Why Growth Matters More Than You Think
I’ve talked before about the importance of growing your business. Without meaningful business growth, there’s no money for innovation, your best people have nowhere to go, and your market share starts to erode. This much is commonly acknowledged.
But the real problem? Many companies don’t actually know how to create growth.
Why Hustle Alone Stops Working
Sure, they grew in the past—launching the business with sheer entrepreneurial hustle. The founders believed deeply in their vision and their product, and successfully sold customers, employees, and investors on supporting it.
But once the business gains traction, the entrepreneur gets pulled away from growth and into delivering on promises. Then comes hiring, training, inspiring people, building processes, driving execution, crafting strategy. Soon, there aren’t enough hours in the day to hold everything together—let alone focus on winning new logos.
At this point, the CEO can no longer feed the beast alone. It’s time to build a growth engine—starting with clearly defined roles. That’s where a Function Ownership Chart™ becomes critical, helping you clarify who owns what and ensuring nothing falls through the cracks.
Crossing the Chasm Is the Real Test
A growth engine is essential for crossing the chasm—from early adopters to the mainstream market. (If you haven’t read Crossing the Chasm by Geoffrey Moore, I highly recommend it.)
Unfortunately, most companies don’t make it across. They get trapped in slow-growth mode. Lingering here is toxic—and staying stuck is often lethal.
The Cost of Staying in Slow-Growth Mode
When growth slows, or stops altogether—anything in the single digits is really just keeping up with inflation—the excitement begins to fade. The blue sky above turns gray, and people stop dreaming about what’s possible. There’s nowhere to promote your rising stars, and no cash to raise salaries. A-players stop joining… and start leaving.
And once you start losing your A-players, stagnation turns into decline. Eventually, you’re forced to shrink back into a lifestyle business.
(Just to be clear: most lifestyle businesses don’t actually provide a great lifestyle. Working in the business becomes your lifestyle—and you stop building business equity to cash in when it’s time to retire or move on.)
What a Real Growth Engine Looks Like
On a recent episode of the Management Blueprint podcast, the great Michael Gerber shared how he created E-Myth—the original business operating system. It all started by designing a sales system for his brother-in-law’s company. From that foundation, the rest of the E-Myth systems evolved, eventually creating a complete growth engine for small and mid-sized businesses. You can watch the episode here.
Every company needs its own customer acquisition system—the same way every car needs an engine. Some engines are gas-powered, hybrid, turbocharged, or electric—but they all power the vehicle. A car may coast on momentum for a while, but you need an engine to accelerate and reach your destination.
Execution is what moves the needle, and that’s where our Rock-Step Planner™ comes in—breaking complex growth goals into achievable, 90-day sprints that create visible momentum.
If You Want to Grow, You Need a System
We recently hosted the Summit OS Seal Camp™, where we trained new Summit OS Guides™ on how to help clients build their own growth engines.
If that sounds like something you’d be passionate about, check out our resources to learn more about the Summit OS® model and how it helps growing businesses build self-managing systems.
What’s your biggest growth barrier right now? Drop a comment below—I’d love to hear from you.
