If you could wake up tomorrow and have ten times your current number of customers, how would your company fare? What systems would break? Which people on the team wouldn’t make it? Who would excel?
Part of having a growth mindset is planning for intended growth. Every aspect of the business is subject to 10x thinking, but two areas especially worth reviewing are systems and people. Thinking 10x allows you to get ahead of the growth curve rather than always being in emergency response mode.
One way to assess systems is to look at the segments of the flywheel, at both a company and department level. Identifying the slowest segment of the flywheel will alert you an area that can’t handle 10x growth. For example, we worked with a company that at 10x wouldn’t be able to process the paperwork to onboard customers. Ironically, they’d have no problem building and shipping their product. It was their order taking system that needed work. Thinking 10x allowed them to see the need to streamline their customer on-boarding process.
Thinking 10x is a great way to identify key players you’ll need to retain as you grow. Will this person make it if we 10x? If the answer is absolutely yes, you need to work to retain this key player. If the answer is maybe, this is someone you want to monitor to see how they respond to opportunities to develop themselves. If the answer is no, congratulations! You just identified someone awaiting transition.
Get it the habit of thinking 10x. It’s a mindset to grow your company.