I’m feeling transparent this morning. So be forewarned, this one is a little personal, and a little long. This has been an interesting year in business. We finished 2017 on a high. Our highest sales to date. And an increase of nearly 6 figures in PROFITS from the year before.
One of my newfound frustrations in business is when everyone talks sales and no one talks profits. It’s highly misleading. Segue into 2018 and we were ready to scale. Or so we thought. We put the budget into marketing and hiring and we pushed forward with all of the energy and force we could. Only to hit wall after wall. Why was it so much harder this year? Why wasn’t it flowing as easily as last year? It was frustrating to say the least. And it caused us to go digging. We went digging into our numbers and metrics. And I went digging into my soul.
2018 has been one of my most challenging years in business, and one of my most fulfilling years in life. I learned a really powerful lesson. Sometimes in order to grow, you need to scale up. And other times for growth, you’ve got to scale back.
I’m dividing this post into two sections, the business lesson, and the life lesson.
The business lesson: As we analyzed our numbers, the reason we’d increased profits so significantly in 2017 is because we cut back our expenses from 2016. We were running the company in a lean and mobile manner. It was done intentionally and strategically. With the lean model, we were managing to run at 40% profits. But when we went to scale up, we increased the expenses trying to bring more people through the pipeline. The trouble was, the pipes almost all ran to me. I became the bottle neck. And I learned the hard way that we had the wrong business model to scale up.
We have a great business. We provide a great service for our clients. We provide a nice living for our family. We have always had time to focus on family and church service. We had the right team in place so I wasn’t working all the time. But I still had my hands in a lot of areas in my business. And too much of it didn’t work without me. We learned that we had essentially tapped out the current business model.
If your business is like mine, there’s nothing wrong with it. I created a business where I got to do all of the things I loved. It was a creative outlet, a service outlet, and provided well for my family. That’s a win! And if it’s what you want, stay there and celebrate. But… if you, like me still have bigger dreams then you’re going to need to make some tough changes.
I spent the 1st quarter of the year pushing for growth. Realized it was NOT working, and spent the second quarter pruning. I cut out events and programs that weren’t scalable. I cut back on projects I was investing time into that weren’t scalable. And I started peeling myself out of areas of my business where I would ultimately block our long term growth.
This strategic pruning looks just like it sounds! We’ve cut back on a lot of things that ultimately wouldn’t take us where we want to go in order to conserve the energy and resources for the parts of our business that are completely scalable. It was painful! And now comes the season of faith where you wait in hope that all the work and scale backs will create the room for new growth.
The Personal Lesson: I wish I was the kind of human that could learn a lesson once and remember it forever. I’m not. I’m more the learn the same lesson 5 times before it sticks kind of a girl. Here’s the reminder I got this year. Growth for the sake of growth is pointless and even sometimes harmful. We all have priorities that when we honor, we find the most joy and happiness in life. Mine is time, contribution, and creativity. I find so much joy serving my family and my community and building something that will help others. When I have those three things, life is good. I had structured my business to create space for those three things. And then I decided to grow it, not out of an inspired place, but out of a desire to just keep growing. And it didn’t give me more of anything that really mattered. It gave me less of the things I value most.
My ambition and my goals are not wrong. God wired me this way. He gave me a constant desire to strive and reach for just a little more for greatness. And in my lifelong pursuit of growth, my job is to make sure that I create the RIGHT type of growth. I want growth that gives me more free time. I want growth that allows me to serve more. I want growth that gives me more mornings writing and creating. Pursuing growth for the sake of growth will not bring more joy. Pursuing growth that brings you more of what you love will bring you joy.
These seasons of pruning are painful. You feel like you are being cut back. It feels like things are falling apart. Like all that growth you strived for was for nothing because here you are, letting it go. And it is EXACTLY how you create new growth! So if your business needs some pruning, take a deep breath. Have faith. And know that this isn’t a result of failure on your part. It’s you setting your company up for higher levels of success.