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CANADIAN INDUSTRY ONLINE - JUNE 2013
Congratulations
to
Winton Homes
on your
30
th
Anniversary
gratulations.indd 1
2013-04-11 10:02
AM
M
OST ENTREPRENEURS
WANT
to grow their compa-
nies. However, the road to success is
often a bumpy one. While many busi-
nesses start quickly g owing revenues
and profits, they frequently plateau
well short of their potential. This often
leaves the owner confounded regard-
ing why his or her once thriving enter-
prise has fallen on hard times. It can be
a frustrating conundrum.
Research shows that the con-
straint to growth is generally not capi-
tal. With a good business plan and a
lot of persistence, you can obtain fi-
nancing. The problem isn’t usually the
lack of good products or services. Suc-
cessful entrepreneurs know how to
deliver value. There is always market
opportunity new geographies, new
market segments, and new product
categories to exploit.
No, the thing that most often lim-
its the growth of small businesses is
the inability or unwillingness of the
owner to let go. To grow beyond the
start-up phase, the principal must del-
egate the primary work of the business
to others. Some entrepreneurs just sim-
ply don’t want to do that.
Fo example, there is an outstand-
ing interior house painter, an artist
really. He loves to do complex faux
finishes in higher-
end homes. His
work is magnifi-
cent. It has won
awards. He feels
that no one else
possesses his
skills. Therefore,
he doesn’t want to
delegate the paint-
ing to others. That’s fine, but if he in-
sists on spending his days with a
paintbrush in his hand, growth will be
limited. He’ll soon run out of capacity.
If the principal can delegate the
primary work of the business to oth-
ers, the business will continue to
thrive. Eventually, sustaining further
growth will depend on the principal’s
ability to relinquish day-to-day deci-
sion-making responsibility and the
management of front-line workers.
ServPro is a franchise business
that cleans up and restores buildings
after fire and water damage. Andy
Bahen, the owner of one of
the ten largest ServPro fran-
chises in the country, con-
fessed that, “It took my wife
seven years to get me ‘off the
truck’ and it was the hardest
thing I ever did, not to per-
sonally oversee every job.”
When Andy insisted on man-
aging every job himself, the
size of the company was
constrained by his capacity.
Growth stalled at fewer than ten
crews. Andy couldn’t visit more jobs in
a day. Once he let go, and allowed his
supervisors to manage the jobs, the
constraint was removed and the com-
pany grew exponentially.
If the owner insists on making
every decision, the business will pla-
teau―growth will stop. To break the
bottleneck, decision-making must be
delegated. For many, this is more dif-
ficult than allowing others to do the
primary work of the business. The
reason―delegating decision making to
managers means giving up a measure
of control and that’s scary for entrepre-
