Bottleneck Matrix
I have consulted with companies across the spectrum in revenue and business models over the years and have observed patterns in the types of bottlenecks that exist at various revenue plateaus. Clients have found these patterns very useful to see that they are not unique in the challenges they face at each plateau, as well as what they might face as they continue growing.
The question it answers
What's the most likely cause of revenue being stuck for the past few years?
Use it when
Revenue is stuck for more than a year.
You've tried numerous interventions without moving the needle.
It’s the wrong tool when
Revenue growth is steady
| Plateau | Common bottleneck | Solution |
|---|---|---|
| $500K | Idle or confused staff/freelancers | Define key responsibilities and assign them |
| $1M | Founder beyond capacity to manage everything | Develop operations manager |
| $2M | Not enough large prospects and/or too many small prospects | Expand/build traffic pillars for larger prospects |
| $5M | Quality control | Comprehensive project management |
| $5M | Founder holding back sales/marketing | Add functional management (sales/marketing and finance) |
| $10M | Losing proposals or missing opportunities | Develop niche specialization teams |
| $10M | Sales/marketing team overwhelm | Add sales/marketing support roles |
| Any stage | Flakey staff | Weekly 1-on-1 management meetings |
| Any stage | Sales consuming too much time | Qualify better/sooner |
| Any stage | Lack of talented staff | Create recruiting and onboarding system |
Define the bottleneck
Once you have identified a bottleneck, I recommend adding some detail and context to it as you develop your solution for it. Here are some questions to help you better define it.
What is this preventing or limiting? Money, time, sanity, etc.
What other benefits would come from improving this? System, financial, intangible, etc.
What is this costing us? Both hard- and opportunity cost.
Who is this affecting the most? Staff, family, vendors, clients, etc.
This is a problem because _________. Fill in the blank and see what comes up to be dealt with.
Spend fifteen minutes right now doing a “brain dump” of all of your frustrations (or sources of apathy). Pick the biggest one and go through the 5 Whys process to get to the root cause and uncover the bottleneck you need to fix.
Where owners get it wrong
Owners are used to solving the business problems by gut feel, but eventually they run up against their limits. They keep doubling down trying to solve the problem without doing any analysis as to what the root cause is. It isn't until they've been stuck for a few years that some become open to outside help to try to solve it.
What you walk away with
The actual bottleneck and its solution to fix it in your business that will unlock revenue growth rather quickly.
Related frameworks
Is your bottleneck sitting in a sales seat?
At every plateau, someone in a key seat is either carrying the load or holding it back. The Sales Team MRI shows you which. Free for $2M to $20M businesses.
