The Growth Phase

If you’re in the Growth Phase

Only 4%  of all businesses that exist in America make it to the Growth Phase, so you are already in elite company!

Key areas you should focus on as you grow

In the growth phase, the business owner’s primary role is to oversee work being done by others. Though the business owner often maintains a significant role in business development, it’s critical that they move out of the service delivery role.

Raising Prices
Team Performance
Budgeting and KPIs
Hiring

Articles created to help you through the Growth

In the start-up phase, the business owner’s primary role is to ultimately how to make consistent money. You’re learning the fundamentals so you can do them well later.

How to “graduate” from the Growth Phase

There are three steps to “graduating” from the growth phase:

  1. The business must hone its message and service to focus on one core customer and one signature service offering.
  1. Second, the business must invest in more complex systems to manage and measure the work being done so you can lead by looking at the numbers more than your gut.
  1. Third, the business must start to develop a functional middle-management team to free the founder from managing any department or being involved in service delivery.

Key characteristics of businesses in the Growth phase

  • They have settled on their product-market fit, and are optimizing their systems to sell a specific service to a specific ideal customer. Knowing the needs of that customer, the growth business hones its message and its service to be more specific, more repeatable, and more profitable.  The core task in the growth phase is to become more scalable. 
  • The team is expanding to include more experienced and capable team members. At this stage, the business owner is looking for team members who are better at the tasks they are hiring them for than the business owner is. 
  • The primary role of the employees is to support the business owner. They are hired to do tasks and perform roles delegated by the business owner. 
  • The primary challenge that the growth stage business has to overcome is moving from a culture of flexibility, where everyone is responsible for a number of different things, to a culture of accountability. 

How to “graduate” from the growth phase

You must achieve three primary developmental tasks.

Yes, to get to the growth phase you have to have found your product-market fit, but in the growth phase, we continue to tweak our message and our offering. Focusing down even more on one core customer, and one signature service offering. Achieving this focus can be challenging, but it’s a must to get to rapid growth. 

Second, the business must invest in more complex systems (CRM, Project Management, ERP, etc.) to manage and measure the work being done and you need to start to lead by looking at the numbers more than your gut. This is a very difficult transition, many business owners don’t learn this skill!

Third, the business must start to develop a functional middle-management team. This means that there are “grown-ups” leading each of the functional departments in the company. This transition begins in the growth phase and usually isn’t completed until the stabilization phase. Still, the goal is that the founder is no longer directly managing a department nor involved in service delivery.

In the growth phase, the business owner’s primary role is to oversee work being done by others. Though the business owner often maintains a significant role in business development, it’s critical that they move out of the service delivery role. By handing over the service delivery the business owner gains autonomy and is able to reduce their work hours, and take more time away from the business.

If you choose, you can invest that time into further growth as you enter the stabilization phase. Learn more about the Stabilization Phase.

Learn more about
The Growth Phase

Get a full PDF with a detailed description of the Growth Phase, including the most important things to focus on in as you transition to the expansion phase.

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