The Problem With Growing by Doing More

Doubling a business sounds easier than growing it tenfold. Mathematically, it is.

Strategically, it may not be.

When leaders aim for 2X growth, they often begin with the business they already have. They ask how to make more sales calls, hire more people, open another location, increase production, or persuade current customers to buy more.

These are sensible questions, but they usually lead to the same answer: more effort.

More people create more management. More activity creates more complexity. More customers can create more pressure without improving margins. The business may become larger, but also harder to run.

A 10X goal forces a different kind of thinking.

You cannot work ten times harder or hire ten times as many people. You have to reconsider how value is created and delivered.

Could a service become a repeatable system? Could technology reduce the labour required? Could one strategic partnership reach more customers than an entire sales team? Could expertise be packaged, licensed, taught, or distributed more broadly?

These questions move attention away from activity and toward leverage.

They also reveal what must be left behind.

Meaningful growth rarely comes from spreading resources across every product, market, process, and customer. It often comes from concentrating on a smaller number of exceptional opportunities while releasing outdated or unprofitable work.

The point of 10X thinking is not to chase an unrealistic number.

It is to break the assumption that growth must require an equal increase in effort.

You may not discover a path to tenfold growth. But the question may reveal a 3X opportunity, a stronger business model, or a simpler way to create greater value.

Sometimes the bigger goal is easier because it makes the old approach impossible.

And that is often where better thinking begins.

By Joseph Willmott | CEO of the World Referral Network

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