The 6 Constraints Stopping Your Business from Growing

What’s up, all you beautiful people? Welcome back to the podcast. Okay, so today we’re going to talk about the fact that every single business in the world has one of six problems. That’s it. One of six problems. And this serves as the, the foundation of what we refer to as the beyond the apex framework of business. And this is a way of conceptualizing all the different moving parts of your business so that we can simplify it down to its core thesis, its core components, and then we can, we can focus in on where’s the constraint? We can remove that constraint, then we can build our business in a way that we don’t grow to hate. That’s the ultimate goal. So these are the six problems every business runs into at some point.

Okay? Number one is unclear. Destination. The vision of where it is we’re trying to go is unclear. And as a result, if we’re not clear on where we’re trying to go, then the skills we are acquiring as the individual entrepreneur, the founder, they’re going to be misaligned for the destination. The rocket ship or the vehicle. The business that we’re building is going to be misaligned for the destination. For instance, the vehicle you’re going to take if you need to go to the corner store is going to be different than the vehicle you take if you need to cross the Atlantic Ocean, which is going to be different than if you want to fly to Mars. You might be able to take a scooter to the corner store, you might be able to take a wooden boat across the Atlantic, you need a rocket ship to get to Mars.

Very different businesses. But it all starts with understanding where is it that you’re trying to go? For instance, that corner store business, that might just be. You’re looking to start a side hustle that can make you an extra six figures a year. But you don’t want any employees, you don’t want any headache, you don’t want to take on a lot of risk. Right. That’s a very different business than the wooden ship getting you across the Atlantic, which might be, I’d like to build a $5 million company. I would like to have a team of 15 people working alongside me. I would like to have this, that, and the other thing.

Right? So, like, I would like to be working this, this many hours a day and have this much flexibility. I like to be making this much personal income. So that’s a different machine than the first one, right? The rocket ship might be, I would like to build a billion dollar enterprise, and I would like to sell it in five years and be a billionaire. Very different businesses, very different vehicles. But it all starts with understanding where we’re trying to go. And a lot of times what I see is entrepreneurs get into this game thinking they want to go to one place and they start building the wrong machine to get there, or they’re not even clear where they’re trying to go, and so they just start building all willy nilly. So, but that’s, that’s a critical mistake. We need to assess first.

Where are we trying to go next? We take us take a look at you as the pilot, and what are the skills that you as an individual founder, need to have in order to build that machine? Because the truth is, the vehicle only ever goes as far and as fast as your ability to pilot it. There are no business problems. There are just you problems. So limitations that you have that then get transmogrified into the business. So you don’t have a people problem. You personally have the inability to hire, to train, to retain high quality talent, right? Or you don’t have a money problem. You have the inability to drive leads, to convert those leads, to deliver a profitable product, to keep money in the bank, to manage cash cycles, right? It’s every business, every problem in the business really just comes back to you as the founder and your individual shortcomings and skills, right? So that’s the next thing that we need to look at. After we have the destination, we look at you as the pilot, where you, where are your shortcomings? And the thing is, entrepreneurship is just a game of systematically identifying and eliminating your limitations as an individual.

So it might be this hiring is your limitation now. And then next it’s going to be financial management, then it’s going to be the sales process, and then you ascend to a new level of the game and you realize, oh, I have people problem again. Like, it’s not that you solve the problem once and for all, you solve it at different levels, and then the way that you have to solve it in the future, your skills have to evolve. Right? You have a good jump shot for jv basketball in high school, but you don’t have a good jump shot if you go to college. So you need to continually be evolving and improving as the entrepreneur. The third problem really stems from the machine. So we have our destination, we have our pilot, and now it’s the machine. It’s the vehicle that we’re building to get us to the destination and every business.

The machine really has three core components. We have the marketing component, which is to get customers and convert them. That operations component which is to deliver a profitable product to those customers. And then the finance function, which is we need to keep money in the bank so we have fuel for this machine. Now, within that, there are four core problems you’re going to run into. So here are the four core problems on top of the pilot and the destination problem. And you solve for these, you will not have any problems in your business. Number one, how do you get leads? How do you get more prospects? How do you get your product, your service in front of more people so that you have the opportunity to sell them? That’s problem number one.

Most people do not have a good qualified lead generation system that’s consistent. They may be relying on referrals to grow their business. And referrals are great, but there’s no way of systemizing the process of referrals so you can have consistent growth. And the way that you can know this is, if I said, hey, you need to get 100 new customers tomorrow, could you do it? Well, we want to design a lead generation system where we’re like, okay, I could pour more ads in, I could do more organic, I could do these things. I know I have these levers to pull. But when it comes to referrals, you can only do so much. So that’s not a great, consistent, reliable way to grow the business. So that’s problem number one within the business itself is how do we get more leads.

Problem number two then is how do we convert those leads that we’re getting? And this is all about the sales process. How are we sitting down and transferring our conviction about the product and service to the prospect in a way that convinces them that we can help them. And your ability to do that and how well you do that and how well you train your team to do that is going to dictate how well you’re able to take the leads that are coming in and convert them into paying customers. The third thing that is going to trip up most businesses is how to actually deliver the product. Like what is the offer? What is the product, the service that we’re offering and how do we deliver it in a way that actually gets results that is beyond the scope of this conversation. I did another podcast a while ago about how to build products that practically sell themselves. Go check that out. But that is, if you have a great product, life gets so much easier.

So your time and energy really needs to be spent in the beginning on just quickly iterating through your product offering to make sure that it actually gets the results you intend for your clients as quickly as possible. You do that, then you can pour on the marketing engine, get more leads, start converting them. Right. Okay. So the fourth thing then that hangs up most businesses here, when we’re talking about the vehicle in particular, is the systems, the systems that you have within the business itself. And this is a little bit more holistic when we’re talking about the systems of financial management. This is your systems for hiring, for training, for retaining talent. These are all the systems that are happening in the back end around your marketing machine, behind your sales process, behind the product delivery.

What are those systems that is making the whole company actually move in sync towards the goal. And if you solve those four problems, you’re going to be doing pretty well as a business. But again, the issue is that as you’re moving through the levels of the game, you keep discovering new and new difficulties as you’re like, okay, what used to get us leads only gets us 20 leads per month. We need 200. So now we need to evolve that system, and that might turn into 2000 in the future. So it’s constantly a game of whack a mole. Solve the problem, solve the current constraint in the business, remove that constraint, unblock it, and then the next constraint will reveal itself or eliminate that. And you just systematically do that over and over.

But those are the six problems. Six problems all businesses will face to different varying degrees. Destination pilot skills, the lead generation, the sales conversion, the product delivery, and overall systemization of the business. So if that any of that is what you’re currently struggling with, and you’re like, I don’t know what to do about that. Well, we have a group coaching program. We work with six and seven figure entrepreneurs to add another zero to their revenue, but do it in a way that doesn’t make them grow to hate their business and in fact, helps them maximize their return on life. If that’s you, if that’s something that you think would bring you some value, I implore you, go to beyond theapex.com and apply to join the accelerator program. We would love to work with you if we believe we can actually serve you.

So go. Let us know about what you’re building, what you need help with@beyondtheapex.com. and we’ll be in touch if we think that we can actually help you on your journey. Otherwise, keep consuming the podcast. I will see you guys back here tomorrow. Until then, stay happy. Focus, my friend.