“We Need to Take Things to the Next Level.” What the Fuck Does That Mean?

“We need to take this business to the next level.”

Wonderful.

What the fuck does that mean?

Are we increasing revenue? Improving profitability? Expanding into another market? Developing a new product? Acquiring a competitor? Building a company that can operate without the owner?

Or did somebody wake up this morning, decide they wanted more money, and call a meeting?

Throughout my career, working with business owners, executives, and employees across different organizations, I've heard variations of this statement more times than I care to remember.

And my response is remarkably simple.

What do you have in mind to do so?

Because there's an enormous difference between having a business expansion concept and announcing that you'd like your business to become bigger.

One gives an organization something to investigate.

The other gives everyone something to talk about.

And talking about growth is considerably easier than growing a business.

A Thought Is Not a Business Concept

Let's say you own a company selling baby socks.

Business is good. Customers like the products. Sales are increasing. You've developed relationships with suppliers, retailers, and customers in the baby-products market.

You call a meeting.

“We've been doing well with baby socks. I want to explore expanding into reusable baby diapers. We already serve parents with young children, and there may be an opportunity to develop another product line using some of our existing relationships. Let's investigate demand, production costs, distribution, and what it would take to enter that market.”

Now we're talking.

Is the idea good?

Who knows?

Maybe the reusable diaper market is already saturated. Maybe the production requirements are completely different. Maybe customers buying baby socks have no interest in buying diapers from the same company.

Maybe the economics are terrible.

That's what the investigation is supposed to determine.

But ownership has provided something important.

A direction.

Employees and management can now evaluate the opportunity, identify problems, develop projections, and determine whether the concept deserves investment.

Now consider a different meeting.

“We need to take this business to the next level. What are everyone's thoughts?”

Silence.

A few employees look at each other.

Someone suggests social media.

Someone suggests expanding the product line.

Someone suggests opening another location.

Someone suggests using AI because apparently no modern business meeting can end without somebody mentioning AI.

The owner nods.

“Great ideas, everyone. Let's put together some proposals.”

Proposals for what?

What is the objective? What resources are available? What markets are worth investigating? What risks is ownership willing to accept?

Nobody knows.

The owner has provided an ambition without a direction.

If the owner is vague, and upper management is vague, then it's a thought. Not a concept.

Thoughts are fine.

Every business concept begins somewhere.

But let's stop pretending that expressing a desire is the same thing as developing a strategy.

Whose Fucking Job Is It to Figure Out What the Business Should Become?

Here's where I think many businesses get the employer–employee relationship twisted.

The owner owns the business.

The owner has the ownership rights, the ultimate financial interest, and, subject to the organization's governance structure, the authority to determine what the business is trying to accomplish.

Employees are hired to perform roles within that organization.

Some execute established processes.

Some manage departments.

Some develop products.

Some identify opportunities.

Some are specifically hired to create and execute strategy.

Those distinctions matter.

I'm not suggesting employees shouldn't contribute ideas. Quite the opposite. Employees frequently understand parts of the business that ownership does not.

A salesperson may recognize an underserved customer segment.

A production manager may identify a new manufacturing opportunity.

A marketing employee may discover demand for something the company doesn't currently offer.

And an executive specifically hired to develop corporate strategy should absolutely be expected to help identify and evaluate opportunities.

But there's a difference between delegating strategic development and abandoning strategic responsibility.

If ownership hires someone to identify expansion opportunities, gives that person the authority, resources, compensation, and decision-making framework appropriate to the assignment, that's a legitimate business arrangement.

If ownership simply announces that it wants more money and expects ordinary employees to invent the next business model, we've got a different situation.

Especially when ownership reserves the right to reject every proposal, refuses to commit resources, and then complains that nobody is helping the business grow.

You own the fucking business.

What do you want to build?

The 80/20 Problem I've Observed

In my own experience helping employers, I would roughly characterize the situations I've encountered this way.

