Grow Your Business and let us help

The beauty of small business is the diversity of small business. You might own a small boutique retail shop, manufacture furniture, or operate an eCommerce website. This diversity sends a message that business growth is different across the small business landscape. The truth is, successful growth principles and stages are the same! The truth about growth doesn't change, only the scale does.

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You become a business owner when you are in business—you are in business when you have a customer. Another term for customer is market. Marketing (i.e., customering) is therefore paramount in this stage! Can you get enough customers? Are you able to deliver your products and services? Can you do it well enough to prove your business model is viable? Some other key questions and factors in this stage:

You got that first customer! Yay! Can it scale? How many more people out there are like that first customer (think like them, believe like them, act like them, want what they want)?
"Yowzer!" You're doing the math and realizing the cost of running a start-up is expensive! You need capital! Where is the money coming from? Is there enough? When will you become profitable?
Sadly, most businesses do not come out of this stage. Here is the main reason: the start-up capital runs out! This is a key statistic Pathway Coaches want to reduce. We want you to move onto #2, and making sure money doesn't run out is the key. Let's talk about how to invest those profits back into the business, how to boot strap, and how to use your capital to move you forward!

At this point, you've shown your business can hack it! Well done! You've got customers: repeat and new. Your customers are really happy with your product/service! Now is the time to shift your focus—shift, not remove—from marketing to economics. This is a hard shift. Marketing cannot disappear, because remember, business-ing is marketing. This shift is a prioritization on the connection point between marketing success (revenue) and expenses. Here are some key questions and factors in this stage:

Can we break even and continue to increase profits?
Can our profits begin to replace our start-up capital as it runs out? Can it fill what may be a deficit?
Can we generate enough cash flow to stay in business? Can that cash flow increase and help fund our growth?

You got that first customer! Yay! Can it scale? How many more people out there are like that first customer (think like them, believe like them, act like them, want what they want)?
"Yowzer!" You're doing the math and realizing the cost of running a start-up is expensive! You need capital! Where is the money coming from? Is there enough? When will you become profitable?
Sadly, most businesses do not come out of this stage. Here is the main reason: the start-up capital runs out! This is a key statistic Pathway Coaches want to reduce. We want you to move onto #2, and making sure money doesn't run out is the key. Let's talk about how to invest those profits back into the business, how to boot strap, and how to use your capital to move you forward!

This is a fun stage of business. The stage you've been waiting for! Your business is rockin' and rollin', your customer base is growing, your brand has advocacy in the market, and your starting to think your small-medium sized business (SMB) is starting to look a lot more like an enterprise. This is awesome! Your priority in this stage is to decide. Is this the promised land and you are content to stay? Are you hungry for more and looking to expand? Were you approached by an investor and considering a sale? Here are some key questions and factors in this stage:

What do you want to do? Use the capital you've built from this success to start and launch a new business? Retire and buy that lake house? Get more plugged in with your community and serve in a volunteer role or political office?
Do you like where things are at? Can your company maintain in this stage through economic uncertainty and market changes?
Are you hungry for more? Do you want to take-off on a rocket ship? If so, you better ensure you've delegated responsibility to a really talented team, and have significant cash to survive the stretching demands of high growth.

This stage is not for everyone. Do you want to take-off on a rocket ship? If so, you better ensure you've delegated responsibility to a really talented team, and have significant capital to survive the stretching demands of high growth. This is your focus: delegation and capital. Here are some key questions and factors in this stage:

Do you trust your team, and can you personally remove yourself, to improve the managerial effectiveness of the enterprise?
How large are your cash reserves and how willing are you to erode them?
What is your tolerance for a high debt-equity ratio?

This stage is critical when you decide to take-off. If you can rise to the challenge, both managerially and financially, you will become a large business (an enterprise). There are a lot of businesses who try to move from Stage 3 to Stage 4 ... and, fail. If you try to grow too fast, you will run out of cash. If you try to maintain "I'm the CEO/owner" control and/or fail to delegate effectively, you will fail. Failure might be detrimental, or a return to Stage 3.

