ARE YOU TRYING TO GROW A TREE IN A FLOWERPOT?

 ARE YOU TRYING TO GROW A TREE IN A FLOWERPOT?

When I was Chief Operations Officer for the largest deciduous shade tree nursery in the U.S. Located on 4000 acres in Oregon, we also had 85 acres in container grown trees or trees in plastic pots. We would plant fully-grown trees from our fields into containers and finish them for up to one year before we sold them.

If we happened to not sell all of our trees at the end of one year, they would often become too large for the container. When a tree becomes too large for a container the growth slows way down and may even stop growing. It doesn’t matter how much fertilizer and water you put on the tree, the growth is limited by the size of the container. Left for too long, these trees would actually start to deteriorate.

The same principle applies to our businesses. When we start our business, we plant a seed in a flowerpot and our business starts to grow. We continue to work hard in our businesses and the business starts to get larger. The business continues to grow and as it does so, it becomes more complex.

The problem is we are trying to grow this larger business in the small flowerpot that we started out with. The systems and processes we started our business with are no longer adequate to sustain continual growth of our business. It doesn’t matter how hard we work, the business will not grow and could very well be stunted. Left unaddressed this business will start to deteriorate and could eventually die.

Just like we can’t grow a large tree in a small flowerpot, we can’t grow our businesses to the size we want with the same systems and processes that we started out with. We have to think differently. We have to grow our systems and processes so our business can grow. We can no longer fly by the seat of our pants. We have to think more strategically about the systems and processes that we use to run our businesses on a daily basis.

Stop trying to grow your large tree in a small flowerpot. Call us and we can help you to develop systems and processes to grow your business beyond your imagination. We have helped our clients grow their business from 30 to over 452%. We can help you as well.