4 Telling Signs That Your Business Has Hit A Ceiling [Interview]

也许您开始业务以提高生活的灵活性。您想成为自己的老板并制定自己的规则。

或者，也许您想与成千上万的员工建立一家大型企业，以寻求彻底改变您的行业。

无论出于何种原因，您都可能发现业务初期的系统不会扩大规模。当您尝试添加新客户或用户时，您会发现自己工作残酷的时间来支持新的增长。而且，看不见。这不是您注册的内容。

I spoke withMarisa Smith，专业实施者创业操作系统（EOS）框架。EOS提供了一个全面的系统，用于查找和删除业务中的瓶颈。它看着6个业务的关键组成部分– People, Vision, Data, Issues, Process and Traction- and helps businesses discover which ones need to be strengthened in order to grow. Businesses of all types bring EOS Implementers like Marisa in to find bottlenecks and update their internal systems to prepare for more customers and revenue.

Marisa first tried EOS at the整个大脑群，她创立的数字营销机构。这个过程对她有很大帮助，以至于她能够移交该机构的领导，并成为全职EOS实施者。以下是我们从2017年6月开始的有关企业主面临的常见问题的采访记录。它已被编辑为简洁和清晰。

EOS系统的视频摘要

签名1-感觉缺乏对您的业务的控制权

凯文（K）：想到的第一个常见问题是什么？

玛丽莎（M）：I hear from a lot of business owners that feel like they have lost control. They don’t have a grip on the business, it has a grip on them. A lot of people talk about back to back meetings, working on weekends, not being able to get away for a vacation. All the things they dreamed about when they started a business- more flexibility, better control over schedule etc.- are not the reality.

K：企业主如何向您表达这一点？

M：It feels like I am stuck. No matter what we do, we just cannot get to that next level. We feel like we’ve tried everything, but nothing’s working.

他们feel like they can’t break through to the next revenue level or number of clients. Typically, when I am saying lack of control, it means:

• Feeling trapped
• 缺乏灵活性
• 无法休假而不会被危机打断
• Spending most of their time engaged in activities they don’t enjoy

取而代之的是，他们发现他们每周工作60个小时，并且觉得如果没有手机旁边的手机，他们无法去洗手间。

K：When there is lack of control, is there any particular lightbulb moment for these business owners? What triggers for them to actually do something about it?

M：经过多年的斗争，他们中的许多人被厌倦了，以至于他们被辞职了以下情况之一：

• 他们觉得自己只想辞职。重点是什么？拥有业务不是他们认为的。
• 他们resign themselves to the struggle because that is the life of an entrepreneur.
• 他们decide to sell the business or close it down just because they never seem to reach their vision.

那是我倾向于与人交谈的地方。他们want留在业务中并更加爱它，但他们不知道如何在不崩溃的情况下将自己摆脱困境。

K：Is there any one quantifiable thing that will solidify this? Is there a revenue number? Or is it more of a gut feeling, day-in day-out experience?

M：I tend to see more consistent day- in-day-out experience. They are on treadmill and they don’t know how to get off.

K：情绪会向员工滴下吗？他们会感到沮丧吗？

M：Usually, when the entrepreneur is unhappy, everyone is unhappy. That energy permeates the organization. You start to hear people say things like, “What’s the weather today?” In other words, is the boss in a stormy mood, or is it clear skies? That toxicity from the entrepreneur’ unhappiness or frustration has a cascading effect through the organization.

K：它是如何得出这个结论?

M：每个人都有不同的道路，但是许多企业家开始自己的业务，以对他们所属的某些组织的反应。他们说：“我们永远不想有这样的严格过程，我们不希望人们整天坐在无用的会议上。”

That works for three people, but once you get to 15-20, you need to get a little bit of structure in place, or else it’s just chaos. Unfortunately, it’s not always easy to find that happy medium.

签名2-感觉卡住或撞到天花板

K：Let’s talk about “feeling stuck”. What does that feeling mean exactly?

M：总的来说，一切都比它要困难，而且它们似乎无法达到一个新的水平。他们可能达到收入数字，然后走，“上帝很难！”他们终于把这个项目赶出了门，但是他们筋疲力尽。大多数企业领导者都觉得自己已经击中了上限，因为他们无法掌握一些领导能力。

As you grow, the organization naturally gets more complex because there are more people and more 2-way communication. It’s your job, as the leader, tosimplifyit, to dumb it down, less is more.

您还需要变得更好delegatingand recognizing when you need to let go and teach your processes to other people. Most people are terrible at delegating. They want things their way or they are scared to let go. Not only do leaders need to set a good example, but they also need to teach their employees how to recognize when they are at capacity.

