Every business goes through cycles. First, growth. The tree expands outward. The business grows its revenues through new clients, new products, or higher rates. It reaches new levels of profit. Second, consolidation. The business stabilizes at one level–hopefully a higher one. What triggers the “growth” phase? Marketing, introduction to new people, new service offerings, heightened awareness, improved interest, removal of a barrier…many things can trigger a period of growth. However, every growth period will eventually end. And when it DOES end, the business will drop to its level of consolidation. Here’s an example: a gym has space, equipment and coaches for 50 athletes. Classes start when everyone arrives, because the owner and coaches know everyone’s name and schedule. All the clients know to take off their boots at the front door. New clients don’t do an OnRamp program of any type, because there’s plenty of 1-on-1 attention in a class of three people. There’s no option for personal training, because none of the original 50 members asked for it. Now let’s drop 50 NEW members onto this platform. First, class size doubles. Newcomers aren’t taught to arrive on time, so they trickle in…and class starts late. There’s a scramble for equipment. New kids get all the attention, because their technique is poor compared to the veterans. They break a thousand little unwritten rules, like wearing wet shoes into the gym, because they don’t know better. Some quickly leave because they don’t feel ready for CrossFit. To help, veterans start coaching the newcomers. The coaches aren’t sure how to enforce the rules. The clients don’t know how to behave, because they’ve never been told. The owner might be making more money, but they’re definitely doing more work, and stress has gone through the roof…and then things start to go really wrong. A new member objects to the gangsta rap at the 6am class. The 3 people who have been coming at 6am have ...
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