What do you do when your business feels broken?
"I've tried everything and nothing is working."
I was at a networking event a few weeks ago, hot-seating around business challenges. A woman in the room was running a well-established business, and I could feel the pain and frustration in her voice as she dug into the problem she was experiencing. She wasn't alone. Business owner after business owner said some version of the same thing.
"This has been my hardest year."
"Revenue is down 40%."
"I barely made payroll this month."
“I don’t know what to do anymore.”
As I reflected on it, and on the advice people were giving her, things like “be more visible”, “network more”, “ask for more referrals”, and “take a step back and get realigned”, I kept thinking…
Yeahhhh, maybe… but what if you paused and got into the guts of your business with someone who isn't in the day-to-day with you? What if you can't see the problem because you're too close to it?
As a strategist, this is the work I do. I get under the hood of a business with someone. I ask a lot of questions, run my own audit, and we dig in together to find the root of the problem.
Too often, founders (I've been here too) are doing their best, following conventional wisdom, and throwing spaghetti at the wall. The problem with this is that we’re throwing a lot of spaghetti all at once and rarely giving any of it a chance to stick.
I think it’s also important to say that this isn’t just a “hardest-year” problem. Sometimes your business is growing so fast you (and your systems, processes, and team) can’t keep up with it.
In both of these scenarios, the underlying problem is the same. Something is off, and you can’t pinpoint what it is. When you don’t diagnose the actual problem, it’s hard to make an educated decision about how to address the problem and build a plan to fix it.
That creates a vicious, reinforcing cycle that is hard to get out of on your own.
The four crossroads
After nearly two decades working with businesses of all shapes and sizes, I can confidently say that every business eventually lands at one of four crossroads.
Refine. Something in your business has gotten clunky. Maybe it's a process that used to run well but now it needs constant babysitting. Maybe your team, the automated systems you set up, or your business model is starting to break down. This is usually the smallest fix and the easiest to miss, because clunky doesn't feel urgent until it does.
Reinvent. This one's bigger, and data I’ve been collecting is showing more and more business owners navigating this nebulous space. Here’s what I mean. Sometimes you've outgrown the way you built your business and you want to make real shifts. Sometimes the market moved on you, and your message isn't landing the way it used to. In some cases, the problem you used to solve for clients isn't the problem they have anymore, and your business hasn’t caught up with it yet. Small tweaks and spaghetti throwing won’t fix this. This crossroads requires a more detailed, under the hood look, because solving the surface problem rarely fixes the bigger issue you’re dealing with.
Expand. This is usually a good problem to have. You're growing, but growth is outpacing your capacity to deliver. The work here is about setting yourself and your team up for success. That means getting yourself out of the bottleneck, adding team strategically, and making sure your systems can actually bear the weight of your business’ growth.
Release. You know the business you built has run its course. For some, it’s because you feel like the original business mission has been fulfilled, and you’re complete. That’s a really nice space to be in, albeit a bit emotional. And sometimes, the business you built no longer fits your life, your values, or your financial needs. In that case, it's time to walk away, and that can look like a full sell, selling off your assets, hiring your replacement, or closing the doors entirely. Of all the crossroads, this one can feel the most emotional, because our identity as founders is deeply entwined with what we’ve built. When it’s time to close that chapter, there’s often a heaviness that is hard to work through.
Take the diagnostic
I built a 5-question diagnostic to help you get a real read on where you stand. When you work through the questions, you’ll come out on the other side knowing whether you’re in the Refine, Reinvent, Expand, or Release bucket and walk away with a few things you can test out in your business today.
Before you diagnose yourself, I think it’s important to note that it’s easy to mistake a rough patch in the business with needing to Reinvent things. Not every hard month is a sign that your entire business model is broken. Sometimes, dare I say often, you just made a change and haven't given it the runway to work yet. Most changes take 60-90 days minimum to gain traction, and just as we’re starting to get it, we throw in the towel. This is where taking an honest look at your business is extra important. We’re not about burning things to the ground over here.
State of Affairs
This diagnostic is the first step of my S.T.R.A.T.E.G.Y. method, the process I use with my own clients and in my own business to get from "something feels off" to a real plan. State of Affairs is exactly what it sounds like. We take an honest look at where things actually stand right now, not where you assume they stand or wish they were.
Numbers don't lie. So sit down and ask yourself:
What did you actually make this year, quarter, or month, not what you think you made?
Where did that revenue come from?
How did the period actually feel to you, separate from what the numbers say?
That last question matters as much as the first two because you can be up in revenue and burned out. You can be down in revenue and relieved. Both scenarios, and all the stuff in between, is data. State of Affairs is where you stop guessing and get honest about what’s really happening in your business.
The power of an outside set of eyes
The diagnostic will tell you which crossroads you're standing at. I love that it gives you a starting point to get the lay of the land. But it won't tell you how big the challenge is or how deep the work goes, and that’s because it’s incredibly difficult to see the full extent when you’re on the inside.
I don’t say that selfishly. After working with the US Navy and Air Force and countless leaders in companies all over the world, it’s abundantly clear that you can’t read the label from inside the bottle. My work in those spaces was always about helping the decision-makers gain new perspective, ask hard questions, and challenge assumptions, so that they could get a clearer picture of what was actually happening and then building a plan to fix it.
So, not being able to do this on your own, even though you are a highly capable business owner, is not some kind of failure on your part. It’s just incredibly hard to have perspective when you can’t see the full picture.
When I work with founders, this is the work I do. I get under the hood, ask the questions you can't ask yourself, and together, we build the plan to actually move your business forward.
What's next
Over the next four weeks, we're going to dig into each of these crossroads, one at a time. We’ll talk about what each stage looks like, what tends to trip people up, and what to do about it. If you haven't taken the diagnostic yet, that's the place to start.
