What game are you playing? Are you coming out of halftime down 7 or is it the top of the 7th inning and you’re up 2? Being on your game in these situs as the season draws to a close means having a plan in place and you’re executing to that plan. While there is no magic formula for success, businesses who plan to grow above average are typically those occupying a niche market and executing an effective strategy. Additionally, these businesses often have disciplined financial management practices and use technology to optimize and scale their operations.
We’ve found there’s three types of players on the field:
– Those who watch things happen
– Those who make things happen
– Those who wonder what happened
Small business are defined as those with less than 500 employees in the US making up an estimated 33 million businesses accounting for 99.7 percent of all businesses. Today, we’re focused on those SMBs with less than 100 employees. The average company growth rate for these businesses is 7-8% per year. For context, as revenues increase over a year, a smaller business with 10 employees would add 1 to 2 employees each year to their team. Several factors can contribute to a small business’s growth rate including the industry or niche in which it operates, the specific local market conditions and management’s ability to execute its business plan.
The Game You’re Playing is what you can do to influence and impact your business for the remainder of 2025 to 2026 and beyond? I was very fortunate to spend part of a season observing then University of Alabama National Champion head football coach, Nick Saban. A week didn’t go by when I wouldn’t come away with incredible insights into building a successful organization. He often emphasized the importance of culture and individual responsibility to achieve success. Talent would get student athletes in the door, but personal responsibility and accountability to the process was the organizational glue underpinning his team’s success. He frequently would say you know what needs to be done, but can you do it when you don’t want to. Often, he would follow that sentence with you know what you’re not supposed to do, but can you keep yourself from doing it.
My guess is you’ve built and owned your business for nearly thirty years or more. You know what needs to be done in the second half of the game, but are you willing to do it? Your talent and insight got you started, but are you too tired for the final push? We can give you a blueprint and you can personalize it and execute it. We can work together on the roadmap for the final two innings or take it to extras if the opponent ties us up. Finally, we can do it all for you with your oversight if you wish. At JSP, we’re here to support you in whatever decision you make.
Why would you wait until someone knocks on your door to find out the value of your life’s work? – Doug Huertas
Let’s get stuck in to some specifics… ask yourself, what’s working, what’s not and what are you willing to do and what are you not willing to do?
Local, regional market conditions. No one knows your market better than you and your team. What are you doing to leverage what you do better than your competitors? How’s it working for you? Just because you have a proven plan and it used to work flawlessly doesn’t mean you can’t course correct or modify that plan… just don’t quit!
Competition within and adjacent to your industry. It’s easier to see a bus coming straight at you and move out of the way. The greatest accidents are the ones you don’t see coming. What are you doing to see ‘out there’ or anticipate where the next threat is coming from? Whether it’s devil’s advocate or being counterintuitive, keep a weather eye out for potential threats.
New and emerging technologies or products. Innovation is great thing when you can take advantage of it. In many of the segments we advise are labor intensive, and AI or emerging technologies are leveraging the lack of much needed labor. Apps, platforms and systems to leverage time and reduce transaction costs are what will keep your business on-time and on-target.
Inflation, interest rates. No one knows what governmental or environmental shit is coming next, and I’ll bet my grandkids’ trust fund if someone says they do – they’re lying. World events can and will happen again impacting your livelihood. The advice is get off your ass and make things happen before you ask what happened! Certainly, there are dozens more, however those are the big four.
The typical internal strategies most business owners consider and engage in are:
• Investing in innovation, research and development.
• Focus on customer satisfaction, loyalty
• Implementing effective marketing strategies targeting the right audience
• Developing great relationships with suppliers, other business partners
There’s more you can do without you having to do it by yourself. Determine a realistic growth rate is a solid step to take and here are a few different ways you can step into the process with minimal pain. Why do I keep saying ‘minimal pain’, because there’s a number of you that are worn out, the business owns you and it’s become a pain in your ass!
Sales Data. Look at your industry/segment historical sales data. What is it telling you? The insight gives you an idea of how fast and what kind of growth your company will need to achieve to stay competitive. Look at the growth rates of similar or adjacent companies to your industry/segment. The insight gives you clarity of what is achievable to set you up for more realistic growth targets. Finally, speak to experts, mentors, etc. in your field and get their opinions on what realistic growth they see going forward. What small adjustment can you make today that can realize or put you on the path to a more favorable growth rate?
SGR. One of the strong value drivers we promote to our clients is SGR or sustainable growth rate. SGR considers the company’s current level of profitability, how much revenue it generates from its new customers, and how long it takes to win these new customers. Armed with this new data, you can chart a specific course of action for the remainder of the game! Start by choosing a variable and determine a time frame such as revenue growth or new customer acquisition. Identify an appropriate time frame for measuring this metric, we suggest quarterly and annually. Here’s more of what these variables are all about below.
Revenue Growth. Obviously, revenue is the important metric to quickly assess how well your business is performing – sales cures all. It provides insights into how efficiently your marketing and sales operations are performing – what’s working and what’s not.
Sales Conversion Rate. Sales conversion is the next best indicator of business growth. It measures how many leads turn into actual customers. The gap we see many clients ignore is not inspecting what you expect. By tracking this metric regularly, you can identify any bottlenecks or challenges in the customer acquisition process and make changes accordingly. That’s the kindest way to say holding your salesmakers accountable for their responsibility…whether they’re family or not.
Customer Base Size. The size of your customer base is an excellent metric for measuring business growth in terms of the number of customers or total revenue generated. Customer concentration is a Top 3 metric every financial buyer will inspect and expect in analyzing your company’s overall health and performance. Too concentrated, or generally over 20%, and your business could be considered a liability. Diversify your customer base.
Cash Flow. The right pocket is for cash in, and the left pocket is for cash out and your left arm is short! I placed this obvious metric because if you’re going forward with transforming from your life’s work to fine-tuning a transferrable asset, then cash flow is what buyers are purchasing – the future FCF they can generate by filling out a professional organization. If there are financial hurdles here in the 7th inning, then having a conversation with Doug or me will help guide you with the next best step.
When we perform a valuation for a client, we also provide a roadmap of the biggest rocks – value drivers and risk metrics – to move making the biggest impact for you going forward. The above is a snippet of where you can create value with minimal pain provided, you’re willing to do what you know you need to do. We’re here to support you along the way to wherever your journey takes you.
