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Tag: scaling a business

Grow with growing customers

Elite Business: Grow with growing customers

Written by Lindokuhle Ntombela on . Posted in Asset of Value, Featured, Innovation, Insights, Leadership, Mindset, Trends.

In this article, originally featured in Elite Business: Ambitious customers can drive growth for businesses that choose to scale alongside them, even if they are not the biggest


Most business owners spend a great deal of time chasing bigger customers. It makes perfect sense on paper. Larger customers bring larger orders, stronger revenues and the credibility that comes with recognised names. Landing one often feels like you have reached the next stage of growth. According to a study by the UK Department for Business, companies that grow with their customers see 30% higher revenue growth.

But I have seen that strategy create as many problems as it solves. The biggest customer is not always the best customer.

Recently, I spent time with a packaging manufacturer that has quietly helped growing consumer brands bring products to market. Its work sits behind the scenes, taking an idea and turning it into something a customer can actually pick up from a supermarket shelf.

What struck me was not the product. It was their customer strategy. Instead of asking how to win the largest account in the market, the business had begun asking a better question: Which customers are growing in a way that allows us to grow with them?

That is a very different conversation.

Too many established businesses wait for enquiries to arrive or spend years pursuing one large account that eventually dictates pricing, payment terms and priorities. Before long, the customer owns the relationship, and the supplier spends more time protecting one contract than building a stronger business.

Growth becomes dependency. But there is another way.

Growing businesses need partners who can move quickly, adapt, solve problems and evolve with them. They value responsiveness more than scale alone. They are testing products, entering new markets and refining their offer. They want suppliers who are invested in their success, not simply processing orders.

That creates an opportunity for established businesses willing to think differently. Rather than acting as another supplier waiting for a purchase order, position yourself as part of your customer’s growth journey. Get involved earlier and help shape the solution rather than simply delivering it. Understand where they are trying to get to, not just what they need today.

When you do that, something important changes. Your value is no longer measured purely on price. It is measured on contribution.

I often see owners focus their sales effort on businesses that have already arrived. The more interesting opportunity is often the business that is still building.

If you choose well, your businesses compound together.

As your customer launches more products, enters new regions or grows its market share, your own business benefits naturally because you helped build that journey from the beginning.

So ask yourself a simple question: Are you spending your energy trying to win the biggest customer in your market, or are you deliberately choosing customers whose ambition, pace and potential can pull your business forward with them?

Because the strongest growth is rarely built on dependence. It is built by growing with customers who are building something just as ambitious as you are.

By Pavlo Phitidis

Courage follows knowledge

Elite Business: Courage follows knowledge

Written by Lindokuhle Ntombela on . Posted in Asset of Value, Featured, Innovation, Insights, Leadership, Mindset, Trends.

In this article, originally featured in Elite Business: Pavlo Phitidis explains why successful entrepreneurs don’t rely on courage alone. By building knowledge and experience, business leaders can better understand risk and make confident growth decisions


What looks like courage from the outside is often knowledge, preparation and experience in action. The best entrepreneurs are not fearless. They simply understand the risks they are taking because they have spent years building the knowledge required to make informed decisions.

There is a popular myth in business that successful entrepreneurs are somehow wired differently from everyone else. That they are fearless. That they thrive on risk. That they possess a natural ability to leap into uncertainty while others hesitate.

In my experience, that is almost never true. The business owners who build enduring companies are not reckless, they aren’t gamblers. They don’t throw caution to the wind and hope for the best.

What they do is much more practical: they spend years learning. They immerse themselves in their industry. They understand the products, the customers, the supply chains, the operational realities and the economics. They acquire knowledge that allows them to see opportunities others miss.

Then, when a decision arrives that appears risky from the outside, they have a very different perspective from everyone else looking in.

What looks like a leap of faith is often a calculated step built on years of experience.

The distinction matters because many business owners spend too much time waiting for certainty.

They delay decisions until they have perfect information. They postpone investments until every risk has been eliminated. They wait for the market to become clearer, the economy to improve or the opportunity to become more obvious.

