Treasure Hunting in The Attic

“Dad, my friend at school told me that he has snakes, lizards, gold, and old stuff in his attic?”

Really Son?

Yes!

Huh, cool!

Dad, Can we look in our attic?

What would we find?

Probably gold n stuff.

Calvin, I doubt there’s gold in our attic.

He kept insisting, so I finally got the ladder out and let him look in our 130 degree attic.

Nothing, but insulation and trusses.

See; he figured because his friend at school told him there was all sorts of thrills in his attic, that just what was in attics.

Nothing there... “This is it?” He asked me. I said yep.

It’s 130 degrees bud, did you see everything you want to?

(I’m slightly crouched propping him up above my head, knowing my shoulders dont have more than a minute or two before I’m ready to drop)

I set him down, and he seemed disappointed.

I asked if it was what he hoped, he kind of shrugged, and said I guess not.

AND; I totally get it. I can remember being his age and wanting my attic to have all kinds of treasures like they did on Christmas Vacation.

The thing is; a lot of companies are treasure hunting in the attic.

Lack of clear strategy for growth, they’re hunting around seeking growth anywhere.

Taking on new lines of business/services that aren’t in their unique abilities.

Taking on any customer with a pulse nearly.

And then their left scratching their heads why their growth is creating so much chaos.

Or worse, hitting hitting the INC5000 list but making LESS money than the year before.

Look, it’s not okay to grow the top line revenue, but not having he bottom follow in lock step.

Typically when this happens for companies, it is a symptom of strategy not being clear nor aligned.

Here’s what I want you to do, if your revenue is up over last year, and chaos is up also along with profitability dropped, start to look at your strategy.

Is your team aligned around the same simple strategy?

Are you having to constantly adjust tack for every new customer?

Comment below what you’ve discovered!