Being stuck despite doing all the things you’re supposed to do to overcome a business plateau is frustrating, to say the least.
After all, you fixed the marketing, made the hires everyone says you need to make, cut the costs that were easy to cut (and a few that were really hard), read all the articles with the seven steps and the three ways, and you did them, every single one of them. Some of the stuff even helped, but only for a little while.
But a little while doesn’t cut it when you’re still stuck in the same place with about the same numbers.
So what’s going on? Why isn’t this working? You’ve done everything you’re supposed to do, and you’ve done it all correctly.
Overcoming a business plateau isn’t always about finding the one thing you haven’t tried yet. What if none of it has worked yet because of something that’s basically invisible to you because you’re too close to see it?
Why Does My Business Keep Plateauing No Matter What I Try?
A consistent plateau is typically a sign that the business and the person running it have fallen out of step with each other. It’s like one of them is breakdancing and the other one’s trying to tango.
Examined individually, they each look like they know exactly what they’re doing. Put them together and nothing works, or at least not for long, because they aren’t doing the same dance.
This means that you and your business are both changing, but rarely at the same pace or in the same direction. You’re not the same owner you were when you started, and your business isn’t the same business it was either. You’ve each been changing on your own schedules, which creates a tension between you and your business.
I think of this growth or change in three repeating phases.
First, there’s Escape, when you recognize the current version of things isn’t working and decide to do something different, even though staying with what you know feels a whole lot safer. Next is Expand. It’s the messy, experimental phase where you build things out and find out what you or the business is meant to be next. Finally, you hit Excel, where you fine-tune things so that things are running really well.
And then, there’s usually another time when things feel stuck again, and the cycle starts over with Escape.
The trickiest part is that although you and your business progress through these phases, at least as long as you each are willing to change, you’re rarely doing it at the same time. You can be really comfortable in Excel, running the place the way you always have, while your business has already moved on and is sitting in Escape. Or your business is still stabilizing in Expand while you’ve decided you’re done and want everything running like clockwork.
This is why businesses plateau. The relationship between you, the owner, and your business is strained, and it feels like whatever you try doesn’t work.
Knowing whether you need to start tangoing or continue breakdancing is really difficult when you’re one of the dancers because you’re listening to the music in your own head.
When the Business Has to Grow First
I worked with someone for only one session. They were in a market where hundreds of businesses sold essentially the same thing. And I mean exactly the same thing with different packaging.
They were doing everything they were supposed to do to differentiate themselves. They were pouring a lot of money into marketing, so they’d stand out. They had reworked their pricing again and again. And they admitted they were leveraged to the hilt to pay for it all because they truly believed they were different and the market just hadn’t caught on yet.
I told them, as gently as I could, that their marketing wasn’t unique enough. And that they were spending a lot of money to say what everyone else in the market was saying.
They’d bet everything on being different, and I’d just told them they weren’t. They couldn’t accept what I’d said and continued spending on marketing because they were convinced that they could make it work.
A few months later, I received a note saying they’d decided to shut down.
Sometimes, it is an owner’s certainty that pulls a business to success. And, unfortunately, sometimes it isn’t. In this case, it wasn’t. The business needed to Escape what it was while the owner was already in the messy Expand phase, based on their conviction that they were differentiated.
When You, the Business Owner, Has to Grow First
This owner had built a company up and had some real success. Then things needed to change so they could reach their next set of goals. So, they hired my client, someone skilled in marketing, sales, and management. My client was on the senior management team and had responsibility for both the marketing and the sales teams.
My client worked themselves to the bone. I can’t tell you how many times we talked about self-care, especially the necessity of sleep. They felt a responsibility to steady an environment the owner kept undermining, probably unconsciously out of habit.
The owner had created a culture where the department heads competed with each other instead of pulling together, where nobody was ever quite sure where they stood because they were so defensive.
My client spent their days smoothing all of that over, keeping people from losing it and quitting and picking up the slack wherever they saw it. They even had several conversations with the owner about what needed to change. The owner only ever gave their concerns and suggestions lip service. Nothing changed.
After a couple of years of this, my client quit and began pursuing their side hustle as their full-time gig. They’re in such a better situation now.
The business owner, however, lost their best employee. And the business? It stayed where it had been, stuck, because the owner wasn’t choosing to change in a way that would support its attempts to grow.
In other words, the business was in Excel, and the owner refused to address the Escape phase they were in.
Why Is It So Hard to Spot the Real Cause of a Business Plateau?
A business owner is rarely able to identify the cause of a business plateau on their own because they’re too close to both the business and themselves.
And when you look at those two stories side by side, you can see why overcoming a business plateau is so hard, and why so many businesses get stuck. You’ve got to be able to dispassionately examine not only the business, but yourself, to identify what needs to be done to move the business forward.
The other problem is that the help owners have to choose from is usually focused on just one thing. On one hand, you can find help on the business side with things like operations, systems, and pricing. On the other, you can find help focused on the owner’s (and senior team’s) mindset and leadership. It’s like each hand is holding one end of a rope, while the real reason a business is stuck often lies somewhere along the length of the rope instead of at one end.
This isn’t just a problem that small or mid-sized businesses face.
Henry Ford built the most successful car of its time and owned his company outright. So, he didn’t need to answer to anyone. Sound familiar?
Then the market moved on, and people started wanting things the Model T didn’t offer, like different paint colors. Ford’s executives saw it, his dealers saw it, and his son even flat-out told him. But Ford held onto the Model T and went from owning more than half of the US market to watching Chevrolet pass him by before he finally retooled and built the Model A.
Despite the business practically screaming what it needed, Ford stuck with his beliefs and refused to budge and enter the Escape phase for too long to recover Ford Motor Company’s #1 position in the US market. And today 100 years later, it’s yet to achieve the #1 position in the US market again.
And, of course, there’s Steve Jobs getting pushed out of Apple in 1985. No one said he needed to Escape anything, but that’s exactly what he did.
He spent eleven years building other things and could have stayed exactly the same leader he was when he left Apple. Instead, he came back as a different kind of leader and put together the greatest turnaround in the history of business.
What I want you to understand here is that people are people and businesses are businesses regardless of the size or the name on the building. If it can catch Ford and humble Jobs, you stand among giants if you’ve reached a plateau.
What Actually Overcomes a Business Plateau?
Usually, it’s someone from the outside looking at you and your business at the same time. As the owner, you’re too entangled, and so there’s no checklist I or anyone else can hand you to figure it out on your own when you’ve been stuck for a while.
Either you or your business needs to change, and when things have plateaued, it often points to the owner needing to Escape first. A business will stay exactly where it is until its owner changes or until whatever’s been propping it up gives out.
If you’re curious about what’s really holding your business where it is, let’s talk. 15 minutes won’t solve what’s taken months or even years to create, but you’ll walk away with clarity on whether you and your goals fit my process. Schedule your fit call now.
About the Author
Karen Finn, PhD is an author and business growth strategist. Download a copy of her book, The Business Growth Plan, to get insight into the low-cost and no-cost strategies she uses with her clients to 2x-3x their revenues.