About 20% have presented something resembling a functional expansion concept—or at least a partially developed one.

The other 80% have wanted growth without providing a meaningful direction, while retaining the ownership benefits of whatever employees might create.

Those are my personal observations from the businesses I've worked with, not a representative survey of employers or a statistical claim about the business community.

But the distinction is useful.

In the first situation, the owner may have a direction that needs considerable work.

In the second, ownership often wants the organization to discover what the next business opportunity should be.

Both situations can still produce the same management failure.

Ownership transfers responsibility downward while retaining the financial upside and the authority to assign blame.

The employee is expected to think like an entrepreneur.

The employee is expected to identify the opportunity.

The employee is expected to develop the proposal.

The employee may even be expected to manage its implementation.

But when the proposal succeeds, ownership captures the increase in enterprise value.

And when it fails?

“Well, that was your idea.”

That's a convenient arrangement.

For ownership.

Employees Want to Keep Their Jobs. That's Part of the Problem.

Here's something I've noticed about employees.

Most want to keep their jobs.

The better employees often have even more reason to care about maintaining their position. They've built careers, developed responsibilities, earned trust, and established something worth protecting.

Now put those employees in a meeting where the owner announces a vague growth initiative.

What happens?

People try to be helpful.

They suggest ideas.

They volunteer to investigate possibilities.

They prepare presentations.

They produce projections.

And sometimes they tell ownership what they believe ownership wants to hear.

Not necessarily because they're dishonest.

Because they're operating within an employment relationship.

An employee may reasonably conclude that telling the owner, “You haven't actually defined what you're asking us to accomplish,” is less professionally advantageous than saying, “That's exciting. Let me put something together.”

So the organization starts generating activity.

Meetings.

Research.

Spreadsheets.

Presentations.

Proposals.

Management reports.

And everyone appears to be working toward the next level.

Except nobody has established where that level is.

The danger is that the company begins confusing employee responsiveness with strategic progress.

An organization can become extremely busy accomplishing absolutely nothing.

And the longer that continues, the more difficult it becomes for anyone to acknowledge that the original direction was never established.

A Real Expansion Should Have Some Relationship to Reality

Let's take a hypothetical personal injury law firm.

The firm has attorneys, support personnel, intake procedures, case-management systems, litigation experience, and established methods of acquiring clients.

Ownership wants to expand.

One possibility is developing an employment-law contingency practice.

That doesn't automatically make it a good investment.

The firm would need to evaluate attorney expertise, applicable professional obligations, market demand, case economics, litigation costs, staffing, financing, and whether its existing infrastructure can support the work.

But there's at least a recognizable relationship between the current business and the proposed expansion.

Now imagine ownership announces that the firm is going to start an e-commerce company selling T-shirts.

Could that business succeed?

Sure.

People sell T-shirts every day.

But what existing competitive advantage does the law firm bring to apparel retail?

Does its legal expertise create an advantage in sourcing merchandise, managing inventory, building a consumer brand, or operating fulfillment?

Maybe ownership has discovered a genuine opportunity.

If so, explain it.

Otherwise, we've confused starting another business with expanding the existing one.

A plausible expansion often begins by examining what an organization already possesses: customers, expertise, relationships, infrastructure, distribution, reputation, or capabilities.

Then asking where those advantages might be applied productively.

The U.S. Small Business Administration's business-planning guidance similarly emphasizes market research, competitive analysis, target customers, operating requirements, funding needs, and financial projections. [1]

None of that guarantees success.

It does provide a way to distinguish an executable opportunity from an attractive-sounding idea.

And that's the difference between asking employees to investigate a business opportunity and asking them to imagine an entirely new future because ownership is bored with the current one.

Everybody Wants Growth Until Growth Costs Money

Here's where the conversation gets particularly entertaining.

Ownership wants expansion.

Management develops a plausible proposal.

The company identifies a market opportunity.

The numbers suggest there may be a commercially attractive path forward.

Now comes the part where somebody has to commit resources.

