The 9 Stages of Business "Ownership" Guide
Every healthy small business goes through NINE distinct stages. In this guide, discover what they are and how you can successfully move through them.
Nine Stages and Three Mountains
Most business books are written for large corporations—the kind with separate departments for HR, IT, Sales, Logistics. That wasn’t relevant to me or to other business owners I knew. Small businesses like ours need a different paradigm.
Small businesses need our own narrative, one focused on the impact that the business has on the life of its owners and managers. The 9 Stages of Business “Ownership” provide that narrative. Why “ownership” in quotes? Well, as any small business owner knows, it often feels more like the business is owning you rather than you owning it!
Over the years, I’ve come to see that those nine stages can be broken down into three phases, and that each phase is like a mountain: You climb one slope—taking on the barriers in your path—and when you get to the top, you sit back and enjoy the view and think you’ve reached the top. What you don’t always see is the next peak—and the chasm in between you and it.
Why is it important to know these nine stages and the challenges you will face at each one? Because if you want to build a better business that enables you to live a better life, you need a plan—and the 9 Stages helps you plot a good course. It helps you see where you are so you can pick up the right tools, so you can anticipate and even avoid the obstacles over the next rise.
Jim Roman
About the author
Jim comes to this passion from personal experience. He began working in his parents’ restaurant when he was 13, failed in his own first business venture and lost his dad at age 62. He knows how easy it is to put off living the life you want until it’s too late.
Jim has worked with thousands of businesses and organizations to figure out what is holding them back so they can break through their barriers, accelerate their growth and work to live instead of just living to work.
Jim’s own successful balance has included working on aircraft armament systems in the US Air Force, building and selling several successful businesses, traveling the country working with small businesses and the associations that support them and moving to Orlando so he could enjoy his own downtime in the sun and fun of Florida.
Read the Guide!
A lot of people think there are only two stages to running a business: broke and really broke. The fact is, every small business goes through nine distinct stages. Discover what those stages are, what challenges arise in each stage and how you can successfully move through them.
