Most business advice is generic. As your business grows, your needs and those of your business will evolve and change. Be wary of cookie-cutter approaches and strategies, they may not be suitable for where you’re at and could even be harmful to your business growth.

Selecting the right strategy for your business is much like selecting the right gear when driving.

You want the gear that’s appropriate for the current conditions. Much of what’s being taught for business would bury a start-up struggling to get going. A start-up business applying a £1M strategy is equivalent to a car trying to pull away in top gear.

As your business grows, it needs to effectively transition through the gears and upgrade its strategies. A 6-figure business applying a start-up or 5-figure strategy would be like a car trying to join a motorway in first gear. Smooth business growth is equivalent to seamlessly working your way up through the gears. You want to use the full range of gears, while not continually bouncing off the rev limiter.

If you’re not into car analogies, this simply translates as needing a strategy that takes you to the next evolutionary stage of your business and transitioning before your model runs out of room for growth.