How to Grow an Established Business: When to Focus, Expand or Diversify
If you’ve landed here, I know that you’ve already built something successful – and now it’s time for the next level of growth. I also know you've likely read a bunch of superficial, generic business articles that offer blanket ideas with no real substance.
Rest assured, this is not that type of article.
When you’re done reading, you’ll have an in-depth understanding with concrete execution strategies of the following:
More revenue isn't always the answer. In the following sections, I’ll help you see how to use your numbers, capacity, and strategic priorities to decide what to grow, what to cut, and where to focus next.
You’ve probably already realized that your next level of growth isn’t necessarily about doing more. It’s about using the data available to you to do what’s already working better.
In the sections below, we’ll go deep while also providing you with clear strategies for implementation.
1. More Growth Isn't Always Better Growth
As I mentioned earlier, you’ve most likely already hit that growth inflection point where you know you can’t simply add growth that will require doing more. It’s time to evaluate the quality of growth you want to add.
This will require you to do deeper dives into:
But is it Profitable?
Really understanding all your revenue streams and their profitability is key. View each revenue stream separately and treat it like its own cost center: understand the expenses, admin hours, and service-delivery hours, then use that to calculate profitability or, in some cases, revenue earned per hour, to see which.
A client came to me with multiple revenue streams; after a closer look at her numbers, we realized one service offering was taking almost all the admin and marketing time but delivering only a fraction of the profit. We immediately cut those revenue streams and only focused on the highest-margin services. The result was 185% growth in just 6 months.
Lesson: Revenue streams that are easiest and simplest to deliver very often lead to faster growth and profitability.
Simplify to Amplify:
The bigger a business gets, the more moving parts there will be, and inevitably that will add more layers of complexity. But sometimes we overcomplicate things. We try to grow by adding to the existing structure, instead of simplifying and streamlining so you can then add something new.
A client wanted to add AI into their existing business. But a ton of their procedures weren’t formalized or streamlined yet. Ultimately, they wanted to add AI to make everyone’s jobs easier, but adding it to the existing structure did the exact opposite. So we slowed things down and focused on getting people to first dial in the company processes manually and really understand them. The result: the client needed a way less complex AI system and saved over $300K in engineering fees.
Lesson: Fix it before you add more, and you'll avoid unnecessary expenses.
Create Freedom First:
Many business owners think freedom is a byproduct that will naturally happen once their business reaches a certain level. The truth is – that you have to intentionally build your business so it’s not dependent on you.
If you’re trying to expand but every decision still depends on you – it’s time to spend time untying yourself first. I wrote extensively about how you can do this in my Forbes article: “Six Critical Moves To Create A Culture Of Accountability, Ownership And Growth.” The crux of the matter is to start evaluating your role and start to redefine what your new role will be in the business, and delegating and hiring accordingly.
A client started working with me because she realized that there are things she must not be doing as efficiently as she was looking at all these other business owners who were going on vacation and having fun, yet she was still very much stuck in the day-to-day of her business, so much so that she was even still providing some services to clients. We rolled up our sleeves, and within a few months, we got her out of client work and firmly in the driver's seat of her business, steering the ship, managing employees, and focusing her time and energy on what really mattered to drive revenue. The result: she crossed the seven-figure mark 9 months after hiring me (in 2020 – during COVID!)
Lesson: Get clear on high-revenue tasks only, and learn to manage and delegate effectively while releasing control to others.
2. Focus Is a Business Strategy & Non-Negotiable
Your next level of growth will require you to show up and lead. And that leadership will look less and less like the busy work and checking things off a list - and more and more like methodical, focused time where you strategically implement intentional moves in your business.
This means that your days and weeks will need some dead zones for deep thinking; this is the time when you’ll be reviewing what’s working, what’s not, where to make adjustments, and figuring out what comes next.
When I started working with a business owner who runs three businesses, he had already heard of the concept of a CEO day, but he didn’t know how to structure it or how often he'd need one. I helped him to create a deliberate agenda and structure he could follow. The result? More informed, strategic decision-making that led to the right investments for growth and, naturally, better delegation of team ownership. It quickly became one of his favorite activities in his business. He also realized what the true vision for his business was versus what the internet and other business gurus were trying to shove down his throat; he defined success on his terms and, as a result, found more satisfaction and joy in his business. All of the above also helped him to strategically think through and see what the fastest and easiest regions for growth were, ones that would require less risk and capital investment, while creating more profits.
