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Business Development

he Growth Conundrum

Avoid Unwittingly

Derailing Your Business

By Doug & Polly White

M

ost entrepreneurs want to grow their companies. buildings ater ire and water damage. Andy Bahen, the owner of

However, the road to success is oten a bumpy one of the 10 largest ServPro franchises in the country, confessed

one. While many businesses start quickly growing
that, “It took my wife seven years to get me ‘of the truck’ and it

revenues and proits, they frequently plateau well short of their was the hardest thing I ever did, not to personally oversee every

potential. his oten leaves the owner confounded regarding why job.” When Andy insisted on managing every job himself, the size

his or her once thriving enterprise has fallen on hard times. It can of the company was constrained by his capacity. Growth stalled

be a frustrating conundrum. Research shows that the constraint at fewer than 10 crews. Andy couldn’t visit more jobs in a day.

to growth is generally not capital. With a good business plan Once he let go, and allowed his supervisors to manage the jobs,

and a lot of persistence, you can obtain inancing. he problem the constraint was removed and the company grew exponentially.

isn’t usually the lack of good products or services. Successful If the owner insists on making every decision, the business will

entrepreneurs know how to deliver value. here is always market plateau — growth will stop. To break the bottleneck, decision-

opportunity new geographies, new market segments, and new making must be delegated. For many, this is more diicult than

product categories to exploit.
allowing others to do the primary work of the business. he

No, the thing that most oten limits the growth of small reason — delegating decision making to managers means giving

businesses is the inability or unwillingness of the owner to let go. up a measure of control and that’s scary for entrepreneurs

To grow beyond the startup phase, the principal must delegate It should be. he only thing worse than not delegating when

the primary work of the business to others. Some entrepreneurs it’s needed, is delegating before you construct the proper

just simply don’t want to do that.
infrastructure. Doing so can be disastrous. he business can

For example, there is an outstanding interior house painter, veer of course without the owner knowing it. Stories abound

an artist really. He loves to do complex faux inishes in higher- of companies that failed because the owner trusted the wrong

end homes. His work is magniicent. It has won awards. He feels people and/or the proper systems were not in place to support

that no one else possesses his skills. herefore, he doesn’t want delegation. One company almost had to ile for bankruptcy ater

to delegate the painting to others. hat’s ine, but if he insists on the owner delegated responsibility to an oice manager who was

spending his days with a paintbrush in his hand, growth will be not ready to accept it. here were no documented processes to

limited. He’ll soon run out of capacity.
tell the oice manager how to perform her duties. No metrics

If the principal can delegate the primary work of the business to existed to let the owner know if things got of track. Ater making

others, the business will continue to thrive. Eventually, sustaining a number of mistakes, the oice manager attempted a cover-up.

further growth will depend on the principal’s ability to relinquish By the time the owner discovered this, the business was perilously

day-to-day decision-making responsibility and the management close to the brink.

of front-line workers.
Successful delegation requires three things:

ServPro is a franchise business that cleans up and restores
• he right managers – Delegating before the right people

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