How to Capitalize on Rapid Business Growth to Fuel Sustainable Success

A booming business doesn’t have to mean owner burnout when the right structures are in place.

*Please note: If you came here via our Brand Archetype Quiz, you may notice the wording in this article is slightly different from what you expected. I wrote this series on owner archetypes before deciding it would be more accurate to focus our messaging on the overall brand, which includes the habits and systems that support sales and marketing, distribution, operations, finance, and leadership of a business.

The tips and tools included in these articles remain the same, though our promotional messaging may have shifted: Your work in the world is unique and deserves a personalized approach. I hope the discovery of your brand archetype gives clarity and direction to your path and empowers your impact.

Do you have control over your growth, or does your growth have control over you?

Many people assume that rapid growth solves everything for a local company.

But what I have found over the years is that rapid growth is one of the most common precursors to business failure because it often results in owner burnout.

To make this success sustainable for the long-term, this type of owner must understand the systems they need to support their business-generating superpower.

When your business is booming like a Fully-Booked Cover Band, it can feel like you’re on top of the world. It seems like everyone wants what you have.

The Fully-Booked Cover Band owner archetype, as modeled by one of our awesome clients.

This type of owner is easily identified by her success. Does this sound like you?

• You have a supportive team that wants to see you succeed,
• Sales are strong, maybe overwhelmingly so, and
• Your community views your company as successful and trustworthy.

But all this success comes at a cost. Keeping up with high demand without supporting structures in place can sap your energy and joy.

The Fully-Booked Cover Band and her team are like world-renowned musicians performing in 85 cities in 90 days. Sure, everyone knows the name of Janis Joplin and Elvis Presley. But they fueled their success with unhealthy habits and supplemental drugs, ultimately leading to tragedy.

Being a crowd-puller is supposed to feel better than this.

And it can, with the right strategy.

For the Fully-Booked Cover Band owner archetype to regain her freedom, she must set boundaries for and within her company.

This type of founder faces two challenges:

1. Internal systems that need to catch up to sales growth.
2. Overcommitment that is stretching the owner and her team too thin.

With the right tools, she can streamline her business systems to make more money while working less and focusing on what she loves.

This owner archetype must develop systems to create order out of chaos and grow sustainably.

Many owners know what it’s like to be in this position at one time or another, especially if you’ve been in business a long time.

It feels like everything is going really well — until suddenly it’s not. And you find yourself burned out, anxious, and exhausted.

I reached this point in 2021.

We had massively scaled up our team and our client base and were really excited. It seemed like everything was going in the right direction.

But our systems, technologies, and team development were not in a place to sustain that kind of growth. At least not without sacrificing our values or my own energy and time.

By the beginning of 2022, we had to make major pivots to avoid compromising in unhealthy ways. (And the adjustment period is taking longer than if we’d grown at a steady pace.)

Because we were generating business like a Fully-Booked Cover Band, we felt the need to take advantage of everything we could in the moment. We had to remind ourselves that it was okay to take a break.

So if you need that reminder, here it is:

It’s okay to rest.

Otherwise, you’ll find yourself needing to compensate by taking from an unhealthy place. Your business success will come at the cost of your energy, values, employees, family, or community.

To build sustainability, a Fully-Booked Cover Band needs to take a hard look at what they value, then build systems that are most valuable to their mission.

No business goes through massive growth forever, which is why talk about business lifecycles is so prevalent. Unlike incremental growth, which can continue indefinitely, massive growth is unsustainable.

Why?

Because of a lack of systems and foundations. Without them, this kind of growth leads to the sacrifice of your people, your margins, or your values.

To regain your freedom as the owner of a Fully-Booked Cover Band, you need logistical support that will allow you to let go of the “doing” and reprioritize the role only you can do — lead.

A key question for this type of owner is this:

What can’t get done without you?

That’s the first place to begin developing a system, automation, or training someone else.

Begin with taking inventory of your internal production systems. What assets are you missing?

Do you need…

• A physical office space?
• A tool for scheduling jobs?
• A project management system
• An HR tool
• A CRM automation?

Once you decide on a thread to pull, you can start untangling the knot of your business systems with confidence and ease.

Talk about a reason to celebrate!

The right internal systems don’t just give you room to breathe. They also secure a path to sustainable growth.

People want what you have — right now.

This means that right now is the time to systemize and automate what’s working with your marketing and sales. Bolstering these processes will help create a steady stream of new blood into your referral network and organization so your growth can continue.

Besides needing internal systems support, this owner archetype can also find herself overcommitting her resources.

Rapid growth can be exciting. What a wonderful position to be in — to be able to point at your company and say, “See, I knew it would work!”

But in the fever of activity, the Fully-Booked Cover Band owner can find it hard to know when to say “no” — or at least “not yet.”

To help determine the best places to spend your energy and money, refocus on your central mission as a company.

This is where you perfect your systems and invest your money. By creating sustainability from the inside out, it will become easier to incorporate new opportunities in a way that contributes to your growth.

When local founders understand their business-generating superpower, they can better pinpoint the solutions that will help them thrive.

The Local Business Owner Archetypes, based on our incredible clients. Each has her own business-generating style and a joy-filled path toward sustainable growth.

Owners who identify with the Fully-Booked Cover Band owner archetype are in a unique place of opportunity.

If you can create the practice of systemizing what’s working when you are thriving, you will avoid a lot of the most painful pitfalls when the cycle inevitably changes.

But no matter your owner archetype, you have what it takes to become the default for your industry in your community.

Or, as I like to call it, a Local Rockstar.

With the right internal systems, the Fully-Booked Cover Band can reach Local Rockstar status with sustainability and joy.

*Click here to learn more about how knowing your owner archetype can help guide your business growth with clarity and intention.