Building a business is like a perpetual game of snakes and ladders — here’s how to make sure you win

“Running any business is simply a matter of matching supply and demand — sounds simple but you only get it right for about 18 seconds every year. The rest of the time is where the real fun begins.” — Faris Aranki

I’ve been running my business (Shiageto Consulting) for almost 7 years now and if you asked me if I’d cracked the magic formula of success (no, not that one) then I’d have to respectfully admit that I have not.

Sure, I’ve been able to build out an impressive client base, a fantastic team and delivered some amazing projects but for every win, there has been a multitude of failures.

What’s more: every time I feel like I’ve cracked it (e.g. reaching a steady state where I am able to take time out for lunch with my dad every Friday), the market has a beautiful way of reminding me not to believe my own hype.

It currently feels like we’re on one giant snake

It would be an understatement if I said: “The market isn’t great at the moment.”

In all honestly, the onset of Covid aside, the last 18 months have been the toughest I’ve experienced for my business.

The combination of recession vibes, global instability and the impact of AI has led to withering of confidence in our clients and this has flowed through into smaller budgets to spend on support (as well as increased competition from newly formed companies operating in the same space).

During this time: several regular client gigs have been cancelled or scaled back, key client stakeholders have been made redundant (meaning we’ve had to rebuild Relationships before we can win new work) and we’ve been displaced by cheaper options (sometimes competitors but often an internal or AI replacement).

It means that the momentum has been taken out of the sails of the business and, if I’m honest, has moved us back a couple of steps on the board [hence the Snakes and Ladders analogy].

I could moan about it, but that’s just part of running a small business; if you find that too stressful then you may want to rethink whether running a small business is actually your thing — do you even want to play the game?

How do I get back to scaling ladders?

Just like the actual game of Snakes and Ladders, the answer lies in either increasing the number of rolls of the dice you make and/or trying to ensure each roll ends up with you landing on favourable positions on the board.

As such, I’ve come to realise that, just because I created a good system for playing the game that shot us up the board in the past, it doesn’t mean I don’t need to mix it up a bit.

I have long been an advocate for more experimentation in my business (trying different ways of rolling the dice); in fact it’s vital that any leader continues to evolve their business — standing still means that the market will consume you and this was just one of the vital lessons I’ve learnt in the last 7 years.

While I am intent on addressing my own personal flaws and making this The Year of Focus to drive my business forward, it is clear that I also need to be innovating Shiageto’s business development too and so this is my current approach:

1. Showing more Love to the people that have shown Shiageto interest in the past — I’ll be honest, I neglected giving the maximum amount of service to some of our clients during the boom times and for that I am a little ashamed. But no more! Since the start of the year, I have been meeting with every single company that is, has or almost has worked with Shiageto to see if there are any new opportunities. Just this simple act alone (sometimes done with cap in hand) has led to so many more conversations and, as a consequence, more proposals….although it has also led to being ghosted a lot more
2. Really getting to grips with how Shiageto’s brand and offering are seen in the market — whilst it’s easy to ask AI for an opinion, very few people or businesses get anywhere near a sufficient amount of feedback needed to really make a change. I realised this was most certainly the case for me and my business so I am actively going looking for feedback from the market…even if it hurts
3. Raising awareness of Shiageto’s services— it’s great that we have reached a certain amount of notoriety but it’s barely a drop in the ocean. No longer is hitting post on LinkedIn going to make a substantial difference to find work; we need to go forth, network more, deliver more insightful talks and stand on more stages — if you want to invite me to do that, check this out
4. Proving “We know our onions” — whilst we are very good at what we do, one thing that has come out from initial feedback is that the business (and myself) need to establish more credibility around the impact we make and how we do it. One way, we’ve chosen to do this is through a series of upcoming longer form essays/playbooks where we will show you exactly how to make yourself or any team more successful and every strategic goal more achievable. Watch this space for this and other new ideas
5. Asking for more help — I have a tendency to sugar-coat most things so many of our clients and biggest supporters are oblivious that the business is going through a tougher time at the moment. Whether I like it or not I need to ask for more help…and not just offer it all the time — don’t worry, I won’t be falling into these traps
6. Exploring more partnerships — going one step further than just asking for more help, I think it is time to actively seek more concrete partnerships. There are numerous other small firms doing great work similar to ours and I have always had a mindset of we should be collaborators not competitors so now is the time to look into that more comprehensively (drop me a line if that sounds good to you)
7. Being more disciplined — It might sound boring but just getting more stuff done, not putting things off and tracking progress will allow us to unlock more of the good stuff above (even before we throw any AI into the mix)