New personnel.

Training.

Equipment.

Technology.

Marketing.

Additional working capital.

Management attention.

And, perhaps most offensively, time.

The owner looks at the proposal.

“How long until we're profitable?”

“Potentially two years before the new operation becomes consistently profitable, depending on demand and execution.”

“Two years?”

“Yes.”

“And we're going to lose money during that time?”

“The expansion may generate operating losses or negative cash flow during development.”

Suddenly the enthusiasm disappears.

Now the investment is too expensive.

The timeline is too long.

The uncertainty is unacceptable.

The business can't afford the distraction.

And the owner starts questioning why nobody can produce a growth strategy that doesn't involve spending money or accepting risk.

They want to have their cake and eat it too.

Growth does not come with a guarantee.

That doesn't mean every growth opportunity deserves funding.

A responsible owner should reject investments whose expected returns do not justify their costs and risks.

But rejecting a bad investment is different from rejecting the basic economic reality that expansion requires commitments before the benefits are certain.

If the owner is unwilling to spend money, redirect personnel, accept uncertainty, or wait for results, then perhaps the owner doesn't actually want to grow.

Perhaps they simply like the idea of having a bigger business.

Those are not the same thing.

The Economics Don't Care About Your Enthusiasm

Let's build a hypothetical expansion.

A company identifies a new service opportunity.

Its existing business is profitable, and ownership believes the new service could eventually produce $600,000 in annual revenue.

Wonderful.

But getting there requires investment.

At target scale, the expansion could generate $180,000 annually after the specified variable and new fixed operating costs, before financing costs, taxes, and other applicable expenses.

At a 60% contribution-margin ratio, the expansion would need $300,000 in annual revenue to cover the specified $180,000 in new fixed operating costs. That operating break-even point still would not recover the separate $100,000 initial investment.

That sounds promising.

But the company doesn't begin at target scale.

Suppose the first two years look like this:

The initial $100,000 investment is separate from those operating results.

Under these simplified assumptions, the expansion produces a $90,000 operating loss in year one, a $30,000 operating profit in year two, and a cumulative operating loss of $60,000 across the first two years.

Including the initial $100,000 investment, the project has not yet recovered its committed capital.

And that is before considering possible working-capital requirements, financing costs, taxes, or additional investments.

The owner might need to finance the operation well before it produces a positive cumulative return.

That doesn't automatically make the expansion a bad idea.

It means the business needs to evaluate the expected return, funding requirements, downside exposure, and time required to recover its investment.

The SBA's guidance on expansion and financing likewise calls for a business case, financial statements, cost forecasts, and an assessment of whether the company can support the expansion. [2]

Now imagine ownership rejecting the entire proposal simply because the first year shows a loss.

Fine.

Perhaps the risk is too high.

Perhaps the assumptions are weak.

Perhaps the existing company cannot finance the investment safely.

Those are legitimate reasons.

But if ownership's original instruction was to build a new revenue-producing operation, why is the possibility of development costs suddenly a surprise?

Did you want to build something, or did you want someone to hand you an already profitable business?

The Employee Who Actually Makes It Happen

Now let's consider the employee who does more than suggest an idea.

They identify an opportunity.

They research the market.

They help develop the business case.

They build the operating process.

They manage the implementation.

They overcome problems.

And eventually the new operation generates meaningful profit.

What happens to that employee?

In some businesses, they get a thank-you.

Maybe a pizza party.

Maybe an encouraging remark during their annual review.

Meanwhile, ownership enjoys the additional earnings and potentially the increased value of the company.

I have a serious problem with that.

Real contributions that produce real business results should create real rewards.

That doesn't mean every idea deserves equity.

It doesn't mean every suggestion should earn a percentage of revenue.

And it certainly doesn't mean an employee owns a business initiative merely because they proposed it.

But if someone develops, executes, and successfully manages a profitable new operation, why shouldn't that accomplishment create a legitimate opportunity for greater responsibility, compensation, performance incentives, or a negotiated ownership arrangement?

