Is the size of your company something that defines success for you? Or, is success defined by a larger income and profitability?
And what about your greatness?
It feels like a business déjà vu.
We attend networking events, we read the headlines, and the conversation always drifts to the same metrics.
“How many employees do you have?”
“What was your revenue last year?“
Many times, when we talk about successful companies, we immediately think about growth. We look at the number of employees, the growth in income, the gross profit, and so on.
We have been conditioned to believe that “bigger is better” and that the graph must always go up and to the right, regardless of the cost.
These elements are important, and it is a fact that they matter. You need revenue to survive. You need profit to thrive. But, success is not—and simply can’t be—measured only in growing numbers.
Why do I think so?
The Vanity Metric Trap
First, I want to mention that I have seen many companies that are “big” according to their size in terms of the number of employees or total income. Yet, despite their size, they are incredibly small when it comes to actual profitability.
Let’s look at a hypothetical example.
Imagine Company A. They have 50 employees and generate $5 million in revenue. On the surface, they look like a titan. The founder is probably invited to speak at conferences.
But then, look at Company B. They have 5 employees and generate $1 million in revenue.
Yes, Company A has a large amount of income flowing in. But, they also have a massive amount of costs flowing out—payroll, office space, insurance, bloated software subscriptions, and management overhead.
When you subtract those costs from the income, you might find that Company A has a net profit of $200,000. Meanwhile, Company B, with its lean operation, also has a net profit of $200,000.
Revenue is vanity, profit is sanity, but cash is king.
Alan Miltz
You come to the exact same level of profitability.
The only difference is that the “big” company comes with ten times the stress, ten times the complexity, and ten times the risk.
So, success is not about the size; it is more about something else. That “something else” is greatness.
But how do we find it? How do we shift our focus from the vanity of size to the sanity of greatness? It requires a framework.
Phase I: The Internal Definition
Greatness doesn’t start with the market; it starts with you. It starts with the person in the mirror.
We often skip this step. Simply, we jump straight to marketing strategies and product development without asking the hard questions. But you cannot build a skyscraper on a swamp. You need a foundation.
Define Your “North Star”
As a first step, you must be clear with yourself about what success means for you.
You can’t know that you are reaching success if you simply don’t know exactly what business success actually looks like for you.
You need to stop and think about what you want to achieve with your company.
- Do you want to build something sustainable that pays you well for decades?
- Do you want to build an empire to sell in five years?
- Do you want to remain a “company of one” with high margins and low headaches?
There is no wrong answer, but there is a wrong approach: not deciding.
If you don’t decide, the market will decide for you. You will drift into “growth for the sake of growth.” You will hire people because you think you “should.”
And, you will expand into new markets because your competitors are doing it.
And suddenly, you wake up in a business you hate.
The Lifestyle Audit
Next, you must be clear on what you want from your life.
Is it really success if you build a “big” company, but you are not satisfied with your own personal and entrepreneurial life?
The answer is no.
I have met founders who run 8-figure businesses but haven’t taken a vacation in four years. They miss their children’s birthdays. Their health is deteriorating. They are “successful” on paper, but they are failing at life.
The real greatness means that you succeed in building a great company, but at the same time, you also have your own great life.
If the business grows but your life shrinks, that isn’t greatness—that is a trap. It is a set of golden handcuffs that you forged yourself.
Actionable Insight: Take an hour this weekend to write down your “Non-Negotiables.” What are the things in your life you are not willing to sacrifice for business growth? Is it dinner with family? Is it your morning run? Or, is it your weekends? Build your business boundaries around these, not the other way around.
Success is liking yourself, liking what you do, and liking how you do it.
Maya Angelou
Related: 7 Steps Framework to Achieve All Your Business Goals
Phase II: The Value Exchange
Once you know what you want (Internal Clarity), you have to look outward. You can’t achieve greatness for your company if you can’t satisfy your customers.
Greatness is a two-way street. You get the life you want by giving the customers the results they want.
Radical Empathy vs. Assumptions
You must be clear with what your customers really want.
This sounds simple, but it is often overlooked. Most entrepreneurs fall in love with their solution rather than the customer’s problem.
Related: How to Find Customers With the Right Purchase Intent
We assume we know what they want. We say, “I think they need this feature,” or “I bet they would pay for this service.” But “I think” is the most expensive phrase in business.
The first step in creating real customer satisfaction is to know—deeply—what they really want from you. Not what you want to sell them, but what they need.
For example, a customer doesn’t want a “business consultant.” They want “clarity” and “sleep at night.” A customer doesn’t want a “drill”; they want a “hole in the wall.”