Developing the ability topredict也很重要。您的公司移动的速度越快，您的反应就越多。您正站在高速公路的中间，汽车从双方驶向您。您需要能够长时间看待。您需要积极主动并为3-6个月的时间框架做准备，而不是对您所带来的一切做出反应。

K：It sounds like this is a revenue number or number of employees. Once it crosses that point, you need new processes.

M：您需要简化，委派，预测和系统化。突然，当您拥有20个客户或从100个使用产品的客户转移到1000时，在10个客户端起作用的过程都无法正常工作。这些原始过程需要更改，以使事情始终如一地完成 - 无论谁在执行任务。

最后，您需要学会structure您的组织正确。一开始，每个人都分享所有帽子。这一切都是甲板上的手。您得到的越大，您需要定义谁对什么负责。

K：是否有灯泡击中天花板的时刻？

M：很多人多年来为此而苦苦挣扎。他们与其他感受到痛苦并理解他们的人在一起，但不知道会有更好的方法。如果您遇到了越过这一障碍的另一个人，那么您可能会明白，这不一定是如此痛苦。不幸的是，很多人沉默。

击中天花板往往每5年左右发生一次。这就是为什么许多企业不超过5年的原因。他们要么弄清楚，要么永远保持相同的大小。或者他们倒闭是因为他们再也无法做到了。如果您不断成长，您将不断碰到天花板，因此这就是为什么发展简化，委派，预测，系统化和结构的能力如此重要的原因。

Sign 3- Inability To Pass on Leadership To Other Team Members

K：让我们来谈谈“被困”。这意味着什么？

M：I talk to people that are ready to retire or they want to pass their business to the next generation of leadership, but they can’t figure out how to get the business to the point where they can do that.

Other times, they’ve realized that they’re becoming the bottleneck to their company’s growth. They reach a point where they can’t be in the middle of everything. They can’t manage 37 direct reports. They can’t be the main contact for 30 clients. They also can’t be the one salesperson. It’s time to figure out how to let go and delegate.

Sometimes, the leader is the problem. They have great people who are ready to step up, but the leader is not letting go. Other times, if I ask who is in charge, it is just the owner and here is no leadership team in place.

When you ask the entrepreneur, “Who is in charge of sales?” Answer: “I am”.

“谁负责客户服务？“我”。

是时候将其他人负责的结构放置在适当的位置，他们可以将其中的一些内容交出。

K：In that case, is the person trying to offload the responsibility to others? Or are they not trying?

M：Depends on the person. They might say, “I’m trying to delegate, but people just drop the ball!” Sometimes this is due to a culture where accountability hasn’t been emphasized, but other times it’s because they don’t have the right people in place. Or maybe they weren’t as clear about their expectations as they thought they were. Other times, the one time a team member does something slightly different, the leader snatches the responsibility right back.

无论如何，学会放手并建立正确的结构，人们将为企业家感到自在，这将为奇迹带来奇迹。

签名4-整个组织中缺乏对齐 /不明确的愿景

K：我想涵盖有愿景而没有达到愿景的概念。从业务到业务的情况有很大差异。这是一个个人愿景，就像一个人在5年后的生活方式一样？还是更像是公司的愿景，就像我希望我的业务代表X，Y和Z一样？

M：有时，它会诚实地纠结。当他们开始业务时，更多的是他们想要的生活。现在它已经超越了这一点，还有其他参与。他们需要找到一个新的愿景，迫使他人前进。

最初的愿景需要移动并变得简单地个人。领导团队需要发展公司愿景。如果他们想让其他人推动这一愿景前进，那么他们就不能仅仅将其放在团队成员身上，然后说“这是愿景，请跟随它。”

You really have to work together as a team to discover that shared vision. Where can that company be in 5 years? 10 years? That can be hard to pull out of people. They don’t always agree on what it is. Leaders have a hard time getting it onto paper so others can picture it too.

That is one of the biggest benefits of the EOS process: the actual process people go through. You need to get everyone in a room and spend time workingon业务使每个人都可以开始看到同一件事。一旦您离开房间，人们将根据相同的信息做出决定，因为它们都朝着相同的目的地前进。

When you don’t take time to work on the business, people work at cross-purposes and they never gain traction. People are so busy all the time that they don’t have time to think about the strategy. They are busy maintaining the status quo, not making progress toward a shared vision of success.

EOS帮助您简化，委派，预测，系统化和结构，以便您可以突破这4个障碍。

作为企业主，您将在公司一生的另一个关键点上遇到另一个上限。而且，如果您现在学习这些技能，那么您将在收入或客户再次高原的5年内做好充分的准备。