelmed by the workload, the logistics, unexpected problems, your teams gets stressed out...

Next you fail to deliver on time, you end up working 14-hours a day, and suddenly the fun and success you were having dries up, and your business becomes a taxing, stressful burden.

All because you used a Scale-up ingredient, when you hadn't done any Growing-up and systemising yet. Oops.

This is why you need to be mindful of what stage your business is in, and which ingredients you need to add in, and at which time.

Never make the mistake of adding ingredients that don’t belong in the stage you’re in, because exactly that is why so many businesses fail.

So in the mini-training Stages and Ingredients of Business Growth, we're going to look at the stages, their ingredients, and how to use them correctly.

🧑‍🎓 Let's go!