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7. Organize

Stage: 7

Stage Overview

What to do: Categorize

Your role: Executive

Headcount: 50 to 99

Leadership Structure: 3 Layers: Leadership Team.

Companies at this stage: 1,200,000 (4% of companies.)

Area	Constraints	To Graduate
Product	Product outdated. Improvements stay too long to roll out.	Fix one problem at a time with feature focused specific teams.
Marketing	Lead flow is volatile because you only have one way to get customers.	Fund second acquisition channel with the referral process (and track it) and segemented lead traffic nuture by lead score. Pick most similar platform or new core 4.
Sales	Leads getting wasted. Not worked consistently.	Better schedule coverage. Create lead nurture checklist and kudos for top show rates.
Customer Service	CS only reactive. All firefighting.	Create proactive customer journey and communication. Focus on renewals and ascensions.
Information Tech (IT)	Data, IP, Access all the place and disorganized.	Network technology. Bring solutions to the cloud. Data host. Centrally locate hardware if onsite.
Recruiting	Takes too long to hire good people and they get hired elsewhere. You have too many roles open to keep track of candidates and where they're at in the process.	Install applicant tracking system to keep track of so many opne roles. Pay specialized recruiting firms to keep up.
Human Resources (HR)	There are too many different places for employee information and you have no data.	Setup HRIS: Human Resource Information System
Finance	Your team starts spending more money stupidly.	QTRLY expense management. Budgets by dept. Cards with limits. Expense approval process. Add insurance coverage and get fancier projections.

Bottom line: Every system is overwhelmed. This business is disorganized.

Graduate by: Triage appropriately.

When you hit “Stage 7. Categorize”

Here's a simple explanation of what happens when a business has 50-99 employees. At this stage, your business has grown quite a bit - you now have between 50 and 99 employees. Only about 1.2 million companies in the US ever reach this size. You’re no longer just a manager or leader - you’re now an executive with three layers of leadership under you. The main challenge at this stage is that everything feels messy and disorganized. Let me break down what’s happening and what needs to be fixed in each area:

Product Problems
Marketing Problems
Sales Problems
Customer Service Problems
Tech Problems
Recruiting Problems
HR Problems
Money Problems

Product Problems

Your product is starting to feel outdated, and it takes forever to make improvements. Imagine trying to fix up an old car - there are so many things that need work, but you can’t fix everything at once. The solution is to make your teams focus on fixing one problem at a time. Instead of everyone trying to fix different things, you have specific teams work on specific features.

Marketing Problems

Your business is like a boat with only one engine - if that engine breaks, you’re stuck. Right now you only have one main way of getting customers. This is risky because if something goes wrong with that method, your whole business could be in trouble. The fix is to add a second way to get customers, like starting a referral program where happy customers bring in new ones. You also need to get better at scoring leads (potential customers) so you know which ones are worth pursuing.

Sales Problems

Leads (potential customers) are being wasted because your sales team isn’t working them consistently. It’s like having a garden but forgetting to water some plants. The solution is to create better schedules so someone is always available to talk to potential customers. You also need to create a checklist for following up with leads and reward salespeople who get lots of customers to show up for meetings.

Customer Service Problems

Your customer service team is always putting out fires instead of preventing problems. It’s like being a firefighter who’s always rushing to emergencies instead of helping people prevent fires in the first place. The fix is to create a plan that helps prevent customer problems before they happen and focus on getting customers to renew their contracts and buy more stuff.

Tech Problems

Your company’s important information, documents, and passwords are scattered everywhere - it’s like having important papers spread all over your house instead of organized in filing cabinets. The solution is to move everything to the cloud (online storage) and set up a central place where all company data is stored. If you have physical computers and equipment, those need to be organized too.

Recruiting Problems

It’s taking too long to hire good people, and sometimes they accept other jobs before you can hire them. Also, you have so many open positions that it’s hard to keep track of all the people applying. The fix is to get special software that helps track job candidates and hire professional recruiting firms to help find people faster.

HR Problems

Employee information is scattered in too many different places - like having one drawer for medical forms, another for tax papers, and another for performance reviews. The solution is to get an HRIS (Human Resource Information System) - think of it as one big digital filing cabinet that keeps all employee information organized in one place.

Money Problems

Your team is spending money without thinking carefully about it. It’s like giving everyone a credit card without any rules about how to use it. The fix is to create quarterly (every three months) budgets for each department, give people spending limits, and require approval for big purchases. You also need better insurance coverage and better financial forecasting.

The big picture

At Stage 7, everything feels overwhelming and disorganized. The key is to start sorting things into categories (that’s why this stage is called “Categorize”) and create systems to handle each category properly. It’s like organizing a messy garage - first you sort everything into piles (tools, sports equipment, holiday decorations, etc.), then you create a proper storage system for each category.

The bottom line

Your main job at this stage is to sort through the chaos and start organizing everything. This means organizing:

Your leads (which to focus on)
Your customers (which ones need the most attention)
Your job applicants (which ones to interview)
Your money (what to spend on what)
Your data (where everything is stored)
Your employees (who does what)

Only after you get everything properly sorted and organized can you move on to the next stage of growth. Think of it as laying the foundation for becoming an even bigger company. You need to segment these categories for what comes next…