Simply put, your business is either growing or dying. There is no in-between.
But Brian! How can you say that when I am doing just fine coasting with my current customer base?
Sure, coasting might work for a little while, but just you wait.
Don’t believe it?
I am sharing why your business is either dying or growing.
More importantly, I am sharing how to set yourself on the path to long-term, sustainable business growth.
Go ahead and coast, but you will only:
- Feel overconfident
- Eventually lose most of your customers
- Be forced to start from scratch again
You only have two options: Grow or die. Choose wisely!
Coasting Is Deadly
So, you think you can survive by coasting?
Do you think you will survive as long as you keep doing what you are doing?
Think again.
Coasting is the precursor to business failure.
To put it simply, coasting and business death follow this equation: Coasting → comfort → complacency → losing customers → business dies.
While it feels good to coast, trust me when I say it will eventually have you scrambling to survive.
Here is why:
The Longer You Coast, the More Comfortable You Get
Business owners like the feeling of coasting because it puts them in their comfort zone.
After struggling to get their business initially afloat, it feels excellent to comfortably coast.
However, the comfort zone is deadly! The more comfortable you get, the more likely your business will die.
Why?
Because comfort eventually causes complacency.
The More Comfortable You Get, the More Complacent You Become
Comfort eventually leads to complacency.
Complacency is showing smugness or accepting results without criticizing them.
It is about accepting circumstances or results, even when they are far from positive.
However, showing smugness never does anybody well in life.
Think about it like this: Imagine sitting on the couch every weekend because it is comfortable. You begin accepting it as the status quo after many weekends on the couch.
Even though you are missing out on exercising, self-improvement, and spending time with loved ones, you are too complacent to make changes.
Complacency will keep you in a state of inaction regardless of how much it hurts you.
The More Complacent You Get, the More Customers Drop Like Flies
The more complacent you get, the more your standards slip.
Eventually, customers will see your standards falling.
Instead of turning projects in on time and ensuring customers are satisfied, you turn things in late and rarely communicate.
Do you think customers will not see your standards slipping?
Of course not.
And do you think customers will stay with you once things begin going downhill to the point they are affected?
Hell no!
Customers will not accept the complacency you choose for yourself.
The More Customers You Lose, the More Your Business Dies
Your business begins dying when sales take a dip.
That is once customers start dropping off the radar.
Existing customers will head for the nearest door instead of renewing contracts and purchasing updated products.
At the same time, potential customers will be wary of your reputation and interpret your complacency as laziness.
Thanks to coasting, you are now in a conundrum!
Coasting → comfort → complacency → losing customers → business dies.
Was it worth it?
Was the comfort of coasting worth losing your business?
Do not be fooled! Coasting is deadly!
One Day You Wake Up & Your Business Is Dead
The worst part is that most business owners do not realize how terrible coasting is.
They do not realize how bad it is until it bites them in the butt.
Again, costing is deceiving because it creates comfort. People rarely see comfort as a bad thing.
You can see how easy it is to get eaten alive by coasting.
That said, do not be the CEO who does not realize coasting is killing them until it is too late.
You Do Not Realize It Until It’s Too Late
Many business owners do not realize the consequences of coasting until it is too late.
The problem usually manifests as a sudden but brutal dip in new sales or customer satisfaction.
Suddenly, the business owner realizes that something is going terribly wrong.
Even worse, they usually do not immediately pinpoint the real problem.
For example, they will blame forces other than coasting, including:
- Shoddy marketing campaigns
- Sales team member issues
- Anything but themselves!
Instead of blaming themselves for coasting and causing the issues, they blame other forces.
Unfortunately, the problems continue to worsen the longer they blame forces other than themselves.
Meanwhile, Your Competitors Are in the Wings Waiting
Want to know who likes to see you coasting?
Your competitors!
They are diving into the game headfirst while you are coasting by.
Competitors seeing you coast is like a shark smelling blood in the water: they suddenly have a superhuman motivation to go after your customer base.
The more customers your competitors snatch from you, the harder it is to recover from a coasting stint.
Therefore, do not do your competitors the honor of coasting! It will make you weaker while emboldening them to take action.
The Path to Business Growth Instead of Dying Begins Here
From now on, the only thing that is dead is coasting.
Set the intention to never coast again by preparing yourself for long-term, sustainable business growth.
Believe it or not, the bridge between business death and consistent business growth begins with three simple steps:
- Revisiting your vision
- Paving a pathway to manifest the vision
- Letting yourself dream more
You are in the right spot if you currently find yourself coasting.
Here is how to get started on the path to sustainable, long-term business growth:
Renew Your Enthusiasm
First, think about the person you were when you first started your business.
Think about the idea that inspired you to risk it all and dive into the world of entrepreneurship.
What about the idea was so inspiring that you were willing to risk it all?
What impact did you want to have on society through starting your company?
Also known as a vision, your ultimate desired outcome is the impact or experience you create through your business. It is the idea that motivated you to start a company in the first place.
For example, Steve Jobs’s vision with Apple was to create tools to advance humankind.
Steve Jobs’s vision was not to create iPhones and iPads.
iPhones and iPads were a means of manifesting the vision.
Most entrepreneurs eventually lose sight of their vision. They get lost in the weeds and forget their purpose for doing this in the first place.
Unfortunately, losing sight of your vision is the precursor to coasting.
Without the vision at the front of your mind, enthusiasm drops and you choose to coast.
That said, reboot your enthusiasm for business by revisiting, and, more importantly, clarifying your vision.
