hi I’m Evan Carmichael welcome to
another edition of ask Evan today we’re
going to continue on with our challenge
series as we look at helping
entrepreneurs with specific questions
they have to grow their business and I’m
going to answer question from one of our
Facebook viewers named marc dreier who
wrote in on the Telus talks business
Facebook page and he wrote a question
for Evan if you feel you’re out of place
in your business where you have to grow
revenue to increase profitability or
scale back and stay smaller to increase
profitability how would you recommend
proceeding so thanks mark for the great
question here are three suggestions that
I have to help you number one are you a
builder or an operator as entrepreneurs
we tend to always want more we set goals
and when we reach them we said bigger
goals and then even bigger goals most
entrepreneurs are builders we get
excited about building companies having
a bigger impact and continuing to grow
the Builder would say grow revenues mark
some entrepreneurs are better operators
though the growth doesn’t excite them as
much as continual improvement they look
for ways to keep doing what they’re
doing but make it better each time
profitability becomes easier as you
create your systems and refine your
processes you might still go your
revenue numbers but it’s not the main
goal of the business the operator would
say improve profitability mark there’s
no right or wrong answer here it just
depends on the type of entrepreneur you
are and where you get your energy from
number two what’s your ceiling another
way to look at it is to try to
understand what your ceiling is most
entrepreneurs can only grow business to
a certain size and then the plateau they
just don’t have the interest skills or
passion to build beyond when I was in
the venture capital world we always
looked at the founders of the companies
that came to us and tried to figure out
what their ceilings were is this someone
who can build a company to a hundred
million dollars and take a public or are
they going to have to be replaced
somewhere along the line some
entrepreneurs are great at startups they
know how to bootstrap and turn nothing
into something they thrive on it and the
lack of resources and having a small
team push them to succeed
but once they get to a certain amount of
comfort they stop trying this heart the
business also gets boring for them and
they have a crisis of confidence
sometimes the best solution for these
entrepreneurs is to sell the business
and start all over again other
entrepreneurs are better builders they
hate the startup mode but love taking
companies and building them up they
might come into a company that’s been
hovering around the million dollar
revenue mark for a few years and turn it
into a 25 million dollar company they
love that kind of challenge and then
once they hit their ceiling they get
bored again because it becomes more
about managing the company instead of
high-speed growth time to cash in and
find the next company to grow with the
general advice here is to work in the
type of environment that best suits your
personality you’ll have a lot more
success and you’ll also have more fun
number 3 live a day in the life if the
question is to grow revenues to new
heights or scale back and become more
profitable then it might help you to see
what life looks like in both scenarios
before you make a decision you should
already know what the scaled-back more
profitable version of your business is
you’ve lived through it so you know how
big your team will be how much work life
balance you’ll have and if type of work
you’ll be doing and not doing it’s the
bigger version of your business that is
both exciting and scary an easy way to
learn more about what that kind of life
looks like without having to go out and
build it is to find an entrepreneur
who’s living that life and ask to spend
some time with them for example if
you’re a million-dollar business and you
want to get the five or ten million what
does that business look like find
somewhere neither in your nice tree or
in a related industry who’s running that
kind of business and see what their
day-to-day life looks like if there’s
nobody in your local market look two
different geographic area even a
different country if you have two most
entrepreneurs are willing to help out
other entrepreneurs if they see that
you’re genuine about learning and
there’s no direct threat to their
business see if you can shatter them for
a day or at least get a tour of their
offices and ask a few questions asked
about the entrepreneurs lifestyle and
his or her goals do you get excited do
you want to be like this person or does
it seem like too much work and stress
again there’s no right answer but going
to live a day in the life of someone
who’s already done what you want to do
will hopefully make the decision easier
to make
thank you for watching if you enjoyed
the video and you want to see more
please give it a thumbs up below I
always love seeing those come in and if
you have a comment about this post or if
you want us to answer a question for you
about your business feel free to leave
it in comments section below I always
read those and love see them come in so
thank you and we’ll see you on the next
episode
you
