Scaling is not a sprint to the top, it’s a well-built staircase, one solid step at a time.

The fascinating thing about watching businesses fail is how predictable it is. Not because the owners aren’t smart, or hardworking, or well-intentioned. They’re all of those things. They fail because they’re building their businesses on a fiction – the idea that excellence is optional. Like believing you can win a marathon by only training your left leg.

The Mediocrity Tax: The Silent Killer

Most businesses are paying a hidden tax. It’s not collected by the government. It’s not listed on any balance sheet. But it’s probably the most expensive tax your business pays. It’s the Mediocrity Tax. A tax so insidious, it whispers sweet lies while it slowly bleeds your company dry. Every day your business operates without a complete Triangle foundation (Human Capital + Systems + Financial Intelligence), you’re paying this tax in:

• Lost opportunities you’ll never see: Like ships passing in the night, great opportunities sail by, unseen and uncaptured. While you are busy working on false priorities, someone is strategic and picking his own battles and opportunities.
• Good people who silently leave: They secretly update LinkedIn profiles. They don’t slam doors; they simply fade away, taking their potential with them. It’s a brain drain you can’t plug because you don’t see the leak.
• Profits that evaporate despite increasing revenue: You’re bailing water from a sinking ship with a teaspoon, wondering why the water level keeps rising. More resources, and more quick fixes, but underlying reasons don’t get addressed.
• Market share that slips away while you’re “getting by”: Your competitors aren’t just playing the game better; they’re playing a different game altogether, one you can’t even see (your old strategies and know-how are just fine for now). You can’t remain relevant and competitive, attempting to solve future problems with last century tools.
• Innovation that never sees the light of day: Great ideas wither on the vine, starved of the resources and structure they need to flourish.

The world has moved on. Have your “HOWs”? Relevance requires embracing the new.

The truly expensive part? You don’t even know you’re paying it. It’s the cost of “good enough,” and it’s bankrupting companies every single day.

The Excellence Paradox: Easier Than You Think

Here’s the thing about business excellence – it’s actually easier than mediocrity. Sounds ridiculous, right? But consider this:

• Mediocrity requires constant firefighting: You’re always reacting, putting out fires that could have been prevented.
• Excellence runs on autopilot: Well-designed systems and empowered people handle the day-to-day, freeing you to focus on strategy.
• Mediocrity drains energy: It’s a constant uphill battle, a slog through a swamp of inefficiency.
• Excellence creates it: A well-oiled machine generates its own energy, driving growth and innovation.
• Mediocrity needs constant attention: Like a needy child, it demands your attention at all times, pulling you away from your vision.
• Excellence builds momentum: Like a snowball rolling downhill, it gathers speed and size, becoming unstoppable.

Yet most businesses choose mediocrity. Not explicitly, of course. No one wakes up and says, “Today, I choose to be average.” They choose it implicitly, by:

• Hiring great people into broken systems: Like pouring fine wine into a leaky cup – a waste of potential. Don’t set them up for failure.
• Building systems without financial intelligence: Like constructing a beautiful building on a shaky foundation – it will eventually crumble. Know your critical numbers before they become vital.
• Tracking numbers without execution capability: Like having a detailed map but no car to get you to your destination – useless.
• Spending all your capital on marketing, not realising you have a retention problem. It’s like advertising a party at a house that’s on fire. Somebody will turn up. Hopefully, with hoses and buckets.

The Partial Solution Trap: The Myth of the Single Silver Bullet

“We just need better people.” “We just need better systems.” “We just need better financial control.” Each of these statements is the business equivalent of saying “This table would work fine if it just had one really strong leg.” Or “This car would be perfect if it just had a really powerful engine, never mind the missing wheels.” Physics disagrees. And physics tends to win these arguments. Business, like a three-legged stool, needs all three legs to be stable.

The tallest trees have the deepest roots. The same is true for enduring businesses.

All of these above are just excuses and relate to hidden confidence issues. The solution to the current problem can seldom be found outside the business. However, people prefer easy solutions and, for whatever reason, avoid real challenges and conversations.

The Market’s Brutal Truth: It Doesn’t Play Favorites

The market has no obligation to keep mediocre businesses alive. It’s a harsh mistress, indifferent to your struggles. It doesn’t care about:

• Your intentions
• Your effort
• Your potential
• Your excuses
• Your sob story about how hard you worked

The market is a relentless judge, blind to privilege, deaf to excuses, and solely focused on value.

