Business,
Marketing

Not long ago, we were talking with one of our long-time clients in the hospitality industry. A year ago, we helped them double their business. Now, they’re on track for another 70%+ increase in revenue.

Great problem to have, right?

Mostly. :-)

They run a beautiful property with a strong reputation, loyal guests and a very personal approach to hospitality. The kind of business where the owner genuinely cares about every guest experience. That personal attention is a big part of why people love the place. But during one of our conversations, something interesting came up. The business was growing. And so was the owner's workload. More guests meant more questions. More bookings meant more details to manage. Marketing needed attention. Guest requests needed answers. Staff needed decisions. There was always something that could use the owner's personal touch.

Sound familiar?

This is something we see surprisingly often when helping businesses grow. The very thing that helped you build a successful business can eventually become the thing that makes it harder to scale your business.

When your greatest strength becomes a bottleneck

In this case, personal service was one of the business's greatest strengths. We certainly weren't going to suggest changing that. Instead, we started looking at it differently. Which parts of the guest experience genuinely need the owner... and which parts simply need the owner's standards?

That's a very different question.

Because your customers don't necessarily need you to personally do everything. They need the experience, quality and care you've taught them to expect from your business. And that distinction matters far beyond hospitality. Maybe you're running a professional services firm and still reviewing every proposal. Maybe you own a construction company and every important decision comes back to you. Maybe you built a retail business around knowing your customers personally. Maybe you're leading an agency where every creative idea still needs your approval. At some point, every growing business needs to ask:

Does this really need me, or does it need a better system?
 

Growing a business and scaling a business aren't quite the same thing

Growth can mean more customers, more sales and more revenue.

But if every increase in revenue also requires more of the owner's time, more manual work and more complexity, eventually something has to give. Scaling a business means building the systems, people and processes that allow the company to handle more business without everything increasing at exactly the same rate. And sometimes the first step isn't another marketing campaign. It's finding out what is slowing the business down.

Try this for one week

Every time someone needs your answer, approval or involvement, make a quick note.

Don't change anything yet.

Just watch.

At the end of the week, divide those things into three groups. Only I can do this. Your relationships, expertise or judgment genuinely matter here. Someone else could do this. Perhaps they need training, clearer responsibility, better tools or simply your trust. Nobody should need to ask this. The answer could be documented, automated or built into a process. That last group can be surprisingly revealing. Because you may discover that you don't actually have a time-management problem. Your business may simply have outgrown some of the ways it used to work.

Don't fix everything. Fix one thing.

Choose one recurring task that takes your time or makes your team wait. Then ask: What would need to change so this could happen without me? Maybe the answer is a documented process. Maybe it's better software. Maybe someone on your team needs more authority. Maybe you need to automate part of the customer journey. Maybe the problem is bigger and you need to rethink how the business operates.

Fix one thing this month.

Another next month.

A year from now, your business could work very differently.
 

You may not have to figure it out alone

One thing many PEI business owners don't always realize is that there are organizations and programs designed specifically to help companies improve, innovate and grow. For example, Innovation PEI offers business support programs that may help eligible PEI companies with business development, expansion, marketing, market research, operational efficiencies and other growth initiatives. If you're thinking about improving your processes, developing a marketing strategy, expanding into new markets or making your business more competitive, it's worth exploring the programs currently available through Innovation PEI. And if your growth plans are bigger — productivity improvements, expansion, new markets or scaling operations across Atlantic Canada — the Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency (ACOA) also offers programs designed to help Atlantic Canadian businesses grow and become more competitive.

Their Business Development Program, for example, can support eligible business growth activities such as training, efficiency studies, marketing and trade activities, and productivity improvements. Before investing in a major growth initiative, take a little time to see what support may already be available. Sometimes the opportunity isn't just figuring out what your business needs to do next. It's discovering that there may be resources available to help you do it.

And here's the question that really matters

Imagine you got five hours back every week. What would you do with them? Talk with your best customers? Develop your team? Build new partnerships? Explore a new market? Think about where the business needs to go next? That's the real opportunity. The goal isn't to make yourself less important to your business. It's to spend more of your time where you're most valuable. As your business grows, your role needs to grow with it.

At first, your business may need you to do almost everything. Later, it needs you to build a company where great things can happen without everything having to go through you. So here's a question worth taking into your week: What still depends on me that probably shouldn't? You may find that the next stage of business growth doesn't require you to work harder. It simply requires your business to need you differently.

And that's actually a very good problem to have.

Next week...

Instead of asking “Where will our next customer come from?”, let's ask something different: How much growth is already sitting inside the customers you have?

Now close this email before it becomes another thing keeping you busy. :-)

Unless, of course, one of the things that actually matters is growing your business.

In that case, we should probably talk.