Grow Better Not Bigger

You’ve probably been told over and over that your business has to grow or you are a failure. I’ve been to umpteen networking events were a large chunk of the biz owners get up and say, “I want to grow my business.” Yet, it’s never defined what that means or how the biz owner or his/her clients will benefit.

And if you’ve worked at a corporation — especially a publicly traded company — that company has been told it has to grow or it is deemed a failure. The irony is that most of those businesses fail BECAUSE they followed that mantra.

They expanded to meet demand and lost sight of their own values as well as the warm/collaborative relationship they had with their clients. Then they hit the proverbial growth wall and begin the painful contraction, laying off folks, shutting down buildings, etc. When a company retreats it tends to lose the verve and self-confidence it had during its early years.

Then they do start to feel like a failure. Much of business is psychological, if you lose your mental edge, you lose everything.

So, how do you do that? (more…)