Why Some Good Businesses Need Energy

From the outside, many businesses look busy and solid. But when you look more closely, something interesting is often beneath the surface.

The business has not really moved forward for some time. Ideas and efforts can plateau. New opportunities appear but do not quite convert. Plans get discussed but somehow remain incomplete. There’s a lack of enthusiasm and excitement.

I have spent my career working in my own businesses as well as alongside owner-managed businesses, and this quiet kind of stagnation is something I encounter surprisingly often. One thing that strikes me is that in the early days, founders tend to operate with a sense of urgency. Decisions are quick, opportunities are pursued with enthusiasm and ideas turn into actions quite quickly. Energy carries the business forward.

As the organisation grows, however, things naturally become more complicated. Teams expand, responsibilities spread out and the owner may begin to spend more time managing the business rather than directly driving it. Or spend less time in the business letting it become lifestyle focused.

None of this is negative in itself. It is simply the natural progression of growth, but it does introduce a new challenge. Momentum becomes harder to maintain. You see often business owners may feel that they are

‘finished’ when they have built a profitable business at a certain level, probably taken their foot off the gas and are ‘maintaining’ and not growing. There is likely less ambition and more focus on doing the same things, likely in the same way, and just surviving.

This is one of the reasons I created Business Unfinished, because no business or person is ever finished!

Sometimes the energy and ideas start to reduce. Less risks are taken. New avenues of business are ignored as owners, managers and staff may become ordinary and just rinsing and repeating the norm. Surviving. Operating in a risk free comfort zone.

Many founders can become tired and stop generating new ideas or different energies. They just lose the enthusiasm (or let it be knocked out of them).

Things become Same Sh*t, Different Day!

In my experience, these owners really need to work with a business coach or mentor. I find it hard to turn off over 30 years of hard wired sales & marketing led entrepreneurship and enjoy nothing better than working with business owners to help them generate new ideas and energy, looking at things from a different viewpoint and helping people to stop just doing the same things.

Let’s build stories that clients really buy into, make them compelling and deliver with real enthusiasm.

That sounds straightforward, but it requires discipline and a different way of thinking. Sales activity is a good example. In many organisations it remains surprisingly informal and ineffective, relying heavily on digital communications with little real interaction.

Some say that less than 10% of people actually follow up and fully complete activity. I have to say from my experience I can see how that figure is right! Or put another way, over 90% of people don’t actually follow everything up!

Introducing a consistent rhythm of prospecting, followup and review can transform performance, not through dramatic change but through steady, repeatable progress.

Customer experience tends to follow a similar pattern. Businesses that grow steadily usually pay close attention to the small interactions that shape how customers perceive them. I have a complete event keynote about how great customer service actually multiplies your efforts in sales & marketing.

These are not revolutionary ideas or rocket science but given that 90% of people don’t follow up, does it follow that 90% of business owners need a coach or mentor to give them focus energy and ideas to get them into the really effective zone?

The encouraging part of all this is that stalled growth need not be permanent.

Businesses need energy, new ideas and a spark to Ignite things.

I love working to Ignite those sparks with clients. Do you need an occasional spark?

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Author: Paul Green

Email: paul@businessunfinished.co.uk |

Business: Business Unfinished

Photograph: Headshot Toby