Lesson: Focus requires dead space. Dead space leads to clearer thinking and better business decisions and delegations that unlock more satisfaction and success.
How to structure your CEO Meeting:
Click here to download my simple, easy review-method worksheet, The Growth Accelerator.
3. Before You Decide What's Next, Look at What the Numbers Are Telling You
Building on what I mentioned above about profitable revenue streams: Your numbers have a way of cutting through the stories you’ve been telling yourself about your business.
Often, when I start working with folks interested in growing, they don't have a standing money date. And I get it - most entrepreneurs walk around with a limiting belief about money and their capabilities to do math. This is lethal to their company's growth.
What you focus on expands, and if you’re not paying attention to your numbers because of baggage around money and numbers, your profits are doomed. In my book, The Up Level Project: Your Guide to Unlocking Higher Profits and Freedom, I help business owners to align their mindset with their desired goals.
Often when clients start working with me, they’re astounded at the simplicity of an easy forecasting trick I teach them and then absolutely love using it. Hear what Sarah had to say about it during her two-hour strategy session with me.
The down-and-dirty is this:
You want to track your numbers, understand exactly what your highest revenue months were, what you did to make those happen, and also look back at previous years to start to spot seasonal and economic/industry-specific trends.
With these facts at your fingertips, you’ll naturally spot opportunities or ideas that can help increase revenue or plan for slower months.
And the best part is that you’ll be able to better track your efforts against your money, which will give you additional feedback about what needs to be cut, added, or adjusted.
Lesson: Your numbers don’t run on feelings, but facts - and hidden in those facts is your next golden opportunity.
4. Not All Revenue Deserves to Stay
One thing all my clients appreciate is my no-BS approach and the fact that I walk the talk.
A few years ago, I was trying to scale my business the way most coaching businesses scale, by offering a one-to-many offer - and for the record, over the decade of being in business I tried this model multiple times - always thinking I just didn’t have the right offer or course yet.
This time around, I was determined to make it work! At first, it was going great, but by the end of my first full year running this offer, it was clear something wasn’t working. Not only had my revenue tanked, but I had doubled my working hours, felt like a content machine, had a disjointed marketing strategy, and was paying a lot for support, admin, and other overhead costs.
So, I did a full audit - much like the one I mentioned in section 1: More Growth Isn't Always Better Growth.
And here was the shocking realization: although this revenue stream made up 25% of my total revenue, more than 80% of my business admin resources and my time went to serving this segment. But that wasn’t all; my overall revenue tanked by 25%.
Here’s what the numbers showed me:
Wrong time investment
I was spending 80% of my time on something that produced 25% of my revenue.
Complexity
By adding more offers, I added more complexity to my business model. My marketing became more complicated, my systems became more costly and complex, and my poor team ran in circles.
Increased Costs
By running my business this way, I increased not only my operational costs in team overhead, but also the hours I spent in my business. AKA, I was working harder for less money.
After seeing these facts clearly, I immediately shut down all of these revenue streams, except 1!
And you know what happened? The next year I increased my revenue by 28% - and hit my highest-grossing and net year ever!
By simplifying my business, I not only amplified my revenue, but I also finally gave myself permission to run my business my way (similar to the realization the client I mentioned above had once he started doing CEO days)
Lesson: You get to cut revenue streams that are not performing and are clogging your bandwidth, team time, and your sanity - even if it goes against industry tradition.
This brings us to a few growth strategies that will help ensure your scaling journey is successful.
5. Growth Strategy #1: Go Deeper Before You Go Wider
In my personal business story above, I tried to go wide because that’s what my industry told me to do, and we can all agree the results were sad. Once I doubled down on my one revenue stream that was the clear winner – that’s when things really took off.
And this lesson doesn’t just apply to my business. I often have folks start working with me who dream of a different business model or a new shiny revenue stream – but when we really dial down into things, it becomes obvious that there are plenty of ways they could make more with what they have in a way that will be fulfilling and freeing.
