Every business goes through some ups and downs and some growing pains along the way, but even a successful business that’s growing at a brisk pace will come against a mighty force at some point in its history. This powerful force has slowed the progress of ambitious businesses and crushed many under its weight. It’s called the plateau.
The plateau is that point where you get in your business that you just can’t seem to get past. You may have been growing in the past, but now you’re at a point that you just can’t break through. Many business owners, especially contractors who are already stretched thin, stagnate at this point. They lose their momentum, and slowly their company crumbles. However, with the right mixture of determination and planning, you can break through the plateau stage and reach an even higher level of success.
Every company faces these plateaus, big and small. To push past them, you have to understand a little about what causes these plateaus to creep up on you.
Dependence on People
One of the big obstacles that cause plateaus is a dependence on people. You know it’s hard to find good people, and that very factor will limit a company’s growth. Good technicians, good supervisors, good managers and office staff are very hard to find and keep all at one time. So if your company is lacking in one of these areas, it will be harder to continue your growth.
Stretching Too Thin
For an owner, running a business can be exhausting, especially in the contracting industry. Dealing with people issues and customers, performing sales and marketing duties, handling taxes, training and recruiting are just a handful of the hats the average business owner will be wearing at any given time.
Everything and everyone in the company has to be good, so for an owner it’s tough. He always finds himself at the breach in the dike, and as a result he loses a lot of time putting out fires. There is always adversity, and that adversity combined with a limited amount of time to deal with it can set up the plateau.
How does the average business owner overcome a plateau and take the business to the next level?
You have to start by changing your thinking, and you have to change the thinking of your team. Goals have to be set. Everyone needs to think outside of the box, and think outside of the business barriers that seem to be holding you back. In short, beating a plateau depends on change.
That’s a problem because people hate change. When you decide to grow your business to a higher level, only the strong will survive because change will be necessary.
You can ease the anxiety of change by developing a viable and workable plan that can be laid out, but all of your staff needs to understand and accept that plans change when conditions dictate. They can’t moan and groan when there is a change of plan or when you need to adapt. There are variables that will demand flexibility.
Everyone needs to be strong when breaking through barriers, and everyone needs to be on board. If you have doubters on board, you will ultimately have to get rid of them because they poison the well. Leaving them in the company is like leaving a saboteur in your midst. They sow dissent and kill morale with their negativity. Clean house slowly but surely, keeping those who are positive and loyal to you, the cause and the goal.
Certain people have personalities that require structure and everything to be in place before a plan is carried out. These people will be your biggest headache because you cannot always have structure before a plan is carried out. You cannot wait for all the lights to be green before you get going, or you will be frozen. All the lights will never be green and your team needs to understand that. People who need structure will squeal and whine when you change course from the original plan because they will not be comfortable with experimenting or testing ideas.
Make the decision that you want to break through the plateau, inform your team, and then prepare them for the challenge and the ride of their lives. As the leader, you have to be both a motivating force and the steady captain at the helm guiding the ship through the stormy waters of change. It takes a while and causes some excitement, but then you break through.
The important thing to realize is that when you think your company can’t grow anymore or can’t beat the obstacles you’re facing, you just have to push through.
When you do though, be ready for things to get tougher. Everyone’s job changes, from the CEO to the people answering the phones. It’s not the same company anymore. It’s bigger, and bigger brings on new problems. Everyone stretches and groans with new loads. Profitability decreases at first because expenses go up to accommodate a bigger infrastructure and overhead. Marketing expenses in particular go up to make sure you have enough business.
With all of that, one of the biggest threats to your success will be supervision and training to ensure that you maintain quality work in the field and the office. This part is very dangerous in the growth of a business. You can do a lot of bad work and the call-backs and warranty work will kill you later. Some companies may even be put out of business with an increase in call-backs because owners and managers stop performing adequate quality control.
All of that’s not to say that you shouldn’t bust through the plateau and build an even more powerful business. As a contractor, you know there’s a lot to think about in running a successful business, but when you get your team firing on all cylinders simultaneously, you’ll create the force needed to break through even the toughest plateau.