Predictable Success

Predictable Success leads you through the various stages of companies and alternative paths they can and might take, depending on their actions, showing you the safest path towards predictable success, where you consistently achieve your goals.

First, Les McKeown describes three stages that come before predictable success is achieved:

Early struggle. Fun. Whitewater.

The early struggle is mainly a struggle with two questions:

Do enough people buy my product? Can I pay my bills in cash?

If you want your business to join the exclusive club of companies that have made it past their first year, finding answers to these two questions should be your only concern. Question 1 is mainly about marketing, but question 2 is rather easy to deal with if you follow one rule: have three times as much cash as you need.

It costs you $20,000 to stay in business for a year? Have $60,000 on hand and you’ll be golden…and ready to move on to the fun stage. This is where you know you have enough cash and sales keep coming in – the business seems to be growing all on its own and it’s fun to watch.

Beware though, that means the whitewater stage isn’t far. It’s when demand suddenly exceeds your ability to meet it, which is where most businesses get sloppy – but not you.

The way to deal with whitewater and actually get past it is to make decision-making simpler. This is something you should continuously do as you grow, as it might prevent you from entering whitewater in the first place.

For example, if you get too many orders, and people expect you to make a decision, and you face that scenario many times at once, you’re likely to get overwhelmed and tell them to either drop quality or cancel orders – both bad decisions.

If you can push decision-making down the chain and let people take responsibility to handle these situations without relying on you, you’re free to decide on more important, strategic matters.

When you need a new CFO, just ask people in the finance department what kind of person they need to lead them and involve them in the decision. Once you hire one, assign him or her to someone from the finance team to work out their role.

Basically, allow people at every level to make decisions. Equip them with the responsibility they need to keep your company moving in challenging times, instead of trying to control everything.

Done it? Maneuvered the whitewater stage and came out on top? Awesome! To keep it that way, Les suggests you install two systems in particular: Data – Debate – Decide – Defer. Make risk-taking a part of day-to-day…