This is a guest post from Jim Adams, founder of American Landscape Structures which specializes in building pavilions and other outdoor structures. Jim’s work is especially noteworthy because he grew ALS from $1M to over $5M in annual revenue during the pandemic lockdown from 2020-2021.
Jim was also featured on episode 259 on my podcast: Struggling to Scale? Know Your Numbers.
As a consultant and fellow business owner, my goal is to guide entrepreneurs through the “This Sucks” stage to feeling confident as they scale.
Each business and each business owner are different. But of the literally hundreds of entrepreneurs that I’ve worked with over the last 30+ years there are distinct patterns, specifically among the ones that are struggling. The good news is that if you know what’s holding you back, you can overcome those challenges.
If you’re not sure what’s in your way, here are three common obstacles that may be stopping you from growing.
1. You’re stuck playing small.
You got your business off the ground being great at one or possibly a few things, but you can’t be great at everything. There’s stuff you absolutely suck at and hate doing. You know you need to build a team around you and you have tried before, but it never seems to work out.
The problem is that as your team gets bigger, instead of them taking the load off your shoulders, they cause even more drama and fires.
2. You have gaps in the six key areas of business.
You start out in business by getting work, then getting it done. You’re off and running. But things get complicated. The more your business grows, and the more “success” you have, the more your lack of mastery will cost you.
There are six key areas that every business owner needs at least a basic understanding, if not mastery. And if you’re not an expert in one of these areas, as your business grows you need to bring in experts in:
- Sales
- Operations
- Finance
- Organization / Systems
- Personnel
- Marketing
The biggest problem with gaining business mastery is: Where do you even start?
Which leads to the third hidden cost stopping you from growing…
3. You don’t know which of the four types of business owners you are.
We all have blindspots as business owners. Maybe it’s being too tight with spending, or too loose. Too controlling. Too trusting. Too *insert yours here*…
If you want to move forward, a proper diagnosis of your business and an increased understanding of who you are will save you a ton of wasted time, and help you find the best solutions for where and who you are right now.
The best place to start is knowing more about yourself. With that information, the other challenges (like how to grow your team or what steps to take next) will get easier.
From my experience, there are four types of business owners…
1. Gunslingers are great at sales, but tend to be impulsive and make decisions by the seat of their pants.
2. Mechanics are great at business operations, but they tend to think “word of mouth” advertising is all they need which rarely generates enough sales.
3. Goalies have their systems down and are very efficient, but need absolute certainty before making decisions. They often miss massive opportunities that are impossible to measure.
4. Unicorns are the total package. Their teams have all six areas of mastery covered, but they don’t start off that way.
As a Gunslinger myself, I quickly grew sales of American Landscape Structures to seven figures our second year in business, selling mostly pavilions for outdoor kitchens and living areas.
A few years back I bought into the vision of our customers being able to visualize a pavilion in their backyards. When I say “I bought into it,” I mean I was super excited and absolutely convinced this was going to be a gold mine. I was all in.
Long story short, because we missed one critical step in the development process, we ended up shelving the project after a $32,000 investment. We had countless hours invested on top of the money and no results to show for it.
If you want to skip the tuition like what I’ve paid from my mistakes, I highly recommend you figure out what type of business owner you are.
If you want to do that right now, I have a free quiz that will help you. It only takes 10 minutes, and you get the results immediately after, including my recommendations for your best next steps.