Building a business that is bigger than yourself

Building a business that is bigger than you are means going after work that you can't do yourself. In services like coaching and consulting, it means engagements that require more people than yourself to fulfill.

When you bid alone, how much can you charge? How much value can you deliver? How much is the opportunity worth? How does that compare when you pursue efforts that require an entire team of people?

Instead of coaching or consulting one-on-one, building a business larger than yourself means coaching or consulting many-on-many. Imagine a team of five coaching an organization of 50, with at least five times the revenue. This can happen by pursuing larger organizations or by providing greater subject matter coverage than you can provide on your own. It can also happen by having more customers than you can fulfill yourself. Imagine having 10 gigs going on at the same time, with multiple coaches doing the delivery. And 10 or more times the revenue.

A solopreneur delivering services has an upper limit on what they can earn. An enterprise does not. A solopreneur delivering tangible products has an upper limit on what they personally can make and deliver. A solopreneur delivering electronic products has a limit on the amount of content they personally can generate.

The number of hours you can deliver in a year is limited. This means the amount you can earn as a solopreneur is limited as well. For some, that limit is high enough that they can be happy. But this article is about growing larger than yourself and hitting the really big numbers.

Building a business larger than yourself means needing others to close the deal. It means:

• Having a team.

• Not being ad hoc about everything and making it all up as you go along.

• Being well coordinated and managed. It means having a process for responding and performing to keep everyone on the same page.

• Being deliberate. It means not just being intentional, but being willing to invest in the effort it will take to win. Most of that effort goes into thinking things through before you act.

• Having priorities and being able to commit the time required. It means carefully managing the expectations of everyone involved.

• Sharing the rewards. It means being willing to take a smaller slice of the pie, but having a much larger pie.

• Getting past the hump. The hump is having enough revenue to pay others in addition to yourself. It means being able to sustain the much larger pie required forever.

Being an enterprise means finding projects and recruiting and partnering to staff the work. But it also means institutionalizing what you do. Your enterprise can remain small. But it must have the ability to keep everyone on the same page. This becomes the work of the leadership. Deciding what the enterprise should be, where it will find the projects to fuel its growth, and how it will staff and fulfill them.

But doing business with others involved is different. It's so different that you should decide whether you want to grow into an organization with staff and payroll, or whether you want your organization to be an extension of yourself. You can be successful with either, but the more clarity you bring to what you want to become, the better you will be able to target your efforts.

Keep in mind what building a business that is larger than yourself does not mean. It does not mean that you have to become corporate. There are reasons why you might want to, but that’s not where you have to take it. You can be you if you know how to work with others. You can partner, you can outsource, you can avoid hiring, or you can embrace hiring.

The reasons people tend to embrace hiring is that it lowers their costs, improves their control, and is more stable. Sometimes. Sometimes outsourcing is cheaper. And control can be an illusion.

Another important consideration is exit planning. Are you trying to build a company that can be sold, can go public, or that you can pass on to your heirs? Or are you building a lifestyle endeavor that you can do for the rest of your life? Is running your business forever your retirement plan, or is selling your business your retirement plan? Having some clarity can help you make decisions, even if you change your mind in the future. If you get the chance, you can take a really good offer and immediately launch a new business.

The value of a business that is based on you, your network, your image, and your production is less than the value of a business that is larger than you are and can conceivably be operated by others. But the value of your lifestyle is priceless. Only you can decide between them.

Are you more comfortable staying solo, or are you ambitious enough to want to grow large?

What have your experiences been?

There are no right or wrong answers, but it is something that impacts all of us.

Let’s discuss it.

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