Ready = Growth But Growing ≠ Ready

Let’s start with an analogy. Let’s say you want to build a beautiful new garden; a garden that will rival that enviable garden your neighbour has created.

1.  You start with an idea
   • The shape of the garden
   • The location of the garden
   • Which favourite plants you want in it
   • The type of garden (e.g. vegetable, ornamental, perennial, raised-bed, herb, native, rock, etc.)
2. You create a plan
   • What will you need (plants, tools, dirt, rock, wood, etc.)?
   • What timeline will you need to make the garden happen?
   • What skills or help will you need?
   • Determine whose help you will need (e.g. when will your kids be around to help shovel?)
   • How much time will it take (a few hours, weekend, summer, etc.)?
   • Then build your schedule – write it out.
   • Determine what it will cost.
3. Start your work
   • Get your team involved (your family, or gardening contractors). Give them their duties and timelines.
   • Clear the site and define the edges
   • Buy needed items (like soil, seed, plants, tools, etc.)
   • Receive the new soil load and shovel it out
   • Fertilize the soil
   • Seed (if starting from seed) or plant your new plants
   • Water and weed healthy, growing plants
4. Monitor and baby the new garden because the plants need to take hold of their new setting before they can grow and you can get the garden you dreamt of.

Ready = Grow  – You need to get ready for all that needs to happen to create the desired garden if you want it to take hold and grow.

Now let’s look at the opposite way.

• You want a garden but you do not get ready.
• You plant items in a location that is not suitable for the plant.
• You don’t have the tools you need so you continuously need to run to the store to pick things up.
• You don’t prepare the soil, which becomes evident in a few days, with sad, dying plants.
• You see the garden as ‘complete’, long before it is mature, and stop babying the growth, also resulting in sad, dying plants.
• The garden never looks the way you wanted it to.

Yes, you get a garden. Yes there will be some things that will grow and some that will not. There will be things you didn’t want growing in the garden and they may even take over the plants you did want to see grow. On top of this, it will be extra work to maintain the garden when trying to get to the garden of your dreams. AND, more importantly, it will not rival that enviable garden your neighbour had created. It will not mature into a garden that others want to copy.

This is not a ‘bad’ garden, it is just more work and not what you wanted or needed.

Being ready to grow your business has the same challenges if you do not prepare.

• Some services or products you have will take, and some will not.
• Maintaining the business will be more work for you, because you don’t have a team that can do what you do.
• Your ideas don’t take hold with your team. Some people will help start the growth and make it work, some will not bother, and some may even stop it from happening.
• You won’t have the business you dreamt of, and it won’t be enviable by others, especially not future owners.

If you want a garden (business) that is beautiful (runs the way you want), is growing, and matures into something that is enviable (valuable to others) you need to be ready to grow now.

Saleable ‘Gardens’ don’t Plant Themselves.

Do you want to discuss what it would take to “build your garden” (prepare your business)? Book a time with Barb to start this conversation.

“This article is 100% original content – The articles you read in this newsletter are created by Barb Stuhlemmer, not by AI,