The Business Mistake
That Kills Revenue

The one business mistake that stops growth is complexity. When you make things too complex, your revenue and profits always go down, your team culture suffers, and momentum dies. The fix is to simplify relentlessly - keep the few things that drive growth, document everything else, and delegate ruthlessly.

What's the one business mistake that can derail everything?

Complexity.

Complexity Kills Revenue.

It's the one business mistake that cause most business to stall, or fail. Here's why.

When you make things too complex your revenue and your profits ALWAYS go down. And your team or your culture ALWAYS suffers.

That's what happens to most businesses - because they read a ton of books, and listen to people who are getting paid for IDEAS instead of being willing to share true EXPERIENCE.

Having too many IDEAS... is literally HELL to a real businessperson.

When a successful person wants to grow in some area of business or life, they learn from the experiences of others who have already achieved what they want to achieve... Multiple Times.

Where Should You Look for Business Growth Guidance?

Look to people with a proven track record of success - not once or twice, but three, four, or more times. Someone who's achieved what you want at least three times has a process, not a lucky break. When you learn from people who've scaled multiple companies, you get simplicity instead of complexity. Most consultants and books complicate things to look impressive. The people who've actually done it multiple times keep it simple.

Successful people look for people with a track record of success - not just once or twice, but they look for people who have achieved what they want to achieve 3 or 4 or more times.

If you're looking for someone to help guide you to have a great marriage - then you don't want advice from someone who's been married 1 or 2 years - you want advice from someone who's been married for 20 or 30 years, and has grown together and fallen deeper in love as those years went on.

If you want to learn how to hit home runs - you don't ask the person who hit one home run... you ask the person who's hit 10 or 20 or more home runs THIS SEASON.

If you want to learn ANYTHING in business - you DON'T look to a friend who built one business and still struggles - you look for EXPERIENCE from people who have built MULTIPLE - SUCCESSFUL companies, and each time they scale their companies faster and more predictably.

When you find someone who's successful AND is willing to share their experience with you... what you'll find if that WHAT they share with you is usually pretty damn simple.

So how do you avoid making this business mistake?

What's the Difference Between Good Business Advice and Bad?

Smart people seek out real experience, then listen, learn, and implement. The problem is most people listen to too many people without proven track records, create complicated plans as a result, and get discouraged when those plans fail. Good advice comes from experience. Bad advice comes from theory. And complexity kills everything - momentum, culture, motivation, revenue, and clarity. Simplicity built on real experience wins.

Smart people who want to grow in any area of their life or business... seek out the best EXPERIENCE - then they LISTEN, and they LEARN, and they IMPLEMENT, and SUCCEED.

But most other people... listen to too many people (people who don't have a proven track record) and then they create a COMPLICATED plan, and they get discouraged when that plan fails.

If I've learned anything in business, it's that complexity kills everything. It kills momentum, it kills culture, it kills motivation, it kills revenue, and most of all...

...it kills CLARITY which might be the reason why everything else dies as things get more complex.

Because people begin focusing on following a CONVOLUTED SYSTEM... instead of going from point A to point B in the fastest way possible.

Why Do Growing Businesses Fall Into the Complexity Trap?

When you're facing growth challenges you've never handled before, it's natural to look for solutions that look impressive - new org structures, expensive hires, complex systems. But those hires want to look smart, so they overcomplicate things. What actually works is adding one or two simple systems or one or two people to your existing team that's already working. Don't change what's working. Add what's missing, simply.

I completely understand that as we grow in business, if we've never been at the next level that we are aiming at, then we don't know how to handle all those new obstacles that come with this advanced growth. Most business people look to books, or gurus, or they hire a lot of expensive, unnecessary C level players like a new COO, or CTO, or CMO.

The challenge with that, is that most of those resources are driven by people who want to look smart. So they come into a business, and try to make things look more complicated than they are.

Or they try to change systems that are ALREADY WORKING in a business just to make them fit THEIR template. Which never accelerates growth in an organization.

