The 3 Hidden Dangers to Scaling Up

I became a CEO Coach with Gazelles in 2010, teaching entrepreneurs how to implement and use the power of Scaling Up in their businesses.

By 2013, I was doing almost a million dollars in coaching. I remember the money was great, and I felt a huge amount of satisfaction from my work. One of the greatest things was to see my clients’ faces light up when they saw how things would change when they implemented the ideas from Scaling Up.

But there were two big problems.

For one, during that year I had spent over 250 nights away from home in hotels. The work required a lot of travel and I knew that was simply not sustainable.

Secondly, every time I worked on implementing the Scaling Up concepts for my clients, I noticed that they were missing certain elements that were critical to their success with the program. So I would give my clients some additional reading material to cover – books like Topgrading, Hyper Sales Growth, Exponential Organizations and others. 

Except those books would almost never get picked up. Most of my clients rarely read them and gave excuses that they didn’t have the time. This is understandable. Entrepreneurs and CEOs – these are people with very little free time on their hands. 

I decided to try a different approach. I thought - why read a book for six to ten hours when you can get the insights in 10% of the time? So I created a database of the most important insights in a video format that allowed entrepreneurs and their teams to watch or listen to the content instead. 

That was the beginning of what has now become the 4-part method I developed to help companies scale faster and easier. This method eventually evolved into Growth Institute and the training we provide to executives all over the world. 

We’ve adjusted our services here and there over the years – but the core struggle for our clients has always remained the same. 

In spending half my lifetime helping companies and their leaders grow, I’ve experienced many times the challenge all business owners struggle to overcome – scaling and growth. 

Everybody wants it for their business – but not many can conquer it. Scaling is a time of tremendous change in an organization. If you manage to do it, you’re profitable and your biggest problems might be behind you. 

Or it could go the other way. 

There are 3 hidden dangers in growing and scaling your business which most companies don’t even realize are coming.

Many coaching, consulting, and mentoring programs tell you they specialize in helping you to “scale your business,” but they aren’t aware of (or don’t address) these problems either.

You can lose a ton of money and time if you don’t plan for it, or work with the right people that can help you with it.

In fact, not preparing for the ripple effect of rapid growth in advance can create other problems to deal with, and even end up slowing your growth in the end. So let’s take a clear look at what to expect if you really want to grow and scale up quickly.

Danger #1: More Drama

When you finally grow and scale your business, it can actually create more drama within the team.

Things won’t work as they did before, because with growth comes the need for new processes and more employees that need to be managed. That can only be good if you’re prepared for the onslaught of change and confusion coming your way. 

Your people and systems need to adjust as you scale, so you want to be prepared to adjust as quickly and keep things running smoothly.

If you ignore the possibility of increased drama and don’t address it head-on, you will be slowing your growth and even slide backward.

Danger #2 More Work

No matter how excited you are about learning and implementing new methods, you'll ultimately end up having to do most of that work yourself if your team is not on board with all of it from day one.

There’s nothing worse than ‘reverse delegation’ — when you put out a task or project, your team ends up giving you back twice the work.

The truth is, if you don’t invest in educating and training your team — along with yourself — you end up with massive pushback and a lack of understanding of the new models you are learning and implementing.

Creating a system for implementation requires a different way of thinking and operating. For this, we use the Who, What, When (WWW) tool from Verne Harnish’s Scaling Up.

First, you want to identify the key items and tasks to be completed and itemize them.

Next, you want to create a diagram of this itemized list so it can be replicated by another person or department handling the task.

Finally, you clearly communicate the who, what, and when to complete the task, plan, or project.

This helps you create a team empowered to take action, implement, and create results — while avoiding ‘reverse delegation’.

Danger #3 More Cost

I've said it this many times, because it so often proves to be true. It's the first thing you'll learn when you begin scaling.

Growth sucks cash.

If you don’t have the right people and tools in place, all of your growth can end up costing you a lot of money just to maintain the status quo. As you grow the company and introduce new people to your cash cycle - that cycle tends to get longer and - I like to say - dumber. With so many hands involved in this cycle it's going to take a lot longer for you to get your money back.

Have you heard the saying, ‘What got you here won’t get you there’?

Well, you can’t have rapid growth in your company with the same tools that got you to this point either. If you ignore this danger, you'll end up paying a hefty price.

Scaling companies is an undertaking filled with dangers and opportunity. Luckily, you don't have to go at it alone.

Consult the Growth Institute blog for case studies and tools you can use to apply to your own scaling process. You'll find tools to help you nail down your strategy onto one page, automate time-consuming tasks, and foster organizational alignment.

Did this article resonate with you? What would you say are the biggest dangers to scaling a business?