The Cost of Carrying Too Much

I’m writing this from Homer, Alaska.

If you’ve never been here, Homer has a way of making everything else feel far away. Mountains in the distance. Cold water. Fishing boats coming and going. People working with their hands. And not much interest in pretending something is more complicated than it actually is.

Being here got me thinking about something I’ve seen repeatedly in business.

We spend a lot of time talking about growth.

More clients. More employees. More offices. More services. More revenue. More opportunities.

But we don't talk nearly enough about weight.

And eventually, every growing business has to learn the difference.

A Bigger Boat Can Still Sink

Around Homer, boats are built to carry weight.

People understand capacity because they have to.

You don't just keep loading equipment onto a boat because there's technically still room on the deck. Every additional pound changes something.

Fuel consumption changes.

Handling changes.

Speed changes.

Risk changes.

Business isn't that different.

Every new client has weight.

Every employee has weight.

Every service you offer has weight.

Every meeting, subscription, piece of software, partnership and “great opportunity” requires some amount of your company's attention.

The problem is that most businesses measure what something adds without measuring what it weighs.

That's a mistake.

Revenue and Weight Are Two Different Numbers

A $100,000 client sounds better than a $50,000 client.

But what if the $100,000 client requires four times the meetings, constantly changes direction, consumes your best employees and prevents you from servicing three other accounts?

Which client is actually more valuable?

We usually calculate:

Revenue – Expenses = Profit

But there is another calculation I've started paying much more attention to:

Opportunity – Attention Required = Actual Value

Attention is a real business resource.

It may be one of your most valuable.

You only have so much of it.

Your leadership team only has so much.

Your employees only have so much.

Once it's gone, money doesn't immediately buy it back.

Some of the Most Expensive Things in Business Are Free

This is something I wish more entrepreneurs understood.

A free opportunity can be extraordinarily expensive.

Someone asks you to join a project.

No upfront investment.

Sounds great.

But now there are meetings.

Emails.

Phone calls.

Introductions.

Follow-ups.

Decisions.

Suddenly this “free opportunity” is consuming five hours every week.

Multiply that across a year.

You didn't invest money.

You invested something potentially more valuable: decision-making capacity.

I've learned this lesson myself.

There have been opportunities I accepted because I could see what they might become.

Sometimes that instinct was right.

Other times, I eventually realized I was spending more time maintaining the possibility of an opportunity than actually building the business in front of me.

That's a very expensive habit.

Growth Can Hide Weakness

Here's another uncomfortable truth.

Sometimes businesses use growth to avoid fixing problems.

Sales aren't organized?

Hire another salesperson.

Operations are messy?

Hire another manager.

Marketing isn't converting?

Spend more on advertising.

Clients aren't staying?

Find more clients.

Sometimes those are the right answers.

But sometimes we're simply adding more weight to a system that wasn't working properly in the first place.

A boat with a leak doesn't necessarily need a bigger engine.

Sometimes you need to fix the leak.

That sounds obvious when you're looking at the water.

It's surprisingly difficult when you're looking at a business.

Complexity Feels Like Progress

This may be one of the biggest traps I've seen.

As companies grow, complexity starts feeling impressive.

More departments.

More software.

More reports.

More dashboards.

More meetings.

More people copied on emails.

More layers of approval.

Eventually, everyone is extremely busy managing the company.

And fewer people are actually moving it forward.

That's dangerous.

Complexity can create the appearance of sophistication while quietly destroying speed.

Some of the best operators I've met are almost obsessive about simplicity.

Who owns this?

What is the deadline?

What does success look like?

Did it make money?

Did the customer get what we promised?

What happens next?

Five questions can sometimes tell you more about a company than a 40-page report.

The Goal Isn't to Carry Everything

Standing near the harbor in Homer, you see boats leaving with exactly what they need for where they're going.

That stuck with me.

Maybe that's a better way to think about business.

Not:

“How much can we carry?”

But:

“What deserves to come with us?”

That is a much harder question.

Because sometimes the thing you need to leave behind is profitable.

Sometimes it's a service you've offered for years.

Sometimes it's a client you like.

Sometimes it's an opportunity that sounds incredible.

Sometimes it's something you built yourself.

Leadership isn't only deciding what the company should do next.

A huge part of leadership is deciding what the company will no longer carry into its next chapter.

I've become increasingly convinced that this is one of the differences between businesses that simply get bigger and businesses that actually get better.

Try This With Your Company

Look at everything your business is currently carrying.

Your clients.

Services.

Employees.

Subscriptions.

Meetings.

Projects.

Partnerships.

Marketing channels.

Even your own calendar.

Then ask three questions:

Does this produce value?

What does it require from us to produce that value?

If we weren't already doing it, would we choose to start doing it today?

That third question is powerful.

Because history creates loyalty to things that strategy would never choose.

“We've always done it this way” has probably kept more bad business decisions alive than almost any sentence in entrepreneurship.

Homer Reminded Me of Something Simple

Business culture celebrates adding.

New client.

New hire.

New location.

New product.

New contract.

New milestone.

Maybe we should celebrate subtraction occasionally too.

One unnecessary meeting eliminated.

One unprofitable service discontinued.

One process simplified.

One distraction declined.

One hour returned to your team.

One problem actually solved instead of managed.

Those things don't always make impressive announcements.

But they can build extraordinary companies.

The older I get and the more businesses I work around, the less impressed I am by how much a company is doing.

I'm much more interested in how clearly it knows what matters.

Because growth isn't simply about building a bigger boat.

It's about knowing what deserves to be on it.

And sometimes the smartest thing you can do before heading into deeper water is leave a little weight behind.

Writing from Homer, Alaska.

— Corey Flores
Founder, Flores Marketing Firm