Slow Down to Speed Up

By Matt Richart

Since Dallas and I started our company Digital EFX Wraps back in 2004 it has almost been a blur. I think we all can agree how time flies past us each year. Do you remember how many times you have heard someone say “If you have made it four years in business you are good” before? I feel like I have heard that a thousand times since we have been in business and every year that we made it I felt as if we were getting close to that goal. As I sit here typing this article, I’m now fully aware that that four-year benchmark means absolutely nothing. The point I’m trying to make is every year in business goes by way too fast. Before you know it you look up and you may have doubled in size. Your company may now be in its 2nd, 3rd, or 4th building. The company you started in the beginning may have evolved into something else that you never expected. The goals you set for year one may still be your goals in your seventh year of business. I feel like business really speeds up time for most people. When you combine that with having a family you must cherish each day. It’s amazing how life can seem so long but it goes by so quickly.

Our industry in my opinion is a fast-paced process. Installation of graphics and film does take time, precision, and attention to detail, and requires a heaping amount of craftsmanship. The deadlines of what our clients require and ask for daily create some of that urgency and speed in how we move each day. When you become busy in your company this is when things can get rough and turbulent. I have found personally that you must be extremely careful when work becomes overbearing and injects massive amounts of stress into you and your team. This is when communication lines break down. This is when your team starts to assume a lot of information that turns into issues, and mistakes, and decreases the overall morale of your shop. When we as owners or professionals engage in this type of deadline process without communicating properly and being 100% transparent, we can start to crumble. This is when you get blinders on and only focus on what’s right in front of you and not what’s coming down the road. This is when you can let off the gas pedal of creating more relationships with new clients and neglecting your current customers. This is when you can stop doing marketing and advertising because you are slammed. I also know for a fact this is when you can potentially start to drop balls on your entire process from sales to installation. It’s very easy to lose focus on your business when you are dealing with growing pains, deadlines, and stress that is pressing on your company. Another issue that happens when you are slammed and overwhelmed is you can lose your desire. This can be in your business life or even more importantly your personal life. The final straw for me was when we were having major growing pains and I lost control of our team, culture, goals, and where we truly were going. This is when I had a mentor tell me that I needed to “Slow Down to Speed Up”.

When I first heard this statement, it really woke me up. It hit home for me and our company. Our business of twenty years was built on hard work, passion, and dedication to our industry but as I said earlier it has flown by. Our biggest challenge was how do we get to the next level. How do we grow properly, redefine our streams of revenue, change our pricing structure, and create a new plan to achieve our new goals? When all these thoughts and ideas were on my plate it started to create some anxiety that I had never experienced before. To be honest it was the first time that I really felt overwhelmed. That’s when I started to learn how to slow down to speed back up. The first step for us was to stop and realize where we came from. We went back over to our very first shop which we started in back in 2004. This immediately put everything back into perspective. It made us realize how much we had grown since we first started. It made us realize how all those late nights, stressful days, and lunch breaks where we were overwhelmed are now finally starting to pay off. My point to this is to never forget where you started. Take time occasionally to reflect on how you were wired years ago. Think about what used to stress you out back then vs now. It’s amazing to me to see the vast differences in time and how it affects us. The second step for us was to slow down some of our processes during our regular workday to make room for time. I say time because that was what we needed to start reverse engineering our sales process. We reverse-engineered our installation process. We started to make time with our team to figure out our strengths and weaknesses. We finally made one of our goals in our company to make time to slow down. I finally realized that going 90 miles per hour wasn’t working anymore. Our entire company and team needed to be re-aligned as well. This allowed us to redefine who we were individually and who we were as a company. I will admit this was a very difficult process until we got used to drinking from a fire hydrant. I recommend trying just one topic or area in your business that needs help. Take time to back away from it. Take time to discuss the issue with your team. Ask them how they might be able to remedy the issue or situation. Give the issue two different scenarios and how each might have a different result. I think you will be happy and satisfied if you try just one objective. From there you can start to tackle other issues that you may have. The third step for our company was to slow down for our clients and customers. What I’m referring to is to spend a little more time communicating with them. Take some time to nourish those relationships you have built over the years or decades with your clients. Take some to lunch. Play a round of golf with some of your good customers. Invite them with some other new potential business owners that you would like to meet. Allow your sales team to meet your clients for coffee, lunch, or a nice dinner from time to time. The most important part of step three for us is to slow down for your number one client. Your TEAM. Take them out to dinner sometimes. Create more team-building activities for you to bond and learn more about each other. Create that culture and be consistent with it. This is

something that our company is still working on. It’s nice to slow down and look at what you and your team have accomplished. When you can do it together it makes it even much more rewarding.

When you can get to the point of realizing where you came from, how to reverse engineer your processes, and how to create time to nourish your existing client relationships you are already starting to Slow Down to Speed up. Imagine this: you're at Thanksgiving dinner, and you dive into your first plate or two with lightning speed. But then, you need to take a breather—loosen that belt, maybe even pop a button, and catch some football highlights. Once you've given your stomach a chance to settle, you're ready to return to the feast with a renewed appetite. This approach isn't just about taking breaks; it's about strategic pauses that lead to greater productivity. By slowing down, you're giving yourself the chance to reassess, realign, and refocus on what truly matters in your business. It's in these moments of pause that true innovation and growth can occur. Remember, success isn't just about how fast you can go, but how well you can sustain your pace over the long haul. Don't be afraid to hit pause and recharge. Because when you do, you'll come back with explosive energy, like a cannon firing off again!

Matt Richart Matt@digitalefxwraps.com Co-Owner/CFO, Digital EFX Wraps LLC. Instructor, Inside The Wrap Shop