The problem is that certainty rarely arrives. Business is not a game of certainty. It is a game of probabilities.

Every meaningful growth decision contains risk. Expanding into a new market carries risk; hiring senior people carries risk; investing in equipment carries risk; acquiring a business carries risk; launching a new product carries risk.

The question is not whether risk exists, the question is whether you understand it well enough to make an informed decision.

This is where experience becomes such a powerful competitive advantage.

Knowledge allows you to distinguish between perceived risk and actual risk.

To an outsider, a struggling business may look like a liability. To someone who understands the products, customers, capabilities and market dynamics, it may represent an extraordinary opportunity.

To one person, an ageing piece of equipment may appear obsolete. To another, it may represent years of future service, maintenance and upgrade revenue.

The facts are often the same. What differs is the quality of understanding.

This is why the most successful business builders never stop learning. They remain close to customers. They stay connected to operational realities. They develop deep industry knowledge. They ask questions others overlook.

Knowledge becomes the foundation of confidence.

Not confidence that everything will work out exactly as planned, but confidence that they understand the variables well enough to make a decision.

That confidence creates action, and action creates opportunity.

The opposite is equally true.

When business owners lack information, uncertainty grows. Decisions become harder and risks feel larger than they really are. Opportunities are missed because the fear of failure outweighs the confidence to proceed.

This is why courage in business is often misunderstood. Courage is not acting without fear, courage is acting despite fear because you have done the work required to understand the opportunity.

The entrepreneurs who build successful businesses are not fearless. They are informed.

Their courage follows knowledge.

Don’t wait for fear to disappear. Do the work, understand the risk and then decide whether the opportunity is worth pursuing.

Pavlo Phitidis is the founder of Aurik Business Accelerator and a leading business growth strategist working with entrepreneurs across South Africa, the UK and the US. He is a regular commentator on business strategy, growth and entrepreneurship.

By Pavlo Phitidis

Stop waiting for easy: why the hard road builds better business owners

Elite Business: Stop waiting for easy: why the hard road builds better business owners

Written by Lindokuhle Ntombela on . Posted in Asset of Value, Featured, Innovation, Insights, Leadership, Mindset, Trends.

In this article, originally featured in Elite Business: Hardship in business is not always a warning sign. Sometimes it is the training ground that builds stronger owners and better businesses


Most business owners spend years hoping things will eventually become easier. Easier cash flow. Easier staffing. Easier growth. Easier decisions.

I understand why. Business ownership can be relentless. The pressure is constant, and there are moments where it feels like success should surely come with less struggle. But the hard road is often shaping the very capability the business will eventually need from you.

I was reminded of this recently while spending time with a manufacturing business operating in a practical, everyday sector. The kind of business most people barely notice until something goes wrong. Yet when it does, suddenly it becomes urgent and important.

The owner had not followed some perfectly planned entrepreneurial journey. There had been setbacks, responsibility arriving too early, difficult decisions and long periods of uncertainty. That is more common than most people admit.

Too often, we look at successful businesses and assume the owner had clarity from the beginning. Most did not. Most owners learn through pressure. They grow because the demands of the business force them to grow.

That is why many owners misunderstand hardship. Not every difficult season is a sign something is broken. Sometimes difficulty is the training ground.

Of course, poor systems, weak financial discipline and operational chaos should never be accepted as normal. Those issues need fixing. But even well-run businesses face pressure because growth itself creates pressure.

A bigger business demands a different version of the owner: more resilience, better judgement, greater emotional control.

You do not develop those qualities before growth happens. More often, the business forces them out of you as it grows.

I have seen owners carry payroll through brutal trading conditions, recover from losing major customers, and navigate personal hardship while trying to keep the business stable. None of it feels valuable while you are inside it.

But over time, if the owner learns from the pressure rather than simply fighting it, something changes. Decisions improve and systems strengthen, the owner becomes calmer and more capable under pressure. The business grows because the owner grows.

