Regular readers of mine will know I often take a contrarian stance on things. Whatever the prevailing view of some given topic, I’m tempted to take the opposite position. The topic of growing your business is no exception.
It’s widely believed that growing your business is unequivocally a good thing. Why wouldn’t it be? More money, more status… what could possibly go wrong? Well, today that’s exactly what we’re exploring.
I certainly don’t mean to give the impression that growing your business is wrong or bad, just that it is a nuanced topic that has its pros and cons.
Here are some reasons it may be better to say no to growth and instead choose to stay small:
1. Scaling & Growing Might Not Mean What You Think
When most people envision growing their business, they often picture their day-to-day tasks and responsibilities staying exactly the same, but with more money or clients rolling in. Unfortunately, this is rarely how things play out.
Let’s say you are a freelance digital marketing service provider. The service can be writing, design, media buying, whatever. You finally decide to “scale” your business into a full-fledged agency. Hooray.
But wait – what that actually means is that you must now hire and train people to do what you were doing before. You must ensure their work is up to your previous standards (often it won’t be). You must deliver final proofs to the client. You must take on more clients or much higher paying ones because you now have higher overhead from hiring staff. Likely, you will have to hire even more people down the road. And the cycle continues.
Essentially, your “job” is now communications, project management, keeping tabs on people, etc. You are now much less so a writer or designer, and much more so a manager of people, relationships, and deliverables.
Nothing wrong with that, if that’s what you want. But is that what you want?
2. The Power of Diminishing Returns
“If I’m happy making $75K a year, I’d be twice as happy making $150K a year.”
Many of us are familiar with the idea of compounding returns, but diminishing returns are an equally powerful reality.
There was some study years ago that found most peoples’ happiness began to steadily decline after they reached an income of $70K/year. Makes sense if you ask me. After that 70K mark, the work-reward ratio starts dropping off. Of course now, thanks to inflation, the figure is probably more like 100K.
At a certain point, the question becomes: do you really want to work 2 or 3 times as hard to make 50-70% more money? Do you want to have 2x or 3x as much responsibility and stress as you currently do? Are you answering these questions honestly – or out of a cultural/familial backdrop of stress, shame, and scarcity?
I would never tell anyone that it’s not possible to achieve more, make more, have more. But I do encourage people to question their innate desire for such things. Why don’t you feel like “enough” now? When will you?
I talk more about diminishing returns in my piece on the myth of hard work.
3. Staying Small Gives You an Edge
We live in a world of content mills, agencies, and mega-market-cap businesses where its impossible to get a human being on the phone (let alone speak to the owner of the business).
By staying small, you get to offer a refreshing contrast: the undiluted power of you.
Customers, clients, and fellow business owners can talk to you, work with you, get access to your magic, and exclusively deal with you alone. Most freelancers or solopreneurs I know don’t quite grasp this.
Staying small gives you a big edge – whatever your individual edge is.
The more you try to outsource that individuality to committees, cheap contractors, or imitations of you, the more your business loses the unique touch that made it such a success in the first place.
4. You’re Happy Where You’re At
There is much to be said for being happy where you’re at. If that’s where you are, why change anything?
There are ways to make more money without drastically growing or scaling your business.
Get higher-paying clients. Level up your skills or products and charge more. Find new monetization methods and opportunities.
You don’t have to hire a team, drop thousands of dollars on advertising, look for investor capital, or anything else.
Your business can be as big or as small as you want it to be.
More (Contrarian) Ideas About Work and Business
Did you enjoy this piece?
If so, here are some other contrarian thoughts of mine about work and business: