Hello and welcome to Business 300. My name is Philip Kulenshov and this is 300

seconds about business. We're all a busy people, so I have five minutes or less to get my point across.

Take five. How should you approach growth plans and initiatives? What should your expectations be?

And what side should you come at it from? Different business contexts require different approaches.

I've talked about funding your growth and what expectations you should have for your cash flow while you're growing. You'll need to manage your debt and equity and make sure you have a way to sustain the increasing working capital.

These are financial strategic decisions you need to make and watch for, and it'll be different across different industries.

My real estate context is different than my manufacturing context.

Use of leverage, availability of cash, and the versatility of assets varies.

You need to understand that and plan accordingly.

You can find those earlier episodes.

But what about the work required to propel and sustain business growth in whatever industry you're in?

What should your expectations be and what should you focus on?

When I was starting off, with all the normal levels of naive ambition one has at the beginning of their journey,

I expected growth to be consistent and linear.

I thought I would see my businesses grow along a steady and smooth ramp.

Because I had that expectation, I focused on the wrong thing. I thought

as long as I instigate an increase in sales and propel revenue opportunity, the business

would keep up. Where else would it go? Just keep adding resources to the way I'm currently doing

things and linear growth will be maintained. But I was wrong. In my expectation of linear growth,

I was driving the business to grow linearly

until it all came to a halt. At one point, the wheels were spinning, but we weren't moving.

Customers were frustrated, employees were exasperated, and I was scrambling. They say stupid people

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