Think about physical training. Nobody builds strength by avoiding resistance. Strength comes through resistance. The pressure itself forces adaptation.

Business works much the same way.

That does not mean every hard season automatically produces growth. Some owners become reactive or exhausted by prolonged pressure. Difficulty can absolutely shrink a person if it is allowed to consume them.

But I have also seen many owners emerge stronger, more focused and better able to build proper structure into the business. And structure is what matters.

Enduring businesses are not built on hustle forever. They are built on systems, leadership, consistency and sound decision-making. Businesses capable of functioning and growing without exhausting the owner every single day.

So perhaps the question is not, “Why is this hard?” Perhaps the better question is, “What is this season trying to teach me?”

Because sometimes the struggle is not blocking growth, it is preparing you for it.

By Pavlo Phitidis

Stop waiting for easy: why the hard road builds better business owners

Elite Business: Stop waiting for easy: why the hard road builds better business owners

Written by Lindokuhle Ntombela on . Posted in Asset of Value, Featured, Innovation, Insights, Leadership, Mindset, Trends.

In this article, originally featured in Elite Business: Hardship in business is not always a warning sign. Sometimes it is the training ground that builds stronger owners and better businesses


Most business owners spend years hoping things will eventually become easier. Easier cash flow. Easier staffing. Easier growth. Easier decisions.

I understand why. Business ownership can be relentless. The pressure is constant, and there are moments where it feels like success should surely come with less struggle. But the hard road is often shaping the very capability the business will eventually need from you.

I was reminded of this recently while spending time with a manufacturing business operating in a practical, everyday sector. The kind of business most people barely notice until something goes wrong. Yet when it does, suddenly it becomes urgent and important.

The owner had not followed some perfectly planned entrepreneurial journey. There had been setbacks, responsibility arriving too early, difficult decisions and long periods of uncertainty. That is more common than most people admit.

Too often, we look at successful businesses and assume the owner had clarity from the beginning. Most did not. Most owners learn through pressure. They grow because the demands of the business force them to grow.

That is why many owners misunderstand hardship. Not every difficult season is a sign something is broken. Sometimes difficulty is the training ground.

Of course, poor systems, weak financial discipline and operational chaos should never be accepted as normal. Those issues need fixing. But even well-run businesses face pressure because growth itself creates pressure.

A bigger business demands a different version of the owner: more resilience, better judgement, greater emotional control.

You do not develop those qualities before growth happens. More often, the business forces them out of you as it grows.

I have seen owners carry payroll through brutal trading conditions, recover from losing major customers, and navigate personal hardship while trying to keep the business stable. None of it feels valuable while you are inside it.

But over time, if the owner learns from the pressure rather than simply fighting it, something changes. Decisions improve and systems strengthen, the owner becomes calmer and more capable under pressure. The business grows because the owner grows.

Think about physical training. Nobody builds strength by avoiding resistance. Strength comes through resistance. The pressure itself forces adaptation.

Business works much the same way.

That does not mean every hard season automatically produces growth. Some owners become reactive or exhausted by prolonged pressure. Difficulty can absolutely shrink a person if it is allowed to consume them.

But I have also seen many owners emerge stronger, more focused and better able to build proper structure into the business. And structure is what matters.

Enduring businesses are not built on hustle forever. They are built on systems, leadership, consistency and sound decision-making. Businesses capable of functioning and growing without exhausting the owner every single day.

So perhaps the question is not, “Why is this hard?” Perhaps the better question is, “What is this season trying to teach me?”

Because sometimes the struggle is not blocking growth, it is preparing you for it.

By Pavlo Phitidis

Elite Business: Stop fighting the noise: growth starts with what you control

Elite Business: Stop fighting the noise: growth starts with what you control

Written by Lindokuhle Ntombela on . Posted in Asset of Value, Featured, Innovation, Insights, Leadership, Mindset, Trends.

In this article, originally featured in Elite Business: Growth begins when you stop reacting to external pressure and start improving what you control: the systems, standards and structure inside your business.