The market rewards one thing: results. And in today’s environment, sustainable results only come from a complete Triangle foundation. It’s not a democracy; it’s a meritocracy, and the only merit that matters is delivering value.

The Permission Factor: Unlocking Your Business’s True Potential

Want to know something fascinating? Once you build your Triangle foundation, everything else becomes easier. It’s like gaining access to a secret level in a video game (a secret weapon, additional supernatural powers, or an extra life).

• Systems give you permission to scale: You can finally grow without breaking. They are the scaffolding upon which you can build your empire.
• People give you permission to lead: They trust you because you’ve created an environment where they can thrive. They are the engine of your growth, empowered to drive your vision forward.
• Numbers give you permission to decide: You can make informed choices based on data, not gut feelings. They are the compass that guides your decisions, ensuring you stay on course.

No scaling without solid foundations. The attempt doesn’t exist, only the illusion of progress and the certainty of collapse.

But here’s the catch – these permissions only work when all three elements are present. It’s not a menu. It’s a recipe. You can’t pick and choose; you need all the ingredients for the dish to work.

The Real Choice: Now or Never (and the Cost of Later)

You don’t actually have a choice about whether to build your Triangle. You only have a choice about when:

• Before the market forces you to, while you still have the resources and momentum.
• After you’ve lost what’s worth saving, when you’re playing catch-up from a position of weakness.

And here’s the fascinating part – the cost of this choice doubles every quarter you delay. It’s like a loan with an exorbitant interest rate, compounding daily. Procrastination isn’t just the thief of time; it’s the robber baron of your business’s future.

The Inevitable Conversation: The Ticking Time Bomb

Eventually, every business owner has a conversation about building their Triangle foundation. The only variable is whether this conversation happens:

• Before or after losing key people, the ones who saw the writing on the wall and jumped ship.
• Before or after missing crucial opportunities, the ones that could have changed everything but slipped through your fingers.
• Before or after competitors take market share, leaving you with the scraps of a once-promising market.
• Before or after the pain becomes unbearable, when the stress and frustration finally break you.

The conversation is inevitable. The timing is optional. But the cost of that timing? That’s very, very real. It’s the difference between a proactive investment and a desperate salvage operation.

Your Purple Cow Moment: Beyond Better, Towards Different

Most businesses are trying to be better. Better than yesterday. Better than competitors. Better than expectations. But “better” is a trap. Better means playing the same game slightly differently. It’s an incremental improvement in a world that demands exponential change. The Triangle isn’t about being better. It’s about being different. About building a foundation that makes your competition irrelevant because they’re not even playing the same game anymore. It’s about creating your own category, becoming a “purple cow” in a field of brown cows. (good old Seth Godin).

The Fork in the Road: Which Path Will You Choose?

The question isn’t whether you need a complete Triangle foundation. The question is how much more expensive do you want the lesson to be when you finally accept that you do? Because right now, you’re at a fork in the road:

Path A: Continue paying the Mediocrity Tax

• Keep fighting the same fires, forever trapped in a cycle of reaction.
• Keep losing good people, watching your talent pool drain away.
• Keep watching profits evaporate, like sand slipping through your fingers.
• Keep falling behind the market, becoming increasingly irrelevant.

Path B: Build Your Triangle Foundation

• Make excellence automatic, a natural byproduct of your systems and people.
• Attract and keep the best people, creating a culture of growth and opportunity.
• Build sustainable profits, creating a virtuous cycle of reinvestment and growth.
• Lead your market, setting the pace and defining the future of your industry.

The choice is yours. But the cost of that choice? That’s determined by time. And time, as they say, is money.

The Bottom Line: Results, Not Effort

The market doesn’t reward effort. It rewards results. And in today’s world, sustainable results only come from a complete Triangle foundation. It’s not about working harder; it’s about working smarter, building a foundation that allows you to thrive, not just survive. The only question left is:

How expensive do you want this lesson to be? 

Remember: The pain of building your Triangle foundation is temporary. The pain of not building it is permanent. It’s the difference between a short-term investment and a long-term liability. Choose wisely. The future of your business depends on it.