Expand Your Entrepreneurial Vision February 4, 2025 February 4, 2025 Tara Hoffman

The world around us is changing and if you don’t want to be left behind, you need to change, too. You can’t afford to hold onto your old ways. (The dinosaurs refused to change, and look what happened to them, and also Sears & Kodak.)

But changing is easier said than done. How do you acquire a fresh perspective? How do you open your mind to new possibilities? You start by at least considering opportunities you’d never entertain in the past. By trying to approach problems from a different angle—by venturing outside your comfort zone and taking some carefully-measured risks.

If you keep asking yourself the same questions, you’re going to keep getting the same answers. The thing to do is to tickle your brain and switch up the questions, forcing you to view your business through fresh eyes.

PRO’s Expand Your Vision Worksheet is one of our peer group’s most requested worksheets. It is also pretty intense. So be prepared to take your time, or break it into two sessions if you must. Feel free to contact Ray Silverstein at (312) 593-5133  OR  set up a zoom meeting to receive and discuss the worksheets.

https://calendly.com/ray-124/contractor-discussion-with 

The Expanding Your Vision and utilizing SWOT will help to create the necessary process for change, Identify and Avoid Organizational Growing Pains. When it comes to growing a business, is it possible to experience too much of a good thing? Yes, it is. And while you might think this would be a good problem to have, think again. Too-rapid growth is actually more dangerous to a business than no growth at all. While we tend to envy “overnight successes,” research shows that growth exceeding 25% in one year puts a business at risk of failure.

Just consider all the demands that an unexpected growth spurt would place on the various facets of your business:

Financial – Suddenly, you have big orders to fill, but not enough inventory to do so (or people-power if you’re in a service industry). Nor do you have the cash on hand to purchase what you need (or to hire who you need). Plus, getting credit is trickier these days (especially for service businesses that don’t have hard assets to offer as collateral).

Personnel – Regardless of what you sell, you’ll need more workers to push your products or services out the door. But you don’t yet have the dollars needed to meet a rapidly- expanding payroll, not to mention the acquisition costs of bringing on new employees. Speaking of which, you’ll be so busy, you won’t have the time to make wise hires or train your newbies properly.

Morale – Because you’re short-staffed, your employees are constantly under the gun. Even dedicated workers can only give so much for so long before they start to burn out.

Workflow – If you don’t have adequate technology and processes in place when business explodes, what you do have will short circuit. Now you have a new fire to put out, and even less will get done.

The bottom line is: orders will go unfilled, and service will suffer. Customers will lose patience and walk. And remember, business that’s lost due to service issues is very hard to win back. Picture a tiny, start-up restaurant that unexpectedly receives a great review from a trendy food critic. Suddenly, it needs five or six

servers to wait on the nightly crowds, but it only has four on staff. Service plummets; waiting time skyrockets…and unless management makes some quick fixes, soon it will only need three servers.

Manage Potential Growing Pains

You may think this will never happen to your business, but it may be sneaking up on you, on a smaller scale, already. So keep a pulse on your activity and plan ahead. Build on your strengths, shore up your weaknesses, and attend to these key areas now:

Financial – Lay the groundwork for acquiring credit in advance. Develop a relationship with your banker. Build a good credit history. Study your numbers and get them to a healthy place.

Personnel – Always know who your next hires may be. Think of your workforce as a major/minor league system. If you’re continuously scouting for talent, you’ll be halfway there when it’s time to hire. Also identify who is not working out and where either additional training is required or possibly a change must be made.

Morale – Nurture it always. Build good communication habits with your employees. And remember, a little personal appreciation goes a long way. Don’t always look for what’s wrong, sometimes look for what’s right!

Workflow – No one wants to incur the expenses of upgrades until they’re absolutely needed. But every new system has learning curves to master and bugs to work out, so who can afford to wait until crunch time arrives?

Is your business suffering from growing pains? Why not make the situation easier for yourself by consulting with someone who’s been there and done that ….many times. Contact Ray Silverstein at (312) 593-5133  OR  set up a zoom meeting to discuss your specific business needs https://calendly.com/ray-124/contractor-discussion-with