Growth begins when you stop reacting to external pressure and start improving what you control: the systems, standards and structure inside your business. Most businesses don’t stall because of what’s happening outside them. They stall because of where the owner is putting their attention.

I know a manufacturing business that operates in one of those industries most people ignore. Not glamorous. Not talked about. The kind of work that sits behind the scenes, quietly keeping everything else running. It produces high-volume, precision components the kind that stop leaks, protect systems and keep machinery, vehicles and infrastructure working as they should. Nothing about it screams excitement, but everything about it matters. And that’s exactly the point.

The business operates in a tough environment: cheap imports, rising input costs, regulatory pressure, infrastructure issues. The usual list that most owners can recite without thinking. For a long time, like many businesses, it was doing what most do under pressure reacting to the noise. Watching competitors, worrying about pricing pressure, getting pulled into day-to-day disruptions that drain time and energy, trying to respond to everything happening “out there.”

Progress was slow. Frustratingly slow.

Then something shifted. Not in the market, and not in the economy in the business. The leadership made a deliberate decision to stop feeding the noise and start backing what they could control. It sounds simple. It rarely is.

They began tightening standards across the operation not in a big, dramatic way, but in small, consistent moves. Tolerances, quality checks, output consistency. They invested in plant and machinery where it mattered most not everywhere, just where it would lift capability and remove constraints. They improved stockholding and response times so customers didn’t have to wait, and orders could be fulfilled faster and more reliably. And they worked on mindset: less complaining, more building.

None of this made headlines. But all of it compounded.

The business became easier to buy from, easier to trust and easier to rely on. In industries where failure is expensive, that matters. Customers noticed. Then they returned. Then they brought more work.

Export opportunities opened not because the business chased them aggressively, but because its capability started to travel. Quality, consistency and responsiveness are universal currencies. Today, that same business is supplying customers across multiple international markets.

This is where most business owners get stuck. They spend their best energy on what they cannot change: the economy, policy, competitors, infrastructure, pricing pressure. These are all real and frustrating, but they are largely outside your control. And while that focus feels justified, it quietly drains the one resource you cannot afford to waste your attention.

Because growth doesn’t start “out there.” It starts when your attention comes home.

What can you improve? What can you tighten? What can you build so well that the market has to take you seriously?

That is the shift. From reacting to conditions to building capability. From defending position to strengthening it. From running a business that survives the environment to building one that performs despite it.

If you step back, this is not just an operational shift it’s a structural one. You are strengthening your system of delivery: the way work gets done, consistently. And when that system improves, something important happens. The business starts to rely less on effort and more on structure less on firefighting and more on repeatability.

It doesn’t happen through one big move, but through a series of deliberate decisions about what you will and will not focus on.

So here is a practical place to start. Pick one area of your business that directly affects your customer’s experience speed, quality, consistency or reliability. Then ask a simple question: what is the one improvement we can make here that would be felt immediately by the customer?

Then do that. Properly. Not halfway. Not when you have time properly.

Because in the end, most markets don’t reward the business that shouts the loudest. They reward the one that works the best. And that is always something you can control.

By Pavlo Phitidis

Stop guessing, start growing, commit demand before you invest

Elite Business: Stop guessing, start growing, commit demand before you invest

Written by Lindokuhle Ntombela on . Posted in Asset of Value, Featured, Innovation, Insights, Leadership, Mindset, Trends.

In this article, originally featured in Elite Business: The wrong sequence kills growth. Commit demand first, then build capability that scales without burning you out

I was sitting with a manufacturing business recently. Good product. Solid reputation. Skilled people on the floor. But like many businesses I see, it was working far harder than it should for the returns it was getting.

For them, and many businesses, one missing capability was the bottleneck to growth. It’s the equivalent of having a powerful engine but a blocked fuel line.

Fix that one constraint, and suddenly everything flows faster. Orders move quicker. Waste drops. Margins improve. Customers notice.

In their case it was set up times. The hours before production starts and delays between jobs. The small inefficiencies that multiply across thousands of units.

