The Three Functions That Drive Business Success
Learn how focusing on three essential functions cuts through complexity to create sustainable growth without sacrificing quality or burning out your team.
As your business grows, complexity tends to multiply at an alarming rate.
New challenges emerge, teams expand, systems intertwine, and what once seemed straightforward becomes increasingly complicated.
Yet beneath this growing complexity lies a fundamental truth that successful business owners understand.
When you strip away all the noise, just three essential functions determine your success.
These three functions cut through the chaos and bring clarity to how to structure your organization for sustainable growth.
Rather than getting lost in endless complications, focusing your team around these three core functions creates the foundation for a business that can grow without sacrificing quality or burning out your team.
In this deep dive, I will show you this approach and explain how to implement it step by step.
If this resonates with you, I invite you to explore what it's like to work with me directly to create sustainable growth in your business without sacrificing your freedom.
The Business Tripod
At the foundation of our approach lies a deceptively simple framework: every successful business, regardless of size or industry, must excel at three fundamental imperatives to survive and thrive: Get Work, Do Work, Get Paid.
Get Work
The "Get Work" function encompasses everything related to creating and maintaining a steady flow of business.
This is where you capture market attention, generate interest, and convert that interest into paying customers.
Without a robust system for acquiring new business and expanding relationships with existing customers, even the most brilliantly operated company will eventually wither.
This function typically includes:
Marketing: Creating awareness, educating your market, building your brand, and positioning your offerings effectively. This covers everything from content creation and distribution to public relations, events, and thought leadership that establishes your authority in your space.
Sales: The systematic process of identifying prospects, understanding their needs, demonstrating your value, overcoming objections, and closing deals. This includes both business development for new client acquisition and account management for expanding existing relationships.
Strategic Partnerships: Identifying and cultivating relationships with complementary businesses, referral sources, and other entities that can create new business opportunities through collaboration.
Market Research: Gathering intelligence on customer needs, competitive offerings, and emerging trends to ensure your offering remains relevant and compelling.
Lead Generation: Creating systematic approaches to filling your sales pipeline through outbound and inbound strategies, ensuring a predictable flow of opportunities.
Many businesses falter not because their offerings lack value but because they haven't developed systematic, predictable ways to attract customers.
A classic example I’ve seen often is the "feast or famine" cycle: when business is flowing, all hands focus on delivery, neglecting business development.
Inevitably, once projects conclude, the empty pipeline creates a crisis that shifts all attention to frantic sales efforts—creating a perpetual cycle of instability.
Companies that excel at the "Get Work" function have developed systematic processes for market engagement that continue regardless of how busy they are with current clients.
They've moved beyond founder-dependent networking to create scalable, predictable lead generation systems.
Do Work
The "Do Work" function represents your ability to create and deliver value that customers are willing to pay for.
This is where your company fulfills its promises by providing products or services that meet or exceed customer expectations.
If execution falters here, no amount of sales prowess can compensate for the resulting customer dissatisfaction and damaged reputation.
This function typically encompasses:
Product Development/Service Delivery: The core activities that create your deliverables, whether that's manufacturing physical products, developing software, providing professional services, or delivering any other form of value to customers.
Operations: The systems, workflows, and processes that ensure consistent, efficient execution. This includes project management, quality control, resource allocation, and workflow optimization.
Customer Service: The ongoing support and relationship management ensures customers remain satisfied and successful with your offerings. This includes onboarding, troubleshooting, and maintaining open channels for feedback and communication.
Innovation: The continuous improvement of your offerings to maintain relevance, competitive advantage, and alignment with evolving customer needs. This includes research and development, product refinement, and expansion of your solutions portfolio.
Technical Infrastructure: The tools, technologies, and systems that support effective execution. This may include production facilities, digital platforms, equipment, or specialized technologies required for service delivery.
Many businesses start strong in the "Do Work" function—founders are often technical experts or service providers who excel at delivery.
However, maintaining consistent quality becomes increasingly challenging as organizations grow without well-documented systems and clear accountability.
Without standardized processes, quality becomes person-dependent, creating significant scaling limitations.
Organizations that excel in the "Do Work" function have transitioned from heroic individual efforts to systematic approaches with clear standards, documented procedures, effective quality controls, and established performance metrics.
This creates a consistency that persists regardless of which team members are involved in the delivery.
Get Paid
The "Get Paid" function—often the most overlooked until problems arise—encompasses all activities related to capturing the value you create through proper financial management.
Even businesses with thriving sales and excellent delivery can fail if they don't effectively convert their work into cash flow and manage their resources prudently.
This function typically includes:
Invoicing and Collections: These are the systems that ensure timely billing and the successful collection of payments. This includes clear payment terms, efficient invoicing processes, and effective follow-up procedures for outstanding accounts.
Financial Planning and Analysis: The ongoing assessment of business performance against targets, including profit margin analysis, cost management, and financial forecasting. This provides the intelligence needed for sound business decisions.
Cash Flow Management: The strategic oversight of money moving in and out of the business to ensure there's always sufficient capital to fund operations and growth. This includes maintaining appropriate cash reserves, managing payment timing, and aligning receivables with payables.
Administrative Operations: The back-office functions that keep the business running smoothly, including human resources, facilities management, procurement, legal compliance, and vendor relationships.
Technology Infrastructure: The systems that support financial operations, including accounting software, payment processing solutions, and business intelligence tools that provide visibility into financial performance.
In growing businesses, the "Get Paid" function often receives the least strategic attention until a crisis forces focus.
Companies that excel in the "Get Paid" function have developed proactive financial management practices rather than reactive crisis responses.
They maintain real-time visibility into key financial metrics, establish clear policies for financial operations, and create accountability for financial outcomes throughout the organization.
The Critical Interdependence
Recognizing that these three functions are interdependent makes this framework particularly powerful.
Excellence in any single area cannot compensate for weakness in another:
A business might excel at getting work and delivering quality, but if it fails to manage its finances effectively, it will eventually run out of operating capital despite apparent success.
Similarly, outstanding financial management and operational excellence won't save a company that can't consistently attract new business.
Even the most effective sales and financial operations can't overcome poor delivery, which results in customer dissatisfaction and a damaged reputation.
Think of these functions as the three legs of a stool—each is essential for stability. Remove any leg, and the stool collapses, regardless of how strong the remaining legs might be.
Nils Vinje
Business Coach & Pinnacle Certified Guide
About The Author
Nils Vinje is a Business Coach and Pinnacle Certified Guide who created systems so effective they ultimately made his VP position redundant—a success metric he proudly wears. Since 2015, he's helped companies from startups to Fortune 100 drive exceptional customer growth and retention. He is also the author of the best-selling 30 Day Leadership Playbook.
Through the Pinnacle System, he guides business owners to create sustainable growth without sacrificing freedom. His approach transforms businesses from demanding day-to-day burdens into strategically-led organizations.
Click here to discover how Nils and the Pinnacle System can help you create sustainable growth in your business without sacrificing your freedom.
View past articles from Nils.