If you try to sell the drill, you are a commodity. If you sell the hole in the wall (the outcome), you are a partner.
Don’t find customers for your products, find products for your customers.
Seth Godin
The Happiness Alignment
You must have something that makes them, your customers, happy.
When you know what your customers want, the next step to your greatness is to actually create and build the products and services that align with those desires.
Greatness is found in the match between your product and their happiness.
If your product is “big” (lots of features, complex technology) but it doesn’t solve the core pain point, it is useless.
A “small” product that solves a painful problem immediately is infinitely greater than a complex product that solves nothing.
Strategic Question: Look at your current offer. If you removed 50% of the features/services but kept the core value that actually solves the problem, would your customers still be happy?
Often, the answer is yes.
That is where your greatness lies—in the core value, not the fluff.
Phase III: The Engine of Greatness
We have the mindset (Phase I) and the strategy (Phase II). Now, we need the engine. We need execution.
Ideas are not enough. Greatness requires action.
The “Good Enough” Paradox
You must ship what makes them happy.
You can build great products and services, but if your customers can’t get them and use them, you can’t expect to succeed in the greatness of your company.
I see so many entrepreneurs paralyzed by perfectionism. They are waiting for the website to be perfect. They are waiting for the logo to be just right. Or, they are waiting for the product to be “big” enough to launch.
You need to ship them. And not just ship them, but ship them in the best possible way for your customers.
Shipping is a feature. If a product is 90% perfect but sitting on your hard drive, its value is zero.
If a product is 80% perfect but in the hands of a customer solving a problem, its value is infinite relative to the first one.
Real artists ship.
Steve Jobs
Related: How You Can Start to Build the Business, Not the Product
Consistency is the New Brilliance
You must continue to ship what makes them happy.
Greatness isn’t a one-time event. It is not a viral video or a single lucky launch.
It can be seen when your customers really continue to have a need for your great products and services, so you are continuing to ship them.
Consistency is key.
Think about the local bakery that has been open for 20 years. Are they “innovating” every day?
No.
But they are consistent. The bread is fresh every single morning at 6:00 AM.
That reliability creates trust. Trust creates loyalty. Loyalty creates a great business.
You don’t need to be a genius every day. You just need to show up every day.
Phase IV: Evolution and Legacy
Finally, greatness is about momentum. It is about what happens after the sale.
Many “big” companies treat customers like numbers. Once the transaction is done, they move to the next victim. A “great” company treats the transaction as the starting line, not the finish line.
Continuous Optimization (Kaizen)
You must continue to make them even happier.
Greatness means that you are improving yourself and your company on a continuous basis.
Related: 100 Business Improvement Ideas for Your Small Business
The purpose of these improvements is not just to “grow” your revenue numbers. The purpose is to make your customers even happier than they were yesterday.
If you improve your product, your delivery, or your support by just 1% every week, you will be unrecognizable in a year. This is the compound interest of greatness.
Ask yourself:
- “How can I make doing business with me easier?“
- “How can I make the results faster?”
- “How can I make the experience more enjoyable?“
Related: Kaizen: Mastering Continuous Improvement
The Ultimate Proof: Advocacy
They start talking about their own experience to you.
When do you know you have truly won? When do you know you have moved from “Size” to “Greatness”?
The greatness of your company can be seen when your customers really start to spread the word of their own satisfaction working with your company.
Marketing is expensive. Advertising is expensive. Sales teams are expensive. These are the costs that “big” companies bear.
But when you achieve greatness, your customers become your sales force. They tell their friends, their colleagues, and their social networks about you. They do this not because you paid them, but because you made them feel something.
You solved a problem so well that they feel compelled to share it.
When they become your marketers because they are so happy, that is when you can say that you have really achieved the level of greatness.
This is the ultimate efficiency. This is how you achieve high profit with low stress. And this is the definition of a great company.
Market unto others as you would have them market unto you.
Dharmesh Shah
Your Next Step
We have covered a lot of ground, but reading about greatness won’t make you great. Action will.
Take a moment today to look at your business. Stop looking at the dashboard of vanity metrics.
You must close the tab comparing your revenue to your competitors.
Instead of such a comparison, consider first these three key questions to achieve excellence:
- The Profit Test: Am I pursuing revenue at the expense of my peace of mind or profit margin?
- The Life Test: Does my business support my ideal life, or does it consume it?
- The Happiness Test: If I stopped marketing today, would my current customers recommend my product to others?
Are you chasing a bigger headcount, or are you chasing the greatness that comes from a happy life and happy customers?
Choose greatness. It pays better, and you’ll sleep better.