If the employee has effectively built and now manages a profitable business unit, there is a reasonable argument for recognizing that responsibility formally.

The precise reward should reflect the employee's contribution, the risks assumed, the capital provided, the contractual arrangements, and the economics of the business.

Not every successful initiative can support equity or substantial profit sharing.

But that doesn't justify pretending the contribution has no additional value.

And here's another distinction.

I don't believe rewards should be reserved exclusively for successful outcomes.

A properly authorized experiment can fail while producing valuable information, useful capabilities, or evidence that prevents the business from wasting considerably more money.

That deserves recognition too.

It doesn't necessarily deserve the same reward as building a profitable operation.

But a business that punishes every unsuccessful experiment shouldn't be surprised when employees stop proposing meaningful risks.

If ownership wants entrepreneurial behavior, it should think seriously about how entrepreneurial contributions are evaluated and rewarded.

Otherwise, it's asking employees to assume some of the responsibilities of entrepreneurship without negotiating the benefits.

You Can Invite Ideas Without Abdicating Leadership

For my own entertainment-business ambitions, I intend to approach creative development differently once the organization is stable enough to support the process.

I want creatives to be able to propose concepts openly.

I want those concepts to receive internal consideration and voting.

I want fan engagement to help evaluate demand and interest.

I want stakeholder review before significant resources are committed.

And I want people who contribute meaningfully to have opportunities for recognition, rewards, and greater responsibility.

That is an intended operating model, not a claim that the system has already been implemented or proven successful.

The important distinction is that ownership would establish the process, decision rights, available resources, and overall direction.

Employees would have a legitimate way to contribute to the organization's future.

Stakeholders would participate in the evaluation appropriate to their roles.

And successful execution could create a meaningful runway for negotiation.

That's very different from announcing that the company needs to grow and waiting for somebody else to figure out what that means.

Inviting participation is leadership. Making everyone else responsible for your undefined ambition is not.

The Comfortable Owner Who Doesn't Want to Start Over

Some owners spent twenty years building a successful business. They worked long hours, borrowed money, survived uncertainty, and eventually earned stability. The company now produces income. Employees handle the day-to-day operation. The original struggle feels finished.

Then the owner says they want to take the business to the next level—until that level requires another investment, another operational challenge, or another two years developing something that may not work.

My interpretation, based on what I've encountered, is that some owners want the financial outcome of another growth cycle without wanting to experience the struggle of building one.

Protecting profitability, managing risk, and preserving hard-earned stability can be legitimate. Sometimes those explanations conceal a simpler contradiction.

The owner wants the business to change without wanting their own circumstances to change.

More revenue, but not more uncertainty. More profit, but not more investment. More employee initiative, but no meaningful change in how those employees are rewarded or empowered.

Eventually, the organization learns what ownership actually tolerates—not what ownership says it wants, but what ownership is willing to do.

The Business Becomes Its Own Obstacle

This is where vague ambitions can turn into organizational self-sabotage.

Ownership announces growth. Management responds with proposals. Employees produce ideas. Then ownership rejects them because they require investment, risk, or changes to the existing operation. Everyone returns to regular work.

Six months later, ownership announces:

“We really need to take things to the next level.”

Again. And everyone repeats the process.

Eventually, employees learn to offer safe suggestions rather than ambitious ones.

Management learns to present ideas that sound attractive without requiring difficult commitments.

The organization becomes increasingly skilled at producing the appearance of progress while the business remains essentially unchanged.

That is the self-sabotage.

The company may not lack talent, opportunities, or even capital. It lacks alignment between what ownership claims to want and what ownership is prepared to authorize.

And because ownership has final authority, it can perpetuate that contradiction indefinitely.

Then blame employees for the lack of progress.

You cannot repeatedly reject the conditions required for change and then complain that nothing changes.

What Does the Next Level Actually Mean?

