6 Reasons Why Great Companies Fail

Hi , The truth is... All companies... even good companies... stall out. And all entrepreneurs... even successful ones... get stuck and frustrated. Why? In the beginning, things are great. The business is profitable, and a lot of those profits are flowing to you! But then something happens... As the business grows, profits dry up, sales slow, and everything gets harder and more complex. The next thing you know, you're working harder than ever for less money... surrounded by people who don't appreciate the sacrifice you're making just to cover payroll. You think about raising capital, but with flat growth, no investor will give you the time of day, and with razor-thin margins, you can't get a bank loan without signing a personal guarantee that puts literally everything at risk. In short, you're stuck. I had to learn this lesson the hard way, and it nearly bankrupted my first company... But I don't want that to happen to you, so let's dig into the 6 reasons your company isn't growing as fast as it could (and why good companies fail): #1: Vision During the startup phase, a common Vision for all companies is, "Just survive another day... don't run out of money." And early on, a simple Vision like this is not only good enough, it's downright inspiring! But over time, as your business transitions from the Traction Phase into the Momentum and Expansion Phases, this scarcity-minded vision will hold you back. #2: Strategy It's not enough to look at just the volume of traffic, leads, and sales you're receiving in a given month... you also need to look at the compounding rate of growth a given strategy is yielding. This doesn't mean we need to abandon strategies that are working, but it might mean that we need to switch from optimizing our existing playbooks to testing and executing brand-new, additional playbooks. Remember, the growth strategies that got you "here" may not be the growth strategies that will get you "there." #3: People This one is tough... People have feelings. People have hopes. People have families. People are complicated. But if you allow "people issues" to go unaddressed because you're scared to have a difficult conversation, I'm sorry, but the REAL "people issue" is with you, and not your team. This was my challenge. This is why I fired myself from my first company. I was unwilling to accept the fact that the people who got me "here" weren't the same people who would take me "there," and everyone suffered because of it. #4: Communications Communication is easy when the team is small. But for some reason, everything in business seems to break when you hit 25 employees, and the #1 culprit is a breakdown in communication. So look at your meetings. Are you having too many? Too few? And what about goals and key initiatives? Does everyone know what's going on? Do they know what's most important right now? Again, none of this matters when you're small, but the methods of communication that got you "here" won't get you "there." #5: Systems "I don't care how you get it done, just get it done!" Show me a founder who hasn't said that at least once, and I'll show you a business that never got out of the starting blocks. But, show me a founder that is still saying that after their business is through Traction, and I'll show you a company that is in Flatline and headed toward a Death Spiral. Look, I get it. There's nothing fun about creating systems and processes. It forces us to slow down... even stop, sometimes. But good systems are essential for scale. When Elon Musk set out to build actual rockets, you better believe they had solid systems and processes in place prior to liftoff... #6: MONEY Cash is fuel. Run out of cash, and your business stops. It's as simple as that. In fact, if you think about it, there's only one real reason any business ever fails: it runs out of cash. So if cash is so important, why do so few entrepreneurs talk about it? "As long as we make enough topline, enough cash will drop to the bottom line by the end of the month..." Sound familiar? If you have said these words or thought these thoughts, you're not alone. I did, too. Unfortunately, this "If I make enough sales, things will work out..." mentality cost me a small fortune, and nearly bankrupted my entire company not once, but twice. I don't want that to happen to you. The key to creating a scalable company is to address all 6 of these constraints. But it's critical that you optimize in the correct order. That is how scalable companies are built. Talk soon, Ryan P.S. By the way... Want to go deeper into how to address all 6 of these constraints to keep your company from stalling out (or get back in gear if it has)? That's exactly what we do in our Get Scalable Accelerator. [Click here if you want to join the waitlist]( and get all the details when we're about to open the doors. Ryan Deiss Co-Founder & CEO Scalable.co    Sent to: {EMAIL} The Scalable Company, 4330 Gaines Ranch Loop, Ste 120, Austin, Texas 78735, United States Don't want future emails? [Unsubscribe](