If your system takes too long to get going, you burn time and cash before you’ve even created value.

Now here’s the pattern:

A business spots an opportunity to solve that problem. There’s a component, a process, or a capability that could dramatically improve speed, quality, and consistency for customers. It’s not glamorous, but it matters. A lot.

So the owner thinks: “If I invest in this, the market will come.”

That’s where things go wrong.

“Build it and they will come” is not a strategy. It’s a gamble.

And most established business owners can’t afford gambles anymore. You’ve got payroll, customers, and families depending on you.

The smarter play is to flip the sequence.

Commit first. Then build

Secure demand before you invest.

I’ve seen too many owners buy machines, hire teams, or expand capacity based on assumptions. Hope is doing the heavy lifting. Then the pressure starts. Debt needs servicing. Capacity sits idle. Stress goes up.

Instead, sit down with a handful of key customers. Not dozens. Two or three is enough.

Ask a simple question: “What would make you move meaningful volume to me?”

Get specific: Price. Lead time. Quality. Reliability. Then make a counter-offer:

“If you commit that volume, I will build the capability to deliver it.”

Now you’re not guessing. You’re building on something bankable.

A second component of this is one most owners resist: You can’t scale a business that sits on your shoulders.

If growth depends on you pushing every deal, solving every problem, and holding everything together, you don’t have a scalable business. You have a job that’s getting heavier.

So as you build new capability, you must build the team and structure around it. Clear roles. Defined processes. Accountability that doesn’t route back to you.

Committed demand; targeted capability and a strengthened team sees something powerful happening.

  • You reduce risk.
  • You make funders more comfortable.
  • You create momentum that doesn’t rely on constant effort from you.

If you’re feeling stuck…working hard but not moving forward, don’t look for a silver bullet, look at the sequence.

Don’t build and hope; Commit, then build.

By Pavlo Phitidis

Elite Business: From commodity to control: how to escape the price trap

Elite Business: From commodity to control: how to escape the price trap

Written by Lindokuhle Ntombela on . Posted in Asset of Value, Featured, Innovation, Insights, Leadership, Mindset, Trends.

In this article, originally featured in Elite Business: Businesses can move beyond price competition by solving higher-level client problems and building structured, recurring revenue models.

Most businesses don’t struggle because they lack effort, skill or brilliant offerings. They struggle because they’re competing in the wrong game.

Consider the owner of a £10-million business in a fiercely competitive industry. Low barriers to entry. Endless competitors. Constant price pressure. Wild swings in revenue.

On paper, the business supplied branded collateral and event support. In reality, it was trapped in a commodity war as every client discussion ended with price.

Here’s the hard truth: if every conversation ends in price, you haven’t defined the real problem you solve.

Growth doesn’t fix structural weakness

The business had finally hit a long-chased revenue milestone. But relief didn’t come from pushing harder. It came from tightening structure.

Many owners believe the next revenue jump will ease the pressure. It won’t.

The problems you have at 10 million reappear at 20 million, just larger and more expensive. Small inefficiencies become structural cracks and if you don’t fix them early, scale magnifies them.

Growth amplifies structure, both good and bad.

Stop selling items. Start solving headaches.

Nobody spends money for fun. Every spend solves a problem. The question is whether you’re solving the real one.

In the case of this business, when we started digging deeper, a pattern emerged.

Large organisations with multiple branches struggle with brand inconsistency.

Regional teams run events differently, budgets get wasted, collateral disappears and standards slip.

The senior decision-maker isn’t worried about the price of a pen. They’re worried about loss of control.

That’s the real problem.

Shift the conversation from: “Can you quote on 500 units?“ To: “How do we ensure every branch event across the country is executed consistently, within budget and on brand?“

Now you’re no longer selling merchandise. You’re selling governance, risk reduction and brand protection, and senior leaders pay for that.

The recurring revenue shift

Move from transactional sales to a recurring service model.

Instead of supplying items per event, design and manage the event system.

