Scaling Up Business with Bill Gallagher 067: Ron Carucci - The 3 Biggest Pitfalls of Growing Your Company
Is your company expanding and growing quickly? Usually, when a company grows but does not have the right systems in place, the organization rapidly feels the extra pressure and it often causes serious blocks in the chain. How do you avoid it? Well, this week’s guest is a fellow coach and has seen time and time again the top biggest three pitfalls that occur in a rapidly growing company.
Ron Carucci is a consultant with more than 25 years of experience working directly with CEOs and senior executives. He has consulted for a wide range of organizations — everything from Fortune 50s to startups. His consulting has taken him to more than 20 different countries on four continents. On today’s show, Ron discusses the three top biggest constraints a growing company faces.
Ron is a recent empty nester, and Bill is just months away from having an empty home as well. As these two parents see their children grow up, there is a common theme that can be directly linked to business — growth and change produce unsettling moments. The old ways of doing things just don’t apply anymore. The reality is, no matter where you are in life, you still have to reinvent and adjust to the new changes that are coming your way.
Ron repeatedly sees three very common pitfalls into which organizations have dug themselves. One of them is that they have grown, but they have not scaled. For example, an 80-million-dollar company trapped in the body of a 20-million-dollar organization. No one has ever told these organizations that scaling up requires growing up.
As Ron begins his work, he sees companies putting pieces and systems together on a whim and they usually do not have a long-term game plan. All they’re doing is just trying to fix the leaks, and, of course, this method is not sustainable. The company ends up losing identity as well as vision.
The first question Ron asks his clients is, “What is your strategy?” Often times, he’ll get handed a mission statement, a value statement, a financial plan, a sales forecast — everything but a strategy. For many of his clients, they are unable to answer why they’re better than their competitors and why customers should choose them over the next guy. If you cannot answer this, then it means you do not know who you are or what your company represents.
And, if you do not know who you are and what your company represents, this means that you do not know who is leading the charge. For many clients, they find out that they do not have an identity, do not have a long-term game plan, and do not have strong leadership.
However, the good news is that all three of these pitfalls are completely avoidable! You avoid this by setting your identity, your intentions, your strategies, and what clients you will say “no” to, at the very beginning of the organization. This helps you build a strong foundation and you will find yourself not having to struggle to fix those leaks.
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