You can’t scale chaos: Why £300 million AUA firms stall without a plan

Growth often gets firms to £300 million AUA — but beyond that, chaos often creeps in.

Without strategy, structure and scalable leadership, growth will likely plateau, which can be frustrating and demotivating.

In 2008, the Corporate Executive Board (CEB), now Gartner, published its influential study, Stall Points. The findings revealed that 85% of all high-growth companies stall at some point and only 25% of companies that do so ever recover.

Here’s why your firm could hit a stall point if you don’t have a solid plan in place.

Lack of direction and focus

Many firms operate without a clear, strategic plan. This can lead to inconsistent decision-making, inefficient use of resources and missed opportunities.

If your team’s working super hard, but everyone is pulling in different directions, you could be at risk of hitting a stall point.

You need a long-term plan, effective leadership and real accountability to continue growing past £300 million.

However, in many firms, the leadership team is reacting, not leading. The CEB study found that 87% of the time, companies stall because of management error – rather than external factors such as the economy.

Strategies that once fuelled success could become obstacles

What made sense at £80 million might become a problem when your firm hits £300 million. And often, no one sees this happening until the damage is done.

Why do once-effective strategies become problematic or even obsolete as your company scales?

• Increased organisational complexity – If your company takes on more employees, enters new markets, or expands its product offering, it will need more sophisticated systems and processes.
• Changing leadership needs – £300 million firms need very different types of leadership than startups and small firms. So, failing to develop your leadership team could stall progress.
• Evolving financial and risk management requirements – These are likely to increase in complexity, scope and strategic importance. For example, you may need more sophisticated analysis and reporting capabilities to ensure regulatory compliance.

That’s why it’s crucial to regularly review and amend your strategies in line with current business needs and goals.

Success hides inefficiency

If your business is experiencing strong growth and raking in a large revenue, this could mask underlying inefficiencies.

The numbers look great, so there can’t be anything wrong… right?

Not necessarily.

During successful periods, it’s easy for financial and productivity losses to go unnoticed.

Yet, when growth slows or your market share drops, these “hidden” costs may quickly become apparent.

You’ll then need to act fast to stop these problems from eating into your profit margins or driving clients away.

Teams get stuck in firefighting mode

With growth comes more complexity, new challenges and increased demands on both people and resources.

This could push your leadership team into firefighting mode – constantly reacting to urgent problems and needs, rather than proactively pre-empting them.

As a result, the business may suffer from a lack of strategic solutions, standardised procedures and task prioritisation.

What’s more, this kind of workplace culture is likely to lead to employee stress and dissatisfaction, which could mean that your business loses the key people it needs for continued growth.

Lack of accountability creates drag

When no one owns outcomes, progress slows and high performers lose motivation.

That’s because accountability is essential for:

• Establishing priorities
• Building trust and morale within teams
• Protecting your leadership team’s credibility
• Setting standards and incentivising excellence
• Maintaining efficient processes and procedures
• Ensuring strategic decisions are followed through.

Ultimately, failing to foster a culture of accountability could increase the risk that your business will hit a stall point that it may struggle to get out of.

But fear not. Team Melo is here

As experienced business owners and fearless changemakers, we know exactly how to help you keep your firm moving forward, wherever you are in your business journey.

If you’d like to find out more about how the Melo team can help scale your business, we’d love to hear from you.

Drop us an email at hello@melo.co.uk or call us on 0113 4656 111.