Revenue Journal®

It doesn't matter what size your company is. I guarantee, at this moment, that your "comfort zone" is keeping your company from getting bigger.

What is your comfort zone? It's what you do best, and what you typically turn to first, when it's time to "do the next thing."

Here are some one-person-shop comfort-zone examples:

• If you are happiest talking on the phone, the paperwork and "production" side of your business will always be on your guilt list. You will procrastinate about your non-talking work until you can't put it off anymore. You are often forced to pull all-nighters and/or pay a penalty for missing a deadline. Your business will be out of balance: too much business coming in and not enough output going out.

• At the other end of the spectrum, you may love doing the work, but hate selling. You will spend hours over-creating products and packaging, but neglect to find new outlets for your products and services. Again, your business will be out of balance.
  

Here are some larger-company comfort-zone examples:

• The CEO likes acquiring companies more than he likes operating them. The company grows through acquisition, but always has problems incorporating a new company into the existing company. The customers of the acquired company no longer get the attention and service they used to get from the acquired company, and they take their business elsewhere. The intention is to buy the company, merge it smoothly into the acquiring company, then grow the business. The result is often very different. The positive characteristics of the acquired company are reduced or eliminated and the good people leave. What is left is a cost center, not a revenue generator.

• The CEO loves numbers, but is not comfortable meeting with customers. He spends hours poring over reports. He ends up missing an important "macro" trend while he obsesses about "micro" matters. Late in the "macro" game, a downward trend starts to show up on his reports. But it's too late. An aggressive competitor, run by a CEO who spends time interacting with customers, has spotted the trend, has become the major player, and has harvested all the low-hanging fruit. The "micro" CEO must struggle for every sale, as a johnny-come-lately.
  

Fortunately, it's not difficult to recognize your own comfort zone.

You know what you like to do and what you tend to avoid. If you want your company to grow, start paying more attention to the things you would rather avoid.

• If you tend to be a hermit or you spend more time with numbers than with customers, force yourself to make one customer call a week. Have a conversation. The customers will be glad to take your call - it's not every day they get a call from the president of a company they do business with. Listen carefully to what they say. Don't be defensive. Don't argue. Just listen and appreciate their insights. Take them to heart. If you keep hearing the same complaint or observation, act on what you've heard.

• If you would prefer being on the phone all day, to the point where your "quiet time" work doesn't get done, do that work first each day - or at least, several days a week. Doing this will build your business (not to mention your character!) and put your business back in balance.

• If you love buying companies and then get bored running them, surround yourself with smart, dedicated operations people. Not the slogging, bureaucratic people who create rules for no reason, but people who are always searching for new efficiencies, who love to organize and diagram and simplify. People who are as excited about operational efficiencies as you are about acquisitions. Pay close attention to what they do, but give them the bulk of the responsibility. Make sure they help you determine how the new companies will be incorporated into your already smooth-running infrastructure - before you finalize the acquisition. In fact, you should have a formal "acquisition process," that begins with a deep understanding of the strengths of the target company and a plan for enhancing those strengths after the acquisition.
  

Your comfort zone is capping your growth. Take the lid off and watch your revenues start to climb.