Imagine this:

• Each branch runs a predictable number of events annually. • Each event has a standardised “kit“ that could include signage, uniforms, gifting and collateral. • The kit is stored, maintained and deployed by you, then reused. • Usage is tracked, waste drops and brand quality improves.

You’ve shifted from selling products to delivering reliable execution at scale.

That stabilises revenue. It smooths cash flow. It builds predictability. And predictability increases valuation.

Buyers don’t pay for erratic project income. They pay for contracted, repeatable revenue streams.

Three practical actions

1. Identify the bigger problem Ask: what keeps my customer’s boss awake at night? Aim there.

2. Package outcomes, not inputs Sell consistency, control and predictability, not physical products or one-off services.

3. Design for revenue stability Build recurring agreements that reduce seasonal volatility and protect cash flow.

The moment you stop fighting over the price of the pen and start solving the headache in the boardroom, you step out of the commodity trap.

And that’s when you start building a scalable business.

By Pavlo Phitidis

Why growth feels risky for so many good businesses

Elite Business: Why growth feels risky for so many good businesses

Written by Lindokuhle Ntombela on . Posted in Asset of Value, Featured, Innovation, Insights, Leadership, Mindset, Trends.

In this article, originally featured in Elite Business: Growth exposes structural weaknesses in good businesses long before it delivers the rewards owners expect

For many established business owners, growth is supposed to feel like progress. More customers. Bigger contracts. Wider reach. Yet time and again, I see owners hesitate at precisely the moment their business should be scaling.

Not because they lack ambition.
But because growth feels risky.

I recently sat with an owner of a well-established manufacturing business supplying large retailers. This wasn’t a start-up chasing its first break. It was a second-generation company with years of hard-earned credibility, strong demand and trusted relationships. A national opportunity was on the table, the kind most founders dream of.

And yet, the dominant emotion wasn’t excitement. It was unease.

That feeling is far more rational than many people realise. Businesses rarely stall because they can’t sell. They stall because they can’t deliver consistently once complexity increases.

In this case, the product was used in-store by retail staff across hundreds of locations. Quality depended on how well individuals handled, prepared and applied it. When everything went right, the outcome was excellent. When it didn’t, the brand paid the price, often without knowing where things had gone wrong.

That’s not a people problem. It’s a structural one.

When consistency relies on people “just knowing” what to do, growth becomes fragile. Owners sense this instinctively. They worry about reputation risk, loss of control and the creeping reality that success might actually increase stress rather than reduce it.

The most common mistake at this point is to look for answers in the wrong places. Owners talk about more capacity, more factories, more trucks or more effort. They push harder, believing growth is a matter of energy and ambition.

But scale doesn’t fail because of ambition. It fails because systems don’t keep up.

The turning point in this business came when the question changed. Instead of asking how to supply nationally, the owner asked how to remove variability from the system altogether. The answer was not complicated, but it was powerful: a clear system of delivery.

They began building a simple online training platform for store staff. Short, practical videos showed exactly how the product should be handled, prepared and stored. One standard. One way of doing things. Staff completed the training, passed a basic assessment and were accredited.

Nothing flashy. Just clarity and repeatability.

That shift transformed the business. Quality no longer depended on constant supervision or experience living in people’s heads. The retailer’s operational burden reduced. The supplier moved from being a commodity to a strategic partner. And critically, the owner was no longer the glue holding everything together.

I often say that structure determines behaviour, and behaviour determines outcomes. If a business depends on the owner checking everything and fixing problems after the fact, growth will always feel dangerous. Systems are what make scale sustainable.

There’s an uncomfortable truth beneath many growth conversations. If landing one big contract would dramatically change your life, your business isn’t quite ready yet. That doesn’t mean you’re in trouble, it means your structure hasn’t caught up with your ambition.

Growth isn’t about pushing harder. It’s about building better architecture. When the structure is right, growth stops feeling like a threat and starts becoming the reward business owners worked so hard for in the first place.

By Pavlo Phitidis