Because you as the owner, AND your existing team already have a way of doing things that have gotten you to this level, that are working!

So going to the next level does not require you to stop doing what's working. It almost always requires you to add just one or two simple systems, or one or two people onto your org chart to manage the next stage of growth.

How Does Complexity Actually Kill Revenue?

Complexity kills revenue by creating overhead, confusion, and overhead. When you read a book that tells you to run very structured meetings and hold your team to specific metrics, but they've never done it before, they get resentful and productivity drops. Or you hire a COO who reorganizes everything, key people quit, and the new structure doesn't make up for losing experienced staff. Complexity creates friction. Simplicity creates momentum.

Let me give you an example of how complexity can kill EVERYTHING, and how keeping things SIMPLE can drastically accelerate your growth.

Let's say you're currently bringing in $2 million a year. You've been stuck there for over a year, but your goal is to get a 5 or 10 or 12 million in the next 12 to 24 months. So you start reading a book that tells you... you should be running VERY structured meetings with your team and holding them accountable to VERY specific metrics.

When you read that book your eyes light up and you think you finally found the solution. So you begin running those meetings, but since your team has never been held accountable to those metrics OR to showing up for daily meetings, they get very distracted and resentful... and their productivity goes down.

Or maybe instead of reading books, you speak to a friend who says you need a COO to get you more organized. You then go out there and higher a COO and pay him whatever the going rate for a COO is in your industry. And he or she comes in and begins to re-organize your team, and your processes, and your vendors... and for a month you feel like a weights been lifted off your shoulders... but then some of your key team members quit, and although revenue might increase marginally, it doesn't make up for the expense of hiring that C level player.

How Do You Know What Actually Matters in Your Business?

The secret to scaling is not increasing complexity. It's analyzing each department's performance through a simple tracking system and keeping your finger on the pulse. When you know three to five key metrics for each department, you can see clearly what needs to shift to maintain growth. You don't need to manage every decision. You just need to know if things are healthy or not. Simplicity with visibility beats complexity every time.

It doesn't make a difference what level you're at in business right now, whether you're struggling to break the million-dollar mark, or you've already grown past the 10 or 25 or 50 or $100 million mark...

...maintaining your growth rate, and getting to the next level, requires SIMPLE SHIFTS in a handful of areas of your company.

The secret to scaling companies is NOT increasing its complexity, the secret of scaling companies is this...

...every business needs a simple way to analyze the performance of each department.

Heck, even if you're a one-person show.... There's at least a half a dozen or a dozen departments inside of your business that YOU ARE MANAGING, and you need to be able to analyze the performance of each of those departments.

Because the company that understands how to analyze each department, always, always, always can see clearly... the simple shifts that need to occur in order to maintain growth in the entire company.

It's the business owner or the CEO who DOES NOT understand how to keep their finger on the pulse of each department that always seems to feel overwhelmed. They then look for some kind of secret weapon to help them have their next growth spurt.

What Do Fast-Growing Companies Actually Track?

Fast-growing companies track the few metrics that tell them whether each department is healthy. We studied multiple companies and compiled a list of exactly what the fastest-growing companies measure. It's detailed, but there's nothing complex on it. What these companies do is understand how to give themselves clarity without creating overhead. Simple visibility lets you stay focused on what really drives growth.

If you want to know what some of the fastest growing companies analyze and track in order to keep their finger on the pulse of their growth, a while back, we completed a 3 year study of each of my companies, and the companies on my Board of Directors, and the companies I advise in Club 28... and organized a list of What The Fastest Growing Companies Track.

If you want to see that list, you can download it on the front page of my website here. It's completely FREE.

It'll give you deep insight into what fast growing companies track. And you'll notice it's very detailed - but there's NOTHING complex on it...

Complexity kills clarity - and tools like this, give you BACK your clarity in a simple way so you can stay focused on what really drives growth in your business.

I hope this helps you avoid this top business mistake. If you know someone who needs to read this, share the article with them.