You Have a Design Problem.
When I sit with business owners in the £1m–£5m range, I tend to hear variations of the same frustrations.
They sound different on the surface, but they usually fall into five broad areas.
And they all share one missing ingredient.
Design.
The first is a lack of guidance.
Not effort. Not intent. Guidance.
The owner is busy, involved and committed — but the business isn’t being clearly directed. There’s no consistent articulation of priorities, standards or direction. The team work hard, but they’re not being led with clarity. Without guidance, activity replaces progress.
The second is the inability to consistently find the right customers.
So the business settles. Low-margin work. Difficult clients. Projects that drain energy but keep cash moving. When there’s no deliberate client strategy, revenue fills with whatever shows up — not what fits.
The third is the inability to confidently sell the value the business brings.
So deals are lost on price.
Not because the business isn’t good, but because the value isn’t clearly defined, evidenced or articulated. When you can’t measure the outcomes you create, price becomes the only comparison point.
The fourth is operational design.
The business relies too heavily on the owner. Decisions escalate upward. Mistakes repeat. Inefficiencies hide in plain sight. Good people are capable, but not empowered. The system hasn’t been designed to distribute responsibility well.
And the fifth is the feeling that “the business just isn’t running right.”
There are no documented processes.
No consistent 1-2-1s.
No clearly stated rules of the game.
No defined expectations.
So performance varies. Standards drift. People guess.
Now here’s the common thread.
In almost every case, nothing is being properly measured.
Not customer profitability.
Not conversion rates.
Not delivery performance.
Not meeting effectiveness.
Not individual role outcomes.
And when you don’t measure, you don’t know where to focus.
So everything feels important.
Everything feels urgent.
And the owner becomes the control system.
That’s when pressure builds.
What looks like a time problem is usually a design problem.
If you don’t design how guidance flows, how customers are chosen, how value is sold, how operations run, and how performance is measured — the default design becomes “the owner handles it”.
That works at £300k.
It creaks at £1m.
It suffocates at £3m+.
Control doesn’t come from working longer hours. It comes from deliberately designing:
- Who owns what.
- What gets measured.
- What good looks like.
- Which customers truly fit.
- How meetings create traction rather than noise.
When the design improves, pressure reduces — not because you’re doing less, but because the business no longer relies on you as the glue.
If you feel stretched, it may not be because you need more time.
It may be because your business has outgrown its original design.
And design can be changed.
Andy Walter
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