As I write this, there is a boom lift about seven feet from me, screeching its way higher and higher, stretching toward the ceiling of our office. There’s a half-finished “pod” of desks behind me on the other side, and, all around me, the sound of construction.
Our company is rapidly growing, so our office space needs to adapt. And while the noise is an inconvenience (and the grimaces on some colleagues’ faces indicate the unease of heavy equipment hovering seemingly right over their heads), it’s an exciting time.
When I started at 10 Missions Media nearly six years ago, our company was less than half the size it is today. We had an editorial team of four, working on a single publication, FenderBender. Two weeks prior to writing this letter, we added our eighth person to our team, and together, we produce three national publications—and a whole slew of supplements and special editions, like The MSO Project, which is included with this month’s issue of FenderBender for our readers who operate multiple locations.
I bring all this up because of the theme behind this month’s cover story, “Primed for Growth." In the feature, Associate Editor Travis Bean looks at two operations at different stages of their respective business’s life cycle. One is a large, soon-to-be 15-location MSO, and the other a budding three-shop network. Both have concentrated, strategic growth plans that are highlighted in this story.
And the takeaways are clear: For anyone looking to expand, it takes a focused plan with clear goals and actionable strategies. Growth doesn’t simply come from doing the same things over and over; change is required. Don’t get me wrong, though: I am well aware of how difficult it is to affect change in a business. I understand that you can’t simply read words on a page and instantly get your teams (or even management) to fall in line with new approaches. It takes time. It takes effort. You have to build to it. Some changes are simpler and quicker than others, but no changes are instantaneous.
You’ll see how the shop operators in this story went about affecting change in their businesses, and hopefully that gives you specific strategies and ideas to do the same. Then the hard work begins, but that’s the fun part, right? It’s difficult to find purpose in your work when you’re stuck in the monotonous cycle of “the norm.” Change and growth are where the excitement comes in—and the noise. Do I enjoy trying to write this in what feels like a construction zone? No, but I’ll take the chaos any day over the silence of complacency.
