___  Value Growth Catalyst

Why Growth Makes Your Business Harder to Run

And what needs to change to make it more valuable – and more fun to run 

A free, live 60-minute online session for owners, including a private Q&A
Friday 11 September, 12:30–1:30pm BST (UK time)

Growth is supposed to make a successful business better. But often it does the opposite.  

More people creates more coordination. More customers bring more complexity and exceptions. You employe managers and introduce systems, yet too many decisions, problems and responsibilities still come back to you. 

The business gets bigger and more successful, but doesn’t become correspondingly easier to run, more valuable or less dependent on you. 

That’s seldom because you need to work harder, delegate more or find one more senior person. It’s usually because the business is outgrowing the way it was originally built. 

I learned this the hard way when an attempted sale of the business I was running exposed the difference between a successful company and one with genuine transferable value. 

That experience changed how I thought about the owner’s role. Since then, I’ve spent a lot of time digging into why this happens, what causes problems to keep resurfacing and what needs to change. That work has shaped how I run my own manufacturing businesses and the work I do helping other owners re-engineer theirs. 

In the last 2 years, I’ve delivered this talk to around 120 owners on various owner development programmes, with an average independent rating of 4.9 out of 5 for its content, usefulness and relevance. 

I start by walking through the nine interconnected conditions that I see make a business ponderous, stressful and increasingly difficult to control. Together, they quietly drain profit, momentum, business value and your capacity, without necessarily causing an obvious crisis. 

I then explain what needs to be re-engineered in the way your business operates, makes decisions and creates value, so it grows profitably without becoming more complex, fragile or dependent on you. 

And I share what I believe the critical first step to be: making the transition from owner-operator to Value Architect: moving from being the person who keeps the business working to the one who re-engineers how it works – so you can continue growing your business without sacrificing your time, health or sanity. 

The result is a more valuable, transferable and sought-after business – one that’s more fun to run, and one you can happily own forever, or easily sell tomorrow. 

What I’ll cover 

During the session, we’ll look at: 

  • Where the nine interconnected conditions may be making an otherwise successful business harder to run 
  • How to distinguish the underlying design problems from the day-to-day symptoms they keep creating 

  • Why another hire, a new system or better delegation may provide temporary relief without fixing what’s wrong 

  • What needs to be re-engineered, so growth creates more profit and capacity, not more complexity and reliance on you 

  • How buyers assess the risk, transferability and value of a business – and why seeing your business through a buyer’s eyes is essential even if you never plan to sell 

  • What changes when you move from owner-operator to Value Architect 

Who this is for 

This is primarily for owners or MDs of established, profitable businesses that already have a team and a management layer but have grown beyond their original way of operating. 

It’ll be particularly relevant if: 

  • The business has added more people, customers and revenue, but hasn’t become any easier to run 
  • Managers can handle day-to-day activity, but important decisions and difficult problems still return to you 

  • Growth creates additional complexity faster than it creates profit or capacity 

  • You have introduced people, processes or systems, but the same issues keep resurfacing 

  • You want to continue growing, step back from the day-to-day or protect the future value of the business 

  • You want a business you can happily own forever – or easily sell tomorrow 

These things rarely fix themselves. Unless you change the way the business works, further growth tends to magnify the pressure rather than relieve it.  

Optional next step

A Q&A will follow the presentation, giving you the opportunity to ask questions about how these ideas apply to your own business. 

After the questions, anyone interested can stay while I explain The Value Architects’ Guild — a year-long, small-group programme where I work with each owner to identify what’s holding their business back and help them apply a proven process to re-engineer their business so it becomes more valuable and more fun-to-run. 

Reserve your place now

If your business has grown but become harder to run, this event will help you understand what’s causing the problem, what needs to be re-engineered, and where your transition from owner-operator to Value Architect begins. 

There are 100 places available, and everyone who registers will receive a recording of the presentation, even if they can’t attend live. To protect people’s privacy and allow an open, frank conversation, the Q&A won’t be included in the replay. 

Reserve Your Spot Now
The track record behind it
Richard McMullan

Founder, Value Growth Catalyst
Author, The Business Exit Blueprint
Creator, CatalystOS™
Chair & Co-Owner, two manufacturing businesses


35+ years leading and advising complex businesses

 A decade in strategy consulting, including FTSE 100 clients

 Board-level operation in a £370m+ revenue business

Scaled a UK & Ireland retail business from £1.5m to £20m

135+ owners advised across 30 sectors

Outcomes from the work

CatalystOS™ is the system distilled from doing this work, in different forms, for more than three decades.

One client grew their valuation from £5m to £44m in three years and is now approaching £100m in revenue. Another exited for £11m on completion with no earn-out.

The work isn’t about chasing those numbers. It’s about building businesses that can produce them – or that can be happily owned forever or easily sold tomorrow.