# 10 - The 5 Ways To Break Through The Ceiling

In this episode, Greg and Andrew will be educating on what to do when you or your business hits a ceiling.    Thanks to the Entrepreneur Organization System (EOS) who helped create this content Having been involved in businesses for a long time now, we are very familiar with this topic. To begin with – HITTING THE CEILING OCCURS WITH ALL BUSINESSES Eventually, you will reach a point where something in the business is basically stuck. Your business is either not going forward at the rate that it was - Or, you feel the business is just overly complex. There might be individuals in the business that are feeling things are just too difficult for them within their current roles or there are divisions or areas in the business that are not progressing as well as they should.  Hitting the ceiling can occur at an organisational level, Can occur at an enterprise-specific level, Or can occur at a personal or people level.  Understanding that the business is just not progressing or not moving ahead as it was, or you get a feeling that things are just going to be complex and difficult to handle – THIS IS HITTING THE CEILING! We are not an exception, it occurs to us too. Greg and his wife have gone on a rapid expansion of their business over the last 8 years.  Their business expanded in terms of revenue by 400%.   In staff terms, it has tripled in size in that period They were hitting the ceiling, about every six months throughout that period of growth.  The business was growing so fast that it took a lot of effort, on Greg’s behalf mostly, to visit the 5 disciplines that we are going to talk about in this episode. How did Greg hit the ceiling? At that particular time, everything had to change within his business The systems that they had in place, the structure - the team, the way that the team was positioned and the way they managed them.  Everything had to change on a constant basis to allow them to continue to grow and achieve that rate of growth. Greg strongly points out, all businesses that grow, hit the ceiling at some stage and, There are only 3 things you can do when you hit the ceiling: First, PUT IN PLACE THE PRINCIPLES THAT WE ARE GOING TO TALK ABOUT TODAY, restructure the business and move it through that ceiling and get on to the next phase of growth. Second, stay at that level and just bounce around and not go anywhere.  Eventually leads the business to reducing profitability and ultimately at the end, would cause demise of the business. Third, you can actually recognize that the business has stagnated and you can elect to reduce the size of the business and move it back down to a smaller business. Some of the ways a farm owner might know that have hit the ceiling: When a farmer works so hard but not really getting the traction Business is progressing okay but it’s just getting complex When you sit back and reflect on your business and you know that when you get sick, the business has a high chance of falling over HITTING THE CEILING IS OFTEN AN OPPORTUNITY DRESSED AS A DISGUISE... SLOW DOWN IN ORDER TO SPEED UP. SOMETIMES WE NEED THE EDUCATION TO CHANGE DIRECTION INSTEAD OF MOTIVATION TO SPEED UP. After all, hitting the ceiling means the business is growing – there are significant opportunities awaiting.  Ask yourself, “What is it that’s holding the business back?” Keep in mind, businesses that don’t grow never hit the ceiling. And now, THE 5 PRINCIPLES: Simplify As the business grows, it becomes more complex.  As human beings, we seem to like to make things more complex.  Quoting Steve Jobs, “Complexity is easy, simple you have to work at’. A common scenario in growing businesses is when you reach a point where it’s become far too complex - too many balls in the air and too many things going on that make it hard to streamline and well-manage operating machines.  The task of a business owner is to look at what’s going on in the business and simplify as much as possible.  Run the simplest systems.       Delegate A