A 10x vision is much more than a series of “tips and tricks” to increase your revenue; it is a chance to take a step back from your business to see what is working and what isn’t, and to see how your business fits in with your greater life plan.

When sitting down and analyzing your business, you need to see if your business and business model can realistically support 10x growth. This strategic planning will let you know if you have the ladder in the wrong tree or are climbing the wrong ladder.

Scaling up your business isn’t always about money

When you think “10x”, which metric are you looking to grow? 10x doesn’t have to be market share or profit – it can be defined however you want to define it, based on what’s most important to you. It might be gross earnings, it might be free time, or it might be the number of products sold or jobs contracted out.

But before you try to implement anything – there is one important question you need to answer.

Is anyone in your industry successfully using growth tools to achieve 10x growth?

The industry that you have chosen to work in can be compared to a “tree” that may or may not produce as much fruit as you like. And your business is like a “ladder” that will determine how much of the fruit that you can pick from your chosen tree.

But ask yourself if is the industry you are in (the ladder) is really profitable enough to generate the 10x growth you’re looking for.

In other words, have other entrepreneurs been able to do what you are trying to do? Does your industry allow for 10x growth? Ask yourself how many people or companies in your industry are living the life that you want to live. Do they just say that they have a “lifestyle business” when in reality they work 60 hours a week? Do your competitors have big businesses? Is it just a matter of you catching up? Or is everyone in your industry operating at a fairly equal (but fairly low) level?

If no one in your industry has been able to build a large business, then chances are that there’s something limiting their growth; which should make you wonder if you can realistically hope to grow 10x.

Strategic planning tools to achieve 10x growth

Let’s say that you have stepped back to examine your business and your business model. You are convinced that there is room for growth, but you just need help making it happen. How can you get started? Well, what is the biggest constraint in your company or industry? What is the bottleneck that is keeping you from growing?

Business constraints can be all across the board – they can be technical in nature, can have to do with customer experience, or may even have to do with regulatory issues or trust issues. It may even have something to do with the supply chain. But I loved this example of how Apple identified and dealt with one constraint they faced back in 2001.

Apple’s method for scaling up production of the iPod

In October of 2001, Apple launched the Apple iPod with the promise of putting 1,000 songs into consumers’ pockets. The reason why they were able to corner the market and scale up their production had to do with the disk drive they used.

Apple locked up the entire world’s supply of the Toshiba drive used in the iPod and effectively gave themselves a two-year head start in the portable mp3 player market, thus leaving their competitors in the dust.

In one fell swoop, Apple created an impossible constraint for everyone else and eliminated one for themselves. It was a brilliant strategy.

If everyone else is scaling up… maybe it’s you

This can be a hard truth to swallow – it’s so much easier to blame the economy or the industry for our lack of growth. But if you can be honest and identify some sort of a company bottleneck, then half the battle is already won.

Then it will just be a matter of changing your operations, offerings, or execution to achieve the growth you seek.

If you want more information about 10x growth and whether or not your industry can support it, click here to schedule a call with us.