Find Your Bottleneck, Fix Your Growth

⏱️ 10:15 🎤 Daniel Honan

AUDIO EPISODE

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The GAPS Bottleneck Framework

Introduction to the GAPS framework for identifying business bottlenecks.
1:45

Step 1: Policy or Behavior

Diagnosing cash flow issues and owner behavior impacting profitability.
3:38

Pricing Policy Issues

Identifying problems with pricing, discounting, markup, and production rate estimates.
4:46

Compensation Policy Issues

Examining gross profit leakage through subcontractor and employee compensation.
5:49

Cash Flow Policies

Addressing cash timing problems related to deposits, payments, and accounts receivable.
6:33

Owner Behavior Impact

Analyzing how owner distributions can drain necessary cash from the business.
7:44

Step 2: Align Labor with Demand

Identifying labor capacity constraints and the cost of acquiring talent.
9:26

Step 3: Generating Customers

Diagnosing demand constraints related to sales process and marketing effectiveness.
10:47

Forgotten Gold Mine: Repeat & Referrals

Strategies for reactivating past customers and layering marketing channels.
11:58

Step 4: Other Constraints

Considering owner mindset, external environment, and data accuracy as potential bottlenecks.

Speakers

Daniel Honan

Host

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Identify your single biggest bottleneck using the GAPS framework (Policy, Align Labor, Generating Customers, Scale) to prioritize fixes.

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Address cash flow issues first (Policy/Behavior) before investing in marketing or hiring, as cash is fundamental for growth.

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Ensure your pricing, compensation, and cash flow timing policies support profitability to prevent structural unprofitability.

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If consistently booked out for more than three weeks, focus on aggressively hiring to increase labor capacity rather than generating more leads.

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Optimize your sales process by checking set rates, close rates, and overall conversion benchmarks, and improving weak scripts or slow response times.

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Leverage existing customer relationships by running reactivation campaigns for repeat and referral business before chasing new marketing channels.

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Layer new marketing channels on top of existing successful ones instead of replacing what works to maximize lead generation.

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