When Caitlin Clark hit an unbelievable logo 3 to win a game recently, sports fans everywhere went wild. It looked effortless. But of course it wasn’t. To get to where she is, she’s had to grow and change her game at every new level. It’s much the same in business.
When you first start out, you succeed because you are exceptionally good at your craft. You work hard, putting the entire company on your back and carrying it across the finish line day after day.
Then, one day you wake up. You’re working harder than ever before, but the business has stopped growing. Sales are flat or only slightly up, and profits are actually trending down. Seemingly out of nowhere, growing your business just got exponentially harder.
Welcome to the big leagues. It’s different here.
If your business has hit a plateau, it’s likely because you haven’t adjusted to the unwritten rules of scale. Here are three critical lessons from Caitlin and other athletes that explain how to handle the shift.
Lesson #1: Competition Gets Harder at Each New Level
In sports, it is far easier to stand out in high school, and then in college, than it is in the pros. High school standouts don’t automatically succeed at the next level.
Consider Damon Bailey: he was heavily recruited by Indiana University when he was just an eighth-grader. He was a legend in Indiana before he even stepped onto a college court. But as he moved up, the competition got exponentially better, faster, and harder. He was no longer exceptional.
The exact same thing happens in entrepreneurship. Carrying a business through sheer willpower and personal hustle works great in the early stages. But eventually, you graduate to a tougher league. If you try to compete in the big leagues using high school tactics, the market will outpace you.
Lesson #2: The Required Skills Change at Each New Level
This isn’t to pick on Caitlin Clark, but during her time at Iowa, they only needed her to be a good shooter and passer. They didn’t need her to be an All-American defender. You can get away with a lopsided skill set at the college level, but you will get exposed in the pros.
If you need more examples, just look at the history of college All-Americans who couldn’t score or play defense when they hit the pros. Or look at the long list of Heisman Trophy winners whose NFL careers were less than impressive despite their historic college success.
This is the classic, “What got you here won’t get you there,” framework popularized by author Marshall Goldsmith.
In business, the operational habits and personal execution that successfully got you to $1 million in sales simply stop working when you try to maintain profitability while pushing toward $2 million or $3 million. To survive the jump, you have to develop entirely new leadership capabilities.
Lesson #3: You’re Playing a Whole New Game Now
Like many college superstars have discovered, the professional version of their sport isn’t just harder—it is a fundamentally different game.
This reality is why top Heisman quarterbacks can fail spectacularly in the pros, while a sixth-round draft pick like Tom Brady can go on to win multiple Super Bowls. (It’s also why two general managers have to live with the permanent legacy of passing on Michael Jordan in the draft!)
As a business grows, your role in the game must evolve:
- Stage 1: Succeeding through the owner (your personal hustle).
- Stage 2: Succeeding through the team you assemble.
- Stage 3: Succeeding through the culture, management, and leadership infrastructure you put in place.
This third stage is where many businesses permanently stall out. Founders fail to recognize that they are playing a completely new game with a set of rules that are entirely different, and for the most part, completely unwritten.
Ready to play differently?
To win in the big leagues, you need a proven operating system. If you want to learn how installing ABoS (the ActionCOACH Business Operating System) can help you level up your infrastructure, organize your team, and refine your leadership skills, schedule an intro call and let’s talk.
Author: Mark McNulty, Business Coach in Louisville, KY