Before spending another dollar or assigning another employee to develop a proposal, ownership should establish what it's trying to accomplish.

Not necessarily a complete business plan.

Not a hundred-page presentation.

A working direction.

Are we trying to improve the profitability of the existing business?

Develop another service line?

Reach a different customer segment?

Expand geographically?

Acquire a complementary company?

Reduce dependency on the founder?

Build an operation that can eventually be sold?

Those are different objectives.

They require different investments, people, operating systems, timelines, and risk tolerances.

And the relevant owners, shareholders, executives, and other decision-makers should understand the proposed direction well enough to evaluate it.

That doesn't mean everyone must agree immediately.

It means the organization needs something substantive to disagree about.

Once a direction exists, management can investigate whether the opportunity is commercially realistic.

Employees can contribute their expertise.

Financial personnel can evaluate capital requirements.

Marketing can assess demand.

Operations can examine capacity.

Stakeholders can review the risks and potential rewards.

And ownership can decide whether the opportunity deserves investment.

That's how an ambition begins becoming an executable business concept.

Not because someone said “next level” during a meeting.

Because somebody defined what they meant and accepted responsibility for the decisions required to pursue it.

Maybe You Don't Actually Want to Grow

And there's nothing inherently wrong with that.

A business owner may have already accomplished everything they wanted.

They may prefer reliable income over aggressive expansion.

They may want to preserve capital, reduce their workload, prepare for retirement, or maintain a stable organization.

Those are legitimate business objectives.

Growth is not automatically superior to stability.

But then say that.

Don't announce an aggressive growth ambition while refusing every meaningful change that might make growth possible.

Don't encourage employees to invest time developing proposals that ownership has no intention of considering seriously.

And don't confuse protecting a comfortable position with pursuing an expansion strategy.

If the objective is stability, operate for stability.

If the objective is profitable growth, define the opportunity and investigate its economics.

If the objective is experimentation, establish how much capital and organizational capacity you're willing to risk.

If the objective is to create an entirely new business, recognize that you're taking on an entirely different undertaking.

But whatever the objective, ownership needs to understand it.

Because the people working for the company cannot intelligently execute a direction that nobody has defined.

So, What the Fuck Is the Next Level?

Maybe it's another million dollars in revenue.

Maybe it's a new product line.

Maybe it's a second location.

Maybe it's a more profitable version of the business you already have.

Maybe it's a company that can survive without its founder.

Maybe it's a business that rewards the people who help create its next source of profit.

Or maybe there isn't a next level worth pursuing right now.

The answer depends on the business, its economics, its capabilities, and what ownership actually wants.

But there's one thing I know.

Wanting something is not the same as deciding to build it.

An employee can help evaluate an opportunity.

A manager can help develop a strategy.

A team can execute a plan.

And the right people can identify opportunities that ownership never considered.

But somebody with the authority to direct the business must ultimately decide what the organization is trying to accomplish, what it's willing to commit, and which risks it is prepared to accept.

You cannot substitute enthusiasm for direction.

You cannot substitute employee suggestions for ownership decisions.

And you cannot demand growth while rejecting every reasonable possibility that growth might cost something.

So the next time a business owner announces:

“We need to take this business to the next level.”

I have one question.

What do you have in mind to do so?

Because if you own the business, you should probably have some fucking idea.

Continue Reading on anuhlest

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• Your Business Made a Million Dollars. Where the Fuck Is It? — why revenue, profit, cash, and capital allocation tell different stories about business performance.

• There Are No Five Fucking Ways to Improve Your ROI — why management must diagnose the business before prescribing growth.

• You Can't Spend Your Way Into Demand That Isn't There — why additional spending cannot manufacture profitable demand on command.

• How Much Should I Spend on Marketing? That Depends on What the Fuck the Next Customer Is Worth. — why growth spending must connect to contribution, capacity, and available capital.

• Should I Hire a Marketing Agency, an Employee, a Consultant, or Build It In-House? — why management must define the work before assigning responsibility for it.