There is a humorously scary dichotomy in this stage. What brought you here is your entrepreneurial spirit; what keeps you here is your entrepreneurial spirit. Yet, all too often, the mega-enterprise becomes hard-minded, ridged, and a new more entrepreneurial-spirited and more flexible competitor overtakes your market share and you cannot catch up. Your focus—or, if you have separated yourself completely, the business' focus—is on maintaining an entrepreneurial culture. This is where innovation comes from. This is where adaptation comes from. This is forward-looking and forward-thinking. Here are some key questions and factors in this stage:

How do you expand your leadership and management team fast enough to keep up with your growth?
Is the business prepared and able to quickly remove inefficiencies?
Are your complex systems, advanced processes, highly talented management team, restricting the entreprenurial spirit you must protect?

You (the business) versus You (the owner/founder)

What stage are you in? Depending on your stage of growth—really the stage of your business—your growth needs, plans, and goals differ. Let's look at each!

When you're brand new, it's you! You are the business! Things are pretty simple, because you the owner is the business—fully in it, doing it all. You are supplying everything: energy to grow the business, direction on where to take it, and capital. You're in the thick of it, but it probably feels like a toddler does wearing adult sized clothing.

When you're surviving, you are likely being supported by a key employee of two (e.g. sales manager or foreman). These key employees do not make the key decesions—you do. Instead, these key employees are working to complete your instructions/goals through their expertise. Therefore, it is important that you give clear instructions and allow their expertise to help you refine specific business goals.

When you're succeeding, you've approached an intersection as the founder/owner. A lot of businesses stay here in #3 because the owner does not desire to grow further. In that case, the eclipse image might look more like #4. For those who do want to take off on a rocket ship, there is a critical and hard change to make. You the owner needs to begin to remove yourself and entrust high caliber functional managers with specific expertise (e.g. operations, marketing, finance). Your job is not to be involved in or the expert of every function anymore—your job is to now allow your experts to lead their functions.

You cannot take off on a rocket ship unless you get out of the way. In order to really take-off, you (the founder/owner) need to focus on two key areas: delegation and cash. You must delegate responsibility to your team so they can increase the effectiveness of your business which will be resource drained as you take-off. Remember, delegation is a vulnerable trust in your team. Do not fall into the trap of not continuing to build that trust further enabling your team to operate and achieve your vision. This stage of growth is going to challenge the business resources. Your awareness and tolerance for changing cash flow and debt-equity ratios is paramount.

You've arrived! Your team is large and incredibly talented, you've got great operating leverage ... but, your work is not done (or, is it)! What are your goals? Are you going to retire? Have you been approached about an acquisition or merger? If your goal and hope is to continue your work, you'll want to focus on two well-developed strengths you have by this point: 1) entrepreneurial companies thrive because they're innovative and your job is to now foster that entrepreneurial culture and continue innovating, and 2) your strategic abilities by this point are at their best and as you look beyond the present you will line up strengths and weaknesses with your goals.

Prepare For Growth

Pathway wants to help educate you and your business about—and provide you with the right—capital to help you through your specific stage of growth. From cash flow to investors to loan programs, there are a lot of capital solutions to help you grow. Term loans, equipment loans, and commercial real estate loans are a few growth capital lending solutions we see across the growth stages. Do you think one of these lending solutions might be right for you?

Loan Readiness Quiz

Term Loans

Need to bolster your cash on-hand ahead of planned growth? Projected cash needs impacted by sudden growth stage transition?

Equipment Loans

Need to upgrade your equipment to keep up with the demands of growth? Adding equipment to fuel growth?

Commercial Real Estate Loans

Ready to invest in your own building? Want to refinance and take some equity out as cash?

Share your growth strategy with a Pathway coach

Pathway coaches are experts in their field—former executives, CPA's, and more with expertise ranging from accounting to sales & marketing. We're ready to help you and your business start and grow!

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Grow Your Business and let us help

You (the business) versus You (the owner/founder)

Prepare For Growth

Share your growth strategy with a Pathway coach

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