Is Your Highway For Growth Paved Or Potholed

I grew up in the Chicago area where the roads are so bad, you’d think my hometown was transported directly from the moon. We’re talking potholes, inside of potholes.. bad fillings, cracks, you name it.

So of course it really hits you when you are driving. You fail to see the hole and before you know it, there is the loud bang in your ear, the stars in your eyes as your head hits the roof, and the utter disbelief that your tires didn’t simply explode in all that carnage.

The excuse was the weather.

Bull …

Germany, UK, Austria don’t have roads like Chicago.. (and those places were literally bombed) and yet their rebuilt roads feel smooth like silk.

So what’s the point?

Well what does your path of growth look like?

If someone were to come to you today, with a ridiculously obscene offer, with only one condition… that he had to see a clear path of growth how would you answer?

Could you show a clear paved path ahead.. that this guy could take your business with his team and resources and excite him?

Or is he looking at ditches, potholes, fallen trees, and obstacles… which if too many, make it easier to simply turn the car around and leave?

One counter-intuitive but practical growth example you can use is when you built your business with little to no advertising, and mostly word of mouth and referrals.

In that case, you have a 40 lane freeway of growth to any buyer with a bonafide marketing and sales process. All the buyer has to imagine is how he can easily double or triple your revenue with his dedicated marketing team and systems.

We used this strategy for a manufacturing client. I had them go back to their M&A advisor and find a new buyer to recognise and take advantage of the opportunity to bring marketing to the business. It worked, and the Advisor found a new buyer and an offer $1.5 million more than the previous highest offer.

Another avenue of growth is your customer book and how well it aligns to the buyer. You will have paths of growth if they get excited by selling their stuff to your customers or your stuff to their often much larger customer base.
If you notice, I haven’t touched the “traditional” paths of growth – hot product, idea, etc. I just want you to imagine the possibilities.

Even those that come from what might appear to be glaring weaknesses.