A Foundation To Grow On

A FOUNDATION TO GROW ON A company that grows quickly without the proper infrastructure in place can suffocate under its own weight. by John Allin. March 30th, 2010. Snow Magazine. A company that grows quickly without the proper infrastructure in place can suffocate under its own weight. Over the past few weeks, I’ve spoken with a few contractors whose business this past winter went through the roof. They were challenged, and in one instance physically debilitated by the rush in winter business. A company that grows quickly without the proper infrastructure in place can find itself suffocating under its own weight. The owner gets overtaxed by trying to “do it all” by him/her self. Infrastructure is key to any growing company’s success or failure. Lack of proper infrastructure causes a breakdown in communication and systems. The cracks in the “systems” begin to grow and too many things inevitably fall through these ever expanding cracks. This is almost as bad as struggling with cash flow. In fact, cash flow actually can suffer because the overtaxed owner just doesn’t have time to get to the billing. Things fall behind. Customers get invoiced in the early summer and then balk about paying the bill because they didn’t know the invoice was coming. Additionally, the company’s own front line employees begin to suffer because they “feel” something isn’t quite right. They too become neglected as the weight of responsibility becomes overwhelming to the owner. Another ramification of rapid growth is that bills don’t get paid. More often than not this is because an owner has not delegated the responsibility for checking and validating incoming invoices. As a result, enough time goes by that a snow fighter's credit and credibility begins to sinks. Often, this is not because he cannot pay the bills, but because he just doesn't have the time to complete this important task. The real kicker is that most owners are afraid to delegate this task to an employee because he doesn't want everyone else in the company to know how much money they made off that busy snow season. But alas, the importance of a transparent business model is a topic for another day. In the meantime, stop and look around you. What do you see? More importantly, ask yourself what are you not seeing?