Doubling Your Business

When I am getting to know a dry cleaner, I usually ask them how much they plan to grow this year and next year. And most will answer 5%, 10%, or maybe 20%.

They want to get incrementally better than previous year. The good news is that they can usually achieve this if their marketing and finance get just a little bit better.

Then I ask them what it would take to double their business in the next 12 months. And after getting over the shock of my suggestion, they typically say all of the reasons that would be impossible.

I dive a little deeper and ask them if they have ever doubled their business before. And they realize that they have doubled it many times before. And it turns out, what is really tripping them up is doubling it in (only) the next 12 months.

Here’s what really going on here... we normalize the results we get, and then we throttle down our potential by aiming to just get a little bit better each year. We are limiting our own potential. And we are protecting ourselves from coming up short of our goals.

The picture above shows what happens if you get a penny on Day 1, and then it doubles for the next 31 days. Can you believe that after 31 days, you would have over $10 million?? This is the power of doubling and compounding.

I meet a lot of dry cleaners who are growing quickly, but they are not feeling the explosive growth yet. On the chart, you might notice that the numbers don’t really start ramping up until after Day 20. I have seen many dry cleaners quit when they were right around the corner from explosive growth with meaningful numbers. If only they would just stay the course.

Here's the magic. When you throttle down your own expectations for yourself and say that you want to grow 5-20% this year or next, your thinking doesn’t really need to change. It just has to get a little better.

But if you commit to doubling your business in the next 12 months, your thinking has to radically change to create a plan that will get you there. Maybe you will need to buy out your largest competitor. Maybe you will have to expand geographically. Maybe you will need to add a major new service like restoration, or servicing terry/linens for hotels.

Bigger goals require bigger plans. Write your current weekly sales on a piece of paper right now. And then double it and write down that number. What would you need to do in the next 12 months to achieve double your current weekly sales?

And if you need help navigating this type of thinking, or need the tools to compress time by 4x-5x, let’s jump on a call and I will share some tools with you to rapidly grow your revenue. Reach out by emailing me at: [email protected]

Have a great week!
Dave