The other problem with going wider before your business is ready (or to escape what’s not working) is that, well, you’ll be building on a shaky foundation. If you try to expand to a different location, add another revenue stream, or buy another business before what already exists runs like a well-oiled machine, you’re just adding more complexity and noise, and you’ll most likely end up tanking everything as I did.
Always make sure your business foundation is solid, your services and systems are proven and tested, and you squeeze every ounce out of existing revenue streams first - that means dialing in your marketing and attraction or business development strategies while also ensuring you’re using every square foot of your current business footprint to the max.
Lesson: Fix what’s not working first before you add more!
6. Growth Strategy #2: Expand What's Already Proven
As you learn to take a closer look at your numbers and draw insights from them, alongside your weekly CEO review meetings, you’ll also start to see what is already proven in your business. This will give you key insights into exactly what you need to do before you open that next location, or hire a new team member, or when to hire, and so much more.
I was recently on a call with a long-term client who knew that they had to expand their team for the next level of growth; one big hiccup was cash and the risk of adding more overhead before revenue was in the bank. As we talked, I reminded them that they had solved this same problem before. So we looked back and talked through exactly how this played out previously and what was already proven before. This helped my client regain confidence that they were doing the right thing. The only difference this time was that the numbers were bigger.
Lesson: When you track key factors in your business and know your numbers, as well as what worked in the past, you gain the insight and confidence to make the best decisions for growth.
7. Growth Strategy #3: Diversify Without Diluting the Business
As we learned from my scaling mistakes above, adding new revenue streams has to make sense on more levels than just “this is how the industry does it” or “I feel like this is a good idea.”
But there’s also another reason you must think about diversification: resilience and opportunity. Diversification, when done strategically, can hedge you against economic downturns or create exponential growth.
It’s also important to remember that diversification comes in many forms, not just adding another offer. You can diversify your business through location (decreasing concentration risk), a different demographic, and more.
The key to diversifying your company is to look at all the factors and resources needed to execute it and weigh them against the upside potential. And of course, if you have zero or limited data to back up your decision - see if it’s possible to test things on a smaller scale first.
Lesson: Only diversify if it makes good financial sense.
8. A Good Opportunity Can Still Be the Wrong Move
Not all opportunities are created equal. And it’s very natural to want to jump on every single one that presents itself. This behavior can lead to disjointed and complex offerings, marketing, a team that’s stretched too thin, and a business that’s lost its way with little profit to boot.
That’s why it’s so important to revisit the company’s vision and objectives often (at least every 6 months).
I recently did a two-hour strategic intensive with a business owner who’s had a big change in their personal life, and that completely changed what they wanted in the long run. Before we could dive in and build a plan, we took time to get crystal clear on his new vision. We went deep on size, culture, revenue streams, and expansion plans.
This clarity immediately unlocked which opportunities to pursue and which ones to say no to in the future. It also helped crystallize current capacity, which systems needed to be created, implemented, and upgraded, and where the gaps were in leadership and the team.
The business owner was astounded by the clarity, direction, and actionable steps he got in just two hours, and confessed he’d never been able to uncover all of that on his own.
Lesson: Never evaluate opportunities in a vacuum; they must align with the company’s long-term vision, financial feasibility, and team capacity and skill.
9. Don't Scale What Already Depends Too Heavily on You
If you’re still operating as the Chief Everything-Depends-On-Me Officer, it’s time to build scalable decision-making systems. This point in any business owner’s journey is often the hardest to get in place.
For a very long time, you were the chief decision-maker, rainmaker, and fixer. And let’s face it - you are freaking good at it, and a part of you is even a little addicted to it.
Here’s the hard truth, though – if you keep running your business like this, you will hit a glass ceiling because there's zero bandwidth or space for sophisticated growth that also creates freedom.
At this stage, all business owners have to shift their identity and move from operator to true leader and CEO. This requires the owner to sharpen their leadership skills, learn to release control, and start hiring folks with skill sets beyond the owner's.
