Over the past 17 years I’ve experienced working with many, many small businesses – from solo/lone founders to mid-size emerging local businesses – and almost everything in between.

Many different styles of leadership, structures, systems – all unique in their own way as they’ve built footholds and legacies in their industries and areas of expertise.

No matter the business or particular industry, as things develop I’ve found that 2 areas in particular create the most bottlenecks/throttling for growth, especially early on in their development.

Is this always the case? Unlikely (there are too many situations in any industry for blanket statements like this), but stepping back and looking at things holistically, these are two areas that are easy to see both why and how they become natural choke points.

1. Communication System Separation

Communication is as natural for any business as breathing is for humans — without it, it’s suffocating.

Small businesses have the benefit of having closer, more personal interactions with their customers and clients, but as the client and customer list grow, so to, does the communication volume.

Typically working with one dedicated communication line (one email, one phone number, etc.), that additional volume can and will overwhelm even the most diligent, disciplined small business owner.

The worst part of that is missing new sales opportunities as that line gets jammed up with support or other admin related items.

If you’re a small business that relies on incoming phone calls, setting up communication systems for different areas of your business can not only prevent you from missing opportunities, but allow you to save your energy for more important matters (more on that below).

2. Repeatable Sales System Delegation

Good marketing can and will help streamline your sales process naturally, but if you require additional steps in order to process the incoming request (through an on-site estimate or additional project need assessment), that will mean your sales (and revenue/profit) will always be capped by the number of those requests you can handle in any particular day/week/month.

Again, the personalized approach is often a benefit for many small businesses – these close interactions build connections that can be beneficial for many years (resulting in the most valuable repeat business) – but keep in mind, this is an area that can – and should – be trainable for others to move things forward in your small business.

This also allows your marketing efforts to expand – an overly aggressive campaign or a sudden flux of incoming requests will overload your sales process/team, leading to indirect “leakage” as they’re not handled in time or fast enough.  Missing opportunities can also put undue stress on your marketing systems — if there are gaps or valleys in lead volume, you’ll feel pressured to “do more marketing”, but the true problem is in handling and converting the ones you already have.

Budget & Metric Aware Maneuvering

As with any move you make in your small business, there will be budget considerations as you maneuver things to relieve those areas above.

Letting someone help you means providing them the compensation and benefits that will allow them to not only help your small business prosper, but allow them to live fruitful lives themselves.

Making a place for them in your small business means making a place for them in your budget – something for you and your accountant to review/assess.

This is also where your metric stack come into play — having & understanding data you’ll need to feel confident in making those moves.

What Happens If Don’t Make These Moves

Everything runs through you – which means you’ll be blocking your own growth (indirectly).

Not only does this make you the bottleneck, it also can – and will – wear you out/down. As those phone calls rise and those missed opportunities stack up, they will cut away at your energy resources – and your time away from your business.

As strong and passionate as you are with your small business and the industry you work in, as that customer list grows, you’ll burn out (and start dreading customer interactions – an even worse situation to be in).

What Happens If You Do Make These Moves

When you start moving yourself out of the processes above, you’ll start to understand what your business looks like from the outside — the cliche here is “working on your business instead of in your business”.

You’ll move from ruthless, productive tactician to savvy strategist – moving pieces and creating the environment you need to optimize your metric stack and improve your business outcomes.

You’ll have more time to connect and meet with your most important customers, manage other areas of your business (marketing, capacity management and other operational areas in particular) and give you a bit more freedom on those days off.

We all love working in different parts of our small business – it’s likely part of the reason we started the business in the first place.

With different, higher-level goals, however, there will be the need to let go of the good – to go for the great.

Looking at your small business – have you run into issues with the two areas above?