🌍 Bold Creators Newsletter: Issue No. 10

Hey Bold Creators!

For all that us business owners can talk about growth, we don’t often slow down to think about what’s preventing it.

In today’s newsletter:

Let's dive in.

I've been building businesses for over 30 years now.

What started as a small screen printing operation eventually became a licensing apparel company, and nothing about that growth was automatic. Along the way I ran into four enemies that stood in the way of growth, and I had to face them one at a time.

I'm still fighting some of them today, and I think most entrepreneurs encounter one, if not all four, at some point in there business journey.

I hope naming them will help you see which one you're currently up against.

Early on, I confused layers of processes with progress.

Our workflow had so many steps that simple projects took twice as long as they should. We had processes for our processes. We had meetings about meetings. Decisions that used to happen in a hallway conversation now required three approvals.

Unnecessary complexity ended up costing us more than a lack of resources ever did.

Fighting for a simple organizational structure allows you to achieve bigger results with less effort.

That doesn’t mean taking shortcuts. Cutting corners only causes bigger problems later. Genuine simplicity comes from doing the hard work of removing clutter until only what matters is left. Eliminate whatever doesn't serve your goals.

Once we did that work, simplicity became one of our biggest competitive advantages

The systems that got our first ten employees through the day started breaking once we crossed fifty, and we kept hitting the same wall every time we outgrew what those systems were built for.

Reminds me of the popular W. Edwards Deming quote:

“Every system is perfectly designed to get the result that it does.”

It's easy to fall into this one because what works at a small scale feels safe simply because it's familiar. Unscalable processes sounds like, “This is how we’ve always done things.” Sometimes the reason we aren’t growing is because we don’t like change.

But growth is change.

Getting past it meant confronting what wasn't working and rebuilding systems, investing in new technology, moving into markets we hadn't touched before, and building frameworks sized for the company we were becoming.

None of that felt safe in the moment, but sticking to a comfortable process that no longer served us would have guaranteed failure.

If you’re willing to adapt, you end up with a business that can carry the weight of its own growth.

Culture forms whether or not you're paying attention to it or not. Which is why it’s so easy to let this one slide.

I’ve gotten so focused on results that I didn't notice creativity and momentum dying underneath me. One of the biggest signs of an unhealthy culture is that your best people remain quiet because they’re afraid of how you’ll react. Every honest conversation nobody is willing to have slowly erodes a culture.

Turning that around took real work: listening to our team, modeling the values we said we cared about, and staying humble enough to admit when I was the problem and needed to adjust.

We built an environment where failure became part of how people learned, not something that ended a career, and respect and collaboration turned into daily habits, not just poster slogans on the wall.

What grew out of that was a team that trusted me enough to tell me the truth.

It's easy to assume people will grow on their own if you just give them enough time. But intentionally developing leaders is non-negotiable for any business that wants to grow.

Over and over, I found that we could only grow as far as our people were ready to take us.

That meant it was my job to invest in their development, provide training opportunities, and empower them to take on greater responsibilities. For those who were unwilling to grow, I made the tough decision to let them go, knowing that their presence would hinder progress (for us and them in the long run).

Investing in the people around me helped our organization thrive in ways I couldn't have done alone. I hope my time with them made them better leaders. I know for a fact they did that for me.

As a business leader, you have to constantly keep guard against all four of these enemies. They often show up together, so you may feel like you’re fighting a battle on four fronts.

Address the complexity, fix what won't scale, heal what's gone wrong in the culture, and keep developing your people, and you protect your organization's ability to thrive and leave an impact that outlasts you.

Be bold,
Ben Clark

As I was thinking about the Four Enemies of Growth this past month, I came across a few articles that pair well with the idea.

As I write this newsletter, I can’t help thinking about how I should be in Uganda right now. But I’m remembering that God’s plans are above our own.

Uganda and the surrounding region are facing an Ebola outbreak that shut down international travel. Due to that, our annual retreat is moving from this July to January 2027. We'll be heading to Uganda together then.

While disappointed, the situation has caused us to step back. During COVID, we learned that in moments like this you either adjust and build systems for whatever's coming, or you sit idly by and hope it passes.

I’m encouraged by the way our team is adapting and how what’s coming out of this will allow us to expand our impact. More on that coming soon!

We’re thanking God that the outbreak has been curbed, and we’re excited to get going with the new direction.

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