I refer to this as the owner promotion stage; this is where we redefine what the entrepreneur will do moving forward, and what and who then needs to step up and take on some of the tasks that will be left behind. From there, we get the right people in the right places in the business and create meeting and accountability systems that let teams take ownership and make independent decisions without bringing everything back to the business owner.
In The Growth Prescription Audio Training, I also cover this in more detail, and I specifically mention a client who came to me ready to sell their company and start something else. They were overextended, exhausted, and in full-on Fixer mode.
I quickly assessed that their shiny new business idea wasn’t going to work, so I rolled up my sleeves and told them to give me six months to turn the business back into an asset that supported my client's wants and needs. After 6 months, my client was making the desired money, had outsourced decision-making and management to their very capable team, and was firmly in the CEO seat of her business. Then something catastrophic happened: my client had a family emergency that meant they had to step away from running their company for a prolonged period. Months later, when we resumed our work, she thanked me because while she was out, her company survived and provided the financial resources needed to support significant, unforeseen personal expenses.
This work isn’t just nice to have - it’s crucial to protect your business against unforeseen and devastating events.
Lesson: Your Chief Everything-Depends-On-Me Officer mentality keeps you from unlocking higher growth potential and freedom.
10. Every Growth Decision Has a Complexity Cost
When we’re newer in business, it’s natural to think that success means going massively big. And for some folks, that's true.
However, not everyone is here to become the next Meta, Google, or SpaceX. And that’s ok.
In the online business world, a lot of marketing folks push 10Xing your business and want to ram “build a billion-dollar business using these steps” or “50K months are great, but $100K months are freedom” down our throats.
What these folks don’t mention is that bigger almost always means more complex. And that freedom that they promise will only happen if you scale up smart.
This can untether us from our truth and definitions of success. That’s why I love starting conversations with new clients around what they want for their life and business. This not only uncovers a few self-imposed limits, but also tells me what really lights up an individual. Nothing is more powerful than a fired-up entrepreneur.
Using the client’s definition of success alongside their vision, we explore what adding another $100K or $ 1 million would do to the business. In other words, what is the true cost (beyond just finances) to leadership capacity, team, systems, margins, risk, and upfront capital investment vs. profit reward. And of course, this will look different for every business.
Lesson: Understand what success means to you and your business before you grow for growth’s sake.
11. Create A Plan to Protect and Harvest Your Wealth
While doing my exit planning advisor certification, I learned about a few staggering statistics: 80% of a business owner’s net worth is locked up in their company.
70-80% of privately held businesses put on the market never sell! 🤯
That's a considerable amount of risk. I know my entire business is built on helping entrepreneurs succeed, but I’m not a fairy-dust naive business coach – I know that stuff can go wrong – and part of my job is to equip my clients with knowledge and options to hedge their risk.
Of course, I can help them with making their company more sellable (and because we do this right off the bat, way before it’s time to sell, it’s way more cost-effective!)
However, business strategy is only a fraction of what’s needed; there are tax and investment strategies that can be put in place that will help the business owner harvest their wealth along the way and also protect them against possible big capital gains tax bills along the way – and that’s why it’s so important for business owners to get a good CPA, tax strategists, and financial planners/advisors.
Having these folks on your team when you are making growth decisions will greatly support your personal wealth and financial success in the long run.
12. The Goal Isn't More. It's a Better Business.
I hope this article gave you new insights and strategies for looking at your business and financial data more holistically, and that it will help you make smarter decisions for business growth moving forward.
If you know anyone who needs this information, feel free to share this article with them. And of course, if you’re looking for more strategic support and accountability, feel free to book a call with me here to discuss how I can be of service to you.
And if you only take one thing from this blog post, I hope it’s this:
You’re already successful, and inside your business data lies all the answers that will unlock a better business that also brings you and your team success and fulfillment along the way.
13. Building a Better Business Today
If you found this article insightful, you’ll appreciate this one: How to Double Your Income Without Working Twice as Hard
If you’re ready to take your business to the next level, here are a few resources for you:
Get your roadmap to next-level growth: Take this FREE Business Acceleration Assessment.
Read Hanneke’s bestselling book, The Up Level Project.
Work with Hanneke: Book a 1:1 consultation here.
