In our last conversation, we talked about The U-Curve, the predictable path that business profits take as your business grows from “just you” to “you and your team.” The most important feature of the U-Curve is the flat bottom. That’s the zone where profits are slim, growth is hard, and a lot of entrepreneurs stall out. One of the indicators of entrepreneurial success is to move through that flat bottom of the U-Curve quickly.  But what if you found yourself stuck in that dreaded flat-zone, where margins are low, sales growth is a slog, and you’re thinking “there must be a better way”? 

If that’s you, there are two things you need to do right away. 

The way to get unstuck is to start down the wrong path, right now. ~Seth Godin

You have to change.  You can’t get a radically different result without doing something fundamentally different. When money is scarce, and growth is hard, it makes us scared, and scared brains don’t like risk and change. But that’s what you need to do. You can’t just keep grinding it out; it’s a slow, hard road with poor financial rewards. 

A man is rich in proportion to the number of things he can afford to let alone. ~David Thoreau

When you find yourself struggling to see growth, and enduring low margins; complexity is your enemy. The more products you offer, the more customers you serve, the more markets you have to keep up with, the harder your growth is going to come and the more it’s going to cost you. So if you are wondering what change you need to make…

Simplify. 

• What if you could only serve one ideal customer?
• What if you could only deliver one product or service?
• What if you could only use one software system for managing your team?

Do you see? All that complexity is fear talking to you. Managing the complexity keeps you comfortable. It keeps you safe. It keeps you stuck. What can you simplify? What can you try that scares you? That’s the road to getting unstuck.