ENTREPRENEUR SUCCESS MYTHS DEBUNKED #1 - FOCUSING ON GROWING YOUR BUSINESS IS THE SMARTEST PATH TO MAXIMIZING BUSINESS SUCCESS?

Have you heard (maybe a thousand times) that focusing on running and growing your business will lead to success? If you’ve been told or have become sold on that mantra, then I’ve got important news for you. Advice like that might be the number one reason your business isn’t more successful. 

In this article, I’m going to share with you the NEW TRUTH about business success. Not only will I explain why the old thinking of “business growth” is so flawed, but I will give you information and data that can get you on a faster and better track to achieving the highest level of business success. The new measurement is “how much wealth you create in your company”. 

WHY THE “BUSINESS GROWTH” FOCUS IS A MYTH

For hundreds of years, the secret to business success was to “grow your business” and make it bigger. The faster your business grew, or the bigger it became, was how business success was measured. Getting more clients, more contracts, more products and services, more employees, more transactions were the holy grail of a successful business. You were told the more you focused on growth, the closer you would be to making a fortune with business income or selling your business for a higher valuation. 

However, our working with thousands of business leaders has proven that faster business growth, getting bigger, or even adding more customers doesn’t come close to optimizing a business for success or making the most money possible. 

The main reason for the “business growth path” becoming a myth is because it’s measurable and feels good. I can’t tell you how many entrepreneurs and leaders publicly brag, saying things like, “We had our best year in growth ever last year,” or excitedly share something like, “Our company grew at 30% year over year.” Yes, those sound good, but on the inside of their company, things are a mess profit-wise. I just heard the other day of a business where the owner was grumbling that many of the key employees had left to join a competitor when a few months earlier they touted achieving a robust 40% growth rate.

IF BIGGER IS NOT BETTER, IS BETTER BETTER? (SORRY I HAD TO WRITE THAT)

You might be thinking the answer must be not to focus on a BIGGER business but a BETTER business, right? Well, that thinking will still not guarantee your company is on the path to optimizing success either. Nine out of ten business leaders and entrepreneurs who have focused on building not just bigger, but better companies too, are still struggling with too little cash on hand, inconsistent cash flow, and no working capital. They’re working their butts off but are still broke. 

The new measurement that our most successful clients have proven to optimize their business (make millions of extra in profits faster) is to stop focusing on “growing their business” and start focusing on “optimizing profitable revenue growth.” Or in other words, “make the most money while using the fewest resources doing it,” and then scaling that competency over time. In other words, each year generating a higher ratio of revenue from different company assets. I have coined this approach of making the most sales, revenue, and profits using the fewest resources as “creating business wealth.” “Business wealth” is the money left over after expenses, after reinvesting, after everything – even after giving back to your community and charities is covered. It’s the net-net. 

WHY DOES THE “GROW YOUR BUSINESS IS SUCCESS” MYTH PERSIST?

One of the biggest reasons the “business growth” path to success remains a myth is because of the over-glorification of companies whose business models are based on ”burn the profits” explosive growth. These “land grabbing” ventures (Uber, Amazon, Airbnb, etc.) and their investors know they only have short windows to dominate a market, or hundreds of other competitors will seize their space and destroy their valuation. 

Only about 1% of our clients have the “market mass” as their objective, strategic plan, and measurement. For most entrepreneurs and business leaders, market share isn’t and shouldn’t be the focus. Their focus, and probably yours, should be how to make money and not work any harder or spend another dollar doing it. Get off the “bigger company but small profits” treadmill. 

WHAT TO DO INSTEAD – YES, STOP FOCUSING ON GROWING YOUR BUSINESS

Instead of focusing on business growth to achieve great success, you and your team must focus on optimized “revenue growth.” “Revenue growth,” as I define it differently than simply a top-line objective, is “how much more revenue was generated per specific company assets.” An asset can be a client account, a contract, an offering, a salesperson, a store location, etc. You have dozens of assets in your business like this, and you must learn how to leverage each one to generate more revenue WITHOUT more effort or dollars doing it. 

CONCLUSION / RECAP

I know I might have just shattered your just-finished business plan, your mental-success model, or your goals for the year. However, I’m confident you will thank me later because your business, and hopefully, you and your employees will make a lot more money. And you won’t have to work any harder doing it. Oh yeah, and your clients will be happier too. 

WHAT TO DO NEXT TO AVOID THAT MYTH

Here is what to do next. You and your team should go to pages 3 through 9 in my new book Entrepreneur to Millionaire: How to Build a Highly Profitable Fast-Growth Company and Become Embarrassingly Rich Doing It. Read out loud and discuss the principles and differences of “Business Growth vs. Revenue Growth.” Discuss how to implement this new and more powerful roadmap to embarrassing profitability in your company starting now. And call us to discuss how we can help you accelerate your whole business into this thinking and travel the E2M Roadmap® ten to twenty times faster. 

BOOK INFORMATION

Is Your Business Growing or Creating Wealth?

       “A must-read book.” —Mark Cuban

Amazon: https://amzn.to/2WJSNYw

Kindle Edition – https://amzn.to/2Kw9cgW

Bulk Sales 25+ for 40% off www.porchlightbooks.com

AUTHOR BACKGROUND

Kent Billingsley is the founder and president of the Revenue Growth® Company, LLC (TRGC). He is a published author, international keynote speaker, and business transformation expert. He has become America’s Revenue Growth® Architect by helping thousands of entrepreneurs and CEOs (representing over a million employees) generate several billion in new sales, as well as tens of billions in new revenue and profits for large corporations. He has personally designed, built, transformed, and turbocharged several thousand organizations in 36 countries. Over the last 20 years, his proprietary content and trademarked programs have helped thousands of entrepreneurs and employees become millionaires and multimillionaires by “creating wealth” inside their companies. He can be reached at [email protected].