The Small Business Growth Killer

You knock yourself out to close that client. They close. You’re pumped.

Yet, once the project ends, you never hear from them again.

So you rinse and repeat: Close. Deliver. Sell more.

Month after month. Year after year. Never gaining the traction or brand recognition you rightfully deserve.

There are various possible scenarios why. But one is the real culprit with the smoking gun in its hand.

Invisible But Deadly
(Killing Small Business Slowly)

One factor is so rampantly widespread, so commonplace, that it’s invisible to nearly every company owner or executive and is factually the most destructive and dangerous to any growth whatsoever.

I know I am amongst friends, but I must resort to “the C word”: Committees.

They’re the official sponsors of vanilla-fests and will kill any innovation. Any change. Shutting the door on anything that questions the status quo.

It’s the ultimate death match for good ideas, innovation and change. (Talking about change — if you’re rebranding, here are 19 questions you must ask of your company before starting. Or if you have a brand and are wondering what next step to take, here are 3 points you should tackle.)

Why are committees so destructive?

Their objective and model is three-fold:

• Debate the life and spark out of everything,
• Make the originator sorry for ever uttering a single syllable, and
• Protect the status quo against against any change, even when the current scene is level, or worse — on a rapid-fire dwindling decline or when markets change and you’re rapidly becoming a case study in stupid, mindless stagnancy.

Wow. Let’s look at that again:

• Debate endlessly.
• Argue points the arguer knows little about.
• Mindlessly protect the way things are whether they work or not.

That’s the formula for a committee with this one added bonus: Nobody owns it if it falters or needs fixing. No. That’s just one more thing that gets thrown back into the committee grinder to be debated over, argued about and protected for its inherent rightfulness.

The solution?

• Come up with a good idea (e.g., campaign, product concept, name, etc.) all by yourself or possibly with one other “conspirator.” Someone who doesn’t care what others think. (CEO and Shark Tank star Daymond John has mastered this tactic. Read more about Daymond’s views and strategies here.)
• Develop it without a committee
• Test it out amongst the intended audience (an exact skill that committees do not have the ability to do is assume the viewpoint of the audience)
• Refine and perfect as necessary with your observations of what worked, what was off-target, what confused the audience and what pleasantly surprised them.

Then you can tell the committee where to go. (If you need more fuel to ignite your flame, download your own copy of the ePub digital edition of Defying Gravity and Rising Above the Noise in this post.)