A playbook for winning at Business Snakes & Ladders

Feel free to unashamedly copy my approach above; alternatively, to help you out, here is a sanitised playbook you can apply to your business (or life) Snakes and Ladders particularly if you feel a little stuck or slipping backwards:

A. Be honest with where you are on the board — acknowledge where you currently are and if you’re beginning to fall behind; don’t be afraid to talk openly with others about it

B. Ask better players for advice — you don’t need to do this alone, study others and ask for their help to get you up the board quicker

C. Experiment on how you roll the dice — Don’t throw out all the good things you were already doing but it’s time to make some changes; it could be new offerings, new approaches, new clients, new partnerships, new processes, new channels, etc. Generate 100 new ideas and treat them as mini experiments to attempt. There will be gold dust in there [if you want a tip on how to generate more ideas, try this]

D. Assess which playing techniques are working and which are not — you need to look at honest data and honest feedback to ascertain this, rather than telling yourself it works

E. Limit any bad playing habits — it’s time to retire some of the things that may not be best serving your game

F. Play the current board not a previous board — it’s easy to get sucked into thinking too much about previous times when things went well but competing against a previous version of yourself will usually lead to problems. Similarly it’s a fool’s game to compare yourself to more established players

G. Relish the view from on top of a ladder — you don’t always need to keep rolling too quickly, take time to enjoy the views as you begin to scale the board because there will invariably be another snake somewhere round an upcoming corner — it’s part of the Sisyphean journey

It’s all a game after all

Who would have thought such a simple children’s game would be a perfect metaphor for building a business.

Once I personally began to view it this way, it made it more fun.

And that’s important because as this is game, you should enjoy playing it. Not only that, you should play it with as much gusto as when you first opened the board 🙂.

I realise that is often easier said than done, particularly once more risks and dependencies come into play, so if I can help with the game or the fun in any way, drop me a line🙌.

Faris

Faris is the CEO and Founder of Shiageto Consulting, an innovative consultancy that helps firms and individuals sharpen their effectiveness. Connect with him here

Success = IQ x EQ x FQ

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Originally Published on https://farisaranki.medium.com/

Faris Aranki Strategy & Emotional Intelligence

Having spent over 20 years delivering strategic change for the corporate and non-corporate worlds, Faris has experienced first-hand the fine differences between strategic success and failure.
His work has spanned numerous companies (from global behemoths to small start-ups), in numerous countries, across a range of sectors, supporting them all to unlock strategic success.

He came to realize that often what hinders institutions from achieving their goals goes beyond the quality of their strategy; it is their ability to engage effectively with others at all levels and remove barriers in their way. This has led to his passion for improving strategic effectiveness within all businesses and individuals and the foundation of Shiageto Consulting.

Over time, Faris has worked to distill his knowledge of how to solve complex problems in a structured manner combined with his skill on engaging effectively with others and his ability to quickly determine the barriers to a strategy's success. This knowledge has formed the foundation of Shiageto’s workshops, courses and methodologies. Faris believes that any firm or team can adopt these improvements; all it requires is a little of the right support -something Shiageto provides!

On top of leading our business, Faris is now an accomplished speaker and contributor for a variety of outlets.