One of the many lessons I have learned through No More Practice is to do with life, values and money – not just how much things are worth, but how money and your broader life goals can affect the rate of growth in your business.
It was a very interesting exercise for me, as a business owner, to record the journey of The Selector Group’s Brett Abikhair and Ian Jordan, our players from series 2 and 3, as they went through the exercise of exploring their growth options through capital raising.
I found it extremely insightful when Barry Lambert mentored the guys around debt versus equity investment. The fact that Barry advised debt was the best option to raise capital at first surprised me. Surely debt was the bigger risk?
As it turns out, debt is only a risk if you can’t grow and pay it back. What it does do is leave control firmly in your own hands. And as most owners (including myself) will acknowledge, control is usually a big reason why people start a business in the first place.
What was equally interesting was the fact that Brett and Ian wanted to raise the $1 million in growing their practice to $5 million of turnover in three years. This plan was deemed by the judges on judgement day as ambitious. They asked what the core of their growth strategy was, and whether 36 months was enough time to achieve it.
This questioning on judgement day really got me thinking about business strategy and growth. It seems like having a plan is one thing, and how long it takes to get there is another. Brett and Ian remained confident throughout that their plan was achievable and they had the projections to prove it. I admired their confidence and will be cheering them on over the next 36 months.
Gerard Doherty advised the guys in series 2 that growing through your own cash flow is a great way to grow in a measured way. I really related to that, as that is how we have grown this business. I do acknowledge and at times lament that we could have grown much faster if we had more capital.
We have however, resisted this for a number of reasons. My husband and I own the company and have worked together for almost nine years. We also have three young children that we really want to spend time with. We have found every time the business is in fast growth mode, we need to have our hands firmly on the reins. This usually translates to long hours and an extremely demanding schedule.
A more measured growth means we can work less hours and trust our very capable MD to run the day to day operations.
We have always valued innovation and have really invested our time and energy in creating new business lines like No More Practice.
We realise that this does not work for everyone –and is certainly not the fast track to making big money. It has however, allowed us to make mistakes, learn best practice and test new products. And this has been achieved with the safety of allowing things to fail without destroying the broader business.
I would be interested to know your views on growth – have you raised capital to grow quickly? What did you learn along the way?
I encourage you all to share what you have learned.
