You Can’t Grow Because You Can’t Afford To Grow

You Can’t grow because you can’t afford to grow and you have to grow to create the money, hire the people, and do the bigger things so you can afford to grow. It’s a classic circular stall.

Your Transition Point

What does a transition point look like? How do I know what to plan for?

Transition points are the place in your business where you realize you can’t…

–          do any more business,

–          handle any more clients,

–          manufacture any more product,

–          deliver any more services,

–          Etc.

… because you need more resources. These are the resources you cannot afford at the current level.

This is the most misunderstood key to growth. Working to pay for a bigger business and do more sales that you cannot manage without more investment, which you cannot afford without more sales is a dangerous slippery mindset. Growth happens in these three steps:

1. Invest
2. Implement
3. Grow

That means that your transition point happens at the investment stage. You must accept that investment, whether more money or time, or both is your first step.

I find that most business owners are stuck at a specific level because they do not have more time or more money. In the words of The Oracle from the movie The Matrix, “Bingo. It is a pickle. No doubt about it.”

Here are the places I look for resources in my business and for my clients. There are thousands. If you start down this mindset of “how can I…” instead of “when I can…” then opportunities will start finding you.

Finding Resources

1. Look for ways of breaking up the goal of your transition into smaller tasks. Starting now with a smaller investment can lead to more resources to use for the next step. For a client of mine this meant strategically getting her product to a new market at least 6 months earlier than planned without all the ‘bells and whistles’ and it gave her more income for her next steps of branding, new packaging, and a new kitchen.
2. Hire for non-skilled work first. If you are doing work in your business that can be hired-out at a low rate, something that only requires minimal training, then you can free up some of your time resources to put into your transition.
3. Automate and create systems. This will also free up time for you and the people working for you. If you do anything manually that can be handled by a free or inexpensive app or software then look into making that happen first.
4. Look at what else you can sell or who else you can sell to, based on what you currently offer. Examples like:
   • A different package size
   • A different market location
   • A different distribution site
   • Deliver online electronically instead of in-person
5. Can you give someone commission to sell your products? If your products are online then offer an affiliate commission and get your products into new hands. If someone else is doing the sales or some of these sales then you have more time.

The key to these strategies is that they either create more income or save you time that you can put towards your transition. Taking a smaller step will cost you significantly less than going right for your next big step, freeing up capital and time for your big growth steps.

Don’t put off growth for later or it will likely never happen. You must always be in growth mode working towards your transition points.