The 7 Crisis Points Every Business Encounters and How to Survive Them – Phase 5
This blog is a product of Kevin Lovewell’s journey from Carl Gould’s book “Seven Stages of Business Success.”
Phase 5 – Sustainability
Phase five represents sustainability. The owner now has a franchise (as in the business model can be replicated like a cookie-cutter recipe) and needs to behave like a franchisor as growth occurs through the second store, branch or independent revenue streams coming into existence.
The crisis however is one of identity. The business is not mirroring the identity of the owner any longer – the owner might have survived the management shift, but now realises that the identity of the business is not that of their own, and in some ways the owner’s personal emotional loss can be a true shock.
Survival and break through depends upon the ability of the team to effectively and profitably run second and subsequent offices. It is only at these stages where the owner needs to facilitate not just comprehensive business plans but subordinate plans like “Marketing Plans” “Financial Plans” and “Operational Plans.”
In fact these subordinate plans are being written by all the highly paid executives and the CEO pulls them all together in the Strategic Plan.
The win here is that the owner can take a three month holiday and the business is more valuable as a consequence of that absence.
Obviously I have adapted Carl Gould’s underlying directions with knowledge gained in my travels. I still encourage people to read Carl’s book and there are a few others like Alexander Osterwalder’s 2009 book called “Business Model Generation.” Looking forward to your comments and going a bit further in my next blog. ~ Kevin