another edition of ask Evan today we’re
going to continue on with our challenge
series as we look at helping
entrepreneurs with specific questions
they have to grow their business and I’m
going to answer question from one of our
Facebook viewers named marc dreier who
wrote in on the Telus talks business
Facebook page and he wrote a question
for Evan if you feel you’re out of place
in your business where you have to grow
revenue to increase profitability or
scale back and stay smaller to increase
profitability how would you recommend
proceeding so thanks mark for the great
question here are three suggestions that
I have to help you number one are you a
builder or an operator as entrepreneurs
we tend to always want more we set goals
and when we reach them we said bigger
goals and then even bigger goals most
entrepreneurs are builders we get
excited about building companies having
a bigger impact and continuing to grow
the Builder would say grow revenues mark
some entrepreneurs are better operators
though the growth doesn’t excite them as
much as continual improvement they look
for ways to keep doing what they’re
doing but make it better each time
profitability becomes easier as you
create your systems and refine your
processes you might still go your
revenue numbers but it’s not the main
goal of the business the operator would
say improve profitability mark there’s
no right or wrong answer here it just
depends on the type of entrepreneur you
are and where you get your energy from
number two what’s your ceiling another
way to look at it is to try to
understand what your ceiling is most
entrepreneurs can only grow business to
a certain size and then the plateau they
just don’t have the interest skills or
passion to build beyond when I was in
the venture capital world we always
looked at the founders of the companies
that came to us and tried to figure out
what their ceilings were is this someone
who can build a company to a hundred
million dollars and take a public or are
they going to have to be replaced
somewhere along the line some
entrepreneurs are great at startups they
know how to bootstrap and turn nothing
into something they thrive on it and the
lack of resources and having a small
team push them to succeed
but once they get to a certain amount of
comfort they stop trying this heart the
business also gets boring for them and
they have a crisis of confidence
sometimes the best solution for these
entrepreneurs is to sell the business
and start all over again other
entrepreneurs are better builders they
hate the startup mode but love taking
companies and building them up they
might come into a company that’s been
hovering around the million dollar
revenue mark for a few years and turn it
into a 25 million dollar company they
love that kind of challenge and then
once they hit their ceiling they get
bored again because it becomes more
about managing the company instead of
high-speed growth time to cash in and
find the next company to grow with the
general advice here is to work in the
type of environment that best suits your
personality you’ll have a lot more
success and you’ll also have more fun
number 3 live a day in the life if the
question is to grow revenues to new
heights or scale back and become more
profitable then it might help you to see
what life looks like in both scenarios
before you make a decision you should
already know what the scaled-back more
profitable version of your business is
you’ve lived through it so you know how
big your team will be how much work life
balance you’ll have and if type of work
you’ll be doing and not doing it’s the
bigger version of your business that is
both exciting and scary an easy way to
learn more about what that kind of life
looks like without having to go out and
build it is to find an entrepreneur
who’s living that life and ask to spend
some time with them for example if
you’re a million-dollar business and you
want to get the five or ten million what
does that business look like find
somewhere neither in your nice tree or
in a related industry who’s running that
kind of business and see what their
day-to-day life looks like if there’s
nobody in your local market look two
different geographic area even a
different country if you have two most
entrepreneurs are willing to help out
other entrepreneurs if they see that
you’re genuine about learning and
there’s no direct threat to their
business see if you can shatter them for
a day or at least get a tour of their
offices and ask a few questions asked
about the entrepreneurs lifestyle and
his or her goals do you get excited do
you want to be like this person or does
it seem like too much work and stress
again there’s no right answer but going
to live a day in the life of someone
who’s already done what you want to do
will hopefully make the decision easier
to make
thank you for watching if you enjoyed
the video and you want to see more
please give it a thumbs up below I
always love seeing those come in and if
you have a comment about this post or if
you want us to answer a question for you
about your business feel free to leave
it in comments section below I always
read those and love see them come in so
thank you and we’ll see you on the next
episode
you
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