You’ve bought the book, you wanted answers for your business. Whilst numbers do vary considerably by industry and country, your turnover is possibly in the $1/2 million to $10 million range and the business is somewhere with 5 to 30 names on the payroll.
Your business has historically grown by leaps and bounds, but of late it is seemingly running fast, just to keep still. We see a kind of glass ceiling, where the other side is visible but tantalizingly unreachable. We call these Plateau Businesses. It’s like driving a car with a punctured tire; you want to go faster, but unless you stop and change the tire, your speed and distance will be limited. Likewise, if you’re on a road with lots of potholes, you need to stop and fill the potholes or consider driving along a totally different road.
Even if you see yourself running a lifestyle business, happy to remain under the glass ceiling, the Stop and Change sections of this book will make your life easier, freeing up more time and mind space for a better lifestyle. For you, there is the opportunity to skip the Grow section, although we suspect you might change your mind once you’ve seen the opportunities therein to use the freed-up resources to create a better business, and thereby a different lifestyle.
This book gives you answers. Maybe not the answers you thought you wanted, maybe only partial answers, and maybe answers you are not yet ready to admit as valid. This book is purposefully written in a conversational style, jam-packed with seemingly simple yet powerful questions and examples of applying this thinking in many real business situations. It’s these questions, examples, and parables that are designed to prompt reflection, to help provide you a fresh perspective, and to help you wonder what if I tried…? It’s up to you and your own curiosity to wonder what if…?
For Plateau Businesses, we’ve found that asking the right questions with a sprinkling of curiosity can do wonders to unleash your success. You already know it’s not about “pushing harder.” Some lines of questioning will feel irrelevant for your business—because we’re not there in person to cut those out for you—whilst others will resonate and trigger you to take steps to move your business to the next level. For these steps that come to your mind, we’ve provided a handy Action This Today notepad at the end of the book for you to keep track of actions you want to take.
Oh, and by the way, congratulations, as 95 percent of all companies started have either folded before reaching the stage you are already at or still trying to catch you up.
Finally for here – if we have anything wrong or misquoted – please tell us and we’ll correct it for the next edition.