Business growth = manifesting your vision.
Plan All the Way to the End
Next, create a strategy to manifest your vision. AKA, to get your business growing!
Think of the strategy like a blueprint for a house: It is a framework to bring your vision to life.
With a blueprint, you have a pathway or plan to reach your desired outcome.
HINT: The key to a successful blueprint is centering it around sales! Successful selling → manifest business vision → growth.
Most importantly, ensure that your blueprint takes you to the end of the road.
For example, if your business vision is to solve world hunger in the United States, create a blueprint that reflects that.
DO NOT scale back the blueprint because you think the vision is too big for you right now.
It is crucial to plan all the way to the end!
Having a blueprint keeps coasting at bay because it gives you something tangible to work towards.
Many business owners clarify their vision only to coast shortly after because they do not have a blueprint.
That said, set your vision and then plan to manifest it. Do not let having colossal visions keep you from planning to the end.
But Leave Room for Inspiration
Finally and perhaps most importantly, DO NOT forget to leave room in your business blueprint for inspiration.
I mean, do not make your blueprint so detailed that you cannot alter it as you are implementing it.
The truth is you will likely be inspired to make changes to your blueprint as you put it to work.
The last thing you want to do is not have any space in your plans to interject that inspiration.
Leaving wiggle room in your blueprint for inspiration helps keep your passion for business alive.
Having passion prevents you from entering coasting territory.
When inspiration hits, you will have space in the blueprint to interject it rather than rejecting it.
Therefore, plan to the end but leave yourself some wiggle room.
Remember, you will lose passion if there is no wiggle room.
Without passion, coasting is more likely to creep up on you.
The Sustainable, Long-Term Business Growth Game Plan
Is your vision clarified, blueprint created, and still got room for inspiration?
Here is how to put those assets to work to achieve sustainable business growth for the long haul.
Contrary to popular belief, growing your business is straightforward. Challenging? Yes, but not complex or unnecessarily strenuous.
Start growing your business or start dying!
Sales, Sales, Sales
Like I already said, sales should be central to your business blueprint.
It does not matter what kind of business you run, your product or service, or what market you are in! Business growth ALWAYS comes down to selling more in less time.
Moreover, the sales strategy IS the business growth strategy.
Focus on these key elements when crafting your sales strategy:
To nail business growth, you have to slam dunk sales.
Delegate or Die
Do you want to be stuck taking out the trash every day?
Or, do you want to focus on sales and be in the thick of the business growth process?
Of course, you want and NEED to be in the thick of growth to succeed.
However, how do you expect to take out the trash and still have time for sales?
Moreover, how do you expect to focus on marketing, HR, and cleaning out your inbox while going ham on sales?
Straight up: You cannot do everything yourself and expect to grow consistently.
Can you survive alone at first? Sure, but you will eventually need help before you crack.
Therefore, I suggest delegating anything and everything that does not have to do with sales ASAP!
I am serious when I say delegate anything that is not sales-related.
Business growth is 90% sales and 10% everything else, and you need to be all-in on sales.
Therefore, delegate or die!
Build More Robust Relationships
Selling is a matter of forming relationships.
Forming relationships is about making your customers feel like they are building something special with you.
It is about making them feel you are taking them to the next level with the help of your product or service and expertise.
From now on, put a little extra oomph into your customer relationships by putting extra effort into your expertise.
The more customers see you as an expert, the more they trust you. The more customers trust you, the stronger the relationship gets.
Therefore, focus on solidifying your expertise by:
- Focusing solely on the customer’s problems
- Understanding the customer’s vision
- Motivating the customer to think bigger
You can do many things to foster solid customer relationships.
However, the other things you do will not matter without a foundation of trust fostered through your expertise.
Take More Quality Breaks
It is typical for emotions to get out of whack during the business growth process.
Sadly, many entrepreneurs let emotions get the best of them.
Instead of putting emotions aside, they make decisions out of emotions.
Simply put: Making decisions based on emotions never does anybody good.
Therefore, keep your emotions in check by taking more high-quality breaks.
When I say take a break, I DO NOT mean sitting in front of the TV for hours while scrolling through Instagram.
Instead, I mean doing absolutely nothing to put a pause on the emotional feedback loop in your brain.
Putting a pause on the emotion loop keeps feelings in check.
You suddenly have a moment to stop, analyze emotions, and decide if they are worth acting on instead of instantly acting out of emotion.
There is nothing wrong with emotions, but trying to grow your business out of emotion is a recipe for disaster!
Connect With Other High-Power Business Owners
Finally, surround yourself with other high-power business owners who will help keep you accountable.
You can have the best plans in the world, but they will not mean anything if you do not act on them.
How are you going to stay accountable for those plans?
In addition to other high-power business owners, connecting with a CEO Coach is perhaps an even better option.
CEO coaches do more than keep you accountable; additionally, they help:
- Refine your blueprints
- Draw out your best qualities
- Motivate you to keep going
Remember, your plans are meaningless unless you act on them!
Surround yourself with the best of the best who will never make excuses for.
Final Thoughts on Why Your Business Is Dying if It Is Not Growing
Coasting feels good, but it will come back to bite you.
That said, do not let coasting creep eventually manifest as business failure.
Take action now to start growing immediately!
Remember, growing your business is not exceedingly complicated.
Instead, it is quite straightforward. You are doing it wrong if it feels exceedingly challenging.
Either start growing your business or start dying! Do not wait until it is too late.
