What Growth Really Means: Building Capability Before You Scale

When business owners talk about growth, most think about more — more sales, more staff, more customers. But true, sustainable growth isn’t about expansion for the sake of it. It’s about building a business that can actually handle the growth you’re aiming for.

Pulling the Right Levers

In my work with clients, I often see owners invest heavily in marketing, increase sales targets, or hire more salespeople — yet the expected growth doesn’t materialise. 

Why?

Because there are often Pinch Points elsewhere:

• inefficiencies in the factory,
• delivery bottlenecks,
• customer service gaps, or
• even a product that doesn’t fully fit the market.

If any one of these is weak, it limits the return from every other effort. You can’t scale what’s not working. When you pull one strategic lever, you only see sustainable, measurable results if the rest of the business is ready to support it.

Platform Before Growth

With clients we often discuss the difference between platforming and growth focus.

Platforming is about using the resources you already have — making your business more functional, efficient, and capable. It’s about getting the fundamentals right before you try to scale.

Only once that foundation is strong can you move into a genuine growth phase. Too many SMEs skip this stage and end up frustrated when “growth” costs more than it delivers.

The 80/20 Reality

Another truth about growth: it’s not always about more customers.

Often, shedding the wrong 20% of clients — the ones who drain time, dispute invoices, or resist your process — can increase profit and efficiency overnight. Focusing on your best 80% leads to stronger relationships, better service, and sustainable profitability.

Sometimes growth means pruning.

Clarity and Capability

Clarity in business starts with purpose.

At the start, purpose is simple: open the doors, get paid, keep the lights on. But as the business grows — new staff, new systems, new complexity — that purpose needs to evolve and be clearly communicated across the whole organisation.

Without clarity, recruitment, client service, and strategic decisions all become harder.

Capability and functionality are equally important. Growth isn’t always about doing more; it’s about doing what you already do better. Improving processes, putting the right people in the right roles, and investing in efficiency are all ways to grow without adding volume.

The Role of the SME Leader

In large corporates, the CEO’s role is to hold the context and communicate the company’s purpose.

In SMEs, the owner has to hold the purpose and do everything else, from sales and delivery to finance and HR. It’s no small task, and it’s why resilience matters so much.

Being resilient doesn’t mean doing everything alone; it means knowing when to ask for help and when to change hats. Real growth happens when leaders understand their limits, strengthen their systems, and surround themselves with capability.

Final Thought

Growth isn’t about chasing more. It’s about aligning your purpose, people, and processes so that when you do pull that lever, everything moves in the same direction.

“Growth doesn’t always mean bigger — sometimes it means better.”