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The 400 metre race is one of the most demanding in athletics.
The fastest ever run was achieved by South African Wayde van Niekerk in just 43.03 seconds. His top speed was around 24mph and his second 100 metres took just 9.8 seconds.
It requires a unique blend of power and stamina, strategy and technique.
Runners split their race into between four and six phases. Their race evolves as they grow into it. The two critical ones are called “floating” or “cruise control”, and “acceleration”.
Floating occurs after the first 70m and is when athletes are travelling fastest. It is a delicate balance between gaining as much time as possible and not burning out.
Acceleration is actually deceleration – but athletes feel like they are going faster because they start to push their bodies to reduce the rate at which they slow down. It’s the set up before the final drive to the finish.
If starting and growing a business were a 400m race, there comes a time when a business must identify a new phase and change technique accordingly.
I have met many start-ups and scale-ups over the years and the maturity of their communications is often the difference.
What once was enough to secure early-stage investment is no longer sufficient to sell products and services at scale, to secure partners and to impress on others a vision.
Indeed, we sometimes help early-stage business to get to grips with their stakeholders; to prioritise their audiences; and to bring more confidence to their messages.
Occasionally we meet scale-up businesses whose messaging is more mature, but whose proactive PR lacks bite.
Either way, getting that gear shift right is an important moment.
Because that transition to the next phase is not as easy as it looks.
After all, you’ve done well to date. You have won investment, secured grants, attracted some clients, built an online presence and even a customer base or interested community.
This early success can breed complacency about the future. Yet scaling a business means meeting new expectations and setting higher standards.
Scaling up often fails or stagnates. According to Beauhurst, in a sample of 2,500 high-growth companies, only 23% had scaled, while 74% had failed or stagnated.
So taking time to shift how you communicate is both a means to continue growth and a form of risk management.
What does this process mean in practice?
Well, without over-generalising, many businesses become convoluted. Your pitch has been refined to suit a certain audience and circumstance and can lack wider appeal. Sometimes business ideas sound much more complicated than they need to, particularly if technology is involved.
And then there’s your corporate proposition. It is easy to become preoccupied with what your business does. But what about why it does it?
Sometimes the product is a secondary consideration – it is important to have belief in what you stand for.
As your business grows, you must uphold higher standards of governance and ethics. You need to be responsible. And you must do this while still managing growth, securing funding and developing your proposition.
So the process of change can take many forms. From creating an entirely new communications strategy to going back to basics and revising your messaging for different audiences; precisely what is required depends on your unique circumstances.
Let’s not forget you’re still running a race, so you’re still sprinting, still perspiring, still straining, still looking ahead. It’s not easy to do this well.
But think back to Wayde van Niekerk.
You wouldn’t expect him to employ the same technique in the first 100m as in the second, third or fourth. Each requires a specific approach.
If you are in the next phase of business growth, you may need to shift gear, too.
Billy Partridge is a UK board director and head of Scotland at Grayling
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