Build the Foundation Before You Load the Bar

Already on high alert just hearing that but I continued the dialogue.

We start mapping out what that actually looks like aaaaand… ghosted.

I don't generally follow up with people so I left it alone.

Found out a month later from one of their top reps lead volume is down 90% from the month before and they're downsizing.

Hilarious.

Seen this time and time again.

When companies push push push and go full on bazooka mode trying to "double revenue in [XYZ INSANELY compressed amount of time] because we're scaling hard," the market could care less. It doesn't give a RIP about your goals.

So, naturally, well meaning yet ignorant companies get bamboozled.

Why? Because the FOUNDATION wasn't built to support the goal first.

It's like trying to drop a five bedroom house on a three bedroom foundation. Looks stellar on paper but cracks the second it rains.

But the way I really think about it is the gym.

You ever watch a guy slap too much weight on the bar too fast? His muscles can move it, sure, maybe even for a period of time.

"Hey mom, I think we made it!"

Not.

Then his connective tissue — the tendons and ligaments and joints — they never got the memo. They adapt way slower than muscle does and that "just one more" turns into "ouchy I got a boo boo and can't lift anymore."

This has nothing to do with "getting too strong too fast" and everything to do with simply loading the BAR faster than his body could build the stuff that holds it together.

That's exactly what happens to these companies.

They obsess over one number. Top line revenue.

And they do their "90-day sprints" at it like the connective tissue of the business — the systems, the lead flow, the training, the actual ability to take care of the people they're hiring — is just gonna keep up on its own.

It doesn't.

So they "scale," they post the screenshots, they tell everybody they're hiring double digits a month… and then the rain comes.

Leads dry up. The foundation cracks.

And the same reps they recruited with the moon-and-stars pitch are the first ones cut because, well "tenure, bro."

I'm not anti-growth. Grow all day. Grow aggressive even.

Just build the thing that holds the weight first.

Condition the connective tissue. Make the foundation HARD to break. Then load the bar.

It's ok if it's boring.

The companies still standing in three years aren't always the ones who scaled the fastest. They're the ones who could actually carry what they built.

Welcome to the Casino.