How fun abounds Grew 30% by Getting Clear About What Was Actually in the Way
- Stephanie Kord Miller
- 3 days ago
- 6 min read
A case study in owner-led growth, clearer decisions, and building a business that can keep moving.
When Leigh Walden and I started working together in April 2023, fun abounds was not a struggling business.
Quite the opposite.
Leigh had already built a strong, profitable company with a respected name in the commercial playground industry. fun abounds was known across Southern Texas for turnkey playgrounds and shade structures that helped communities create spaces filled with fun, connection, and memories.
The business had a strong reputation.
The team knew how to deliver.
The vendors trusted them.
Customers knew them.
There was real momentum.
But momentum and ease are not the same thing.
fun abounds had grown because Leigh was smart, committed, generous, and willing to carry a lot. That kind of leadership can build a very successful business.
It had.
But the next stage of growth was going to require something different.
Not more hustle.
Not more random marketing ideas.
Not more of Leigh holding the whole thing together with duct tape, instinct, and caffeine.
The business needed clearer sales follow-through, better visibility into the pipeline, stronger marketing support, and more structure around how work moved from lead to sale to installation to payment.
That was the work.
The Goal
fun abounds had finished 2022 at $15.7 million in revenue.
Leigh’s 2023 goal was to exceed $19.5 million.
That was a real stretch.
It was also not unrealistic.
The market opportunity was there. The company had the reputation to compete. The team had the capability to deliver.
The question was not, “Can this business grow?”
The better question was:
“What is getting in the way of capturing the growth that is already possible?”
That is where a lot of owner-led businesses get stuck.
They do not need a brand-new business.
They need to see the business they already have more clearly.
The Constraint
The biggest constraint was not demand.
The biggest constraint was how revenue moved through the business.
Sales activity was happening, but the pipeline was not as clear as it needed to be.
CRM data was inconsistent, which made forecasting harder than it should have been.
Marketing was expected to help drive growth, but it did not yet have the strategy, budget, or support to do that job well.
Installation timing affected when sold work becomes completed work.
Financial visibility needed to be stronger so Leigh could make investment decisions with more confidence.
And, like many successful owners, Leigh was still carrying too many decisions in her own head.
None of that meant the business was broken.
It meant the business had outgrown some of the habits that helped it get there.
That happens in healthy companies all the time.
The Pattern
Here is what was really happening.
Leigh had built a business that worked because she cared deeply, paid attention, protected the customer experience, and wanted to take care of her team.
Those are strengths.
But when a business grows, the founder’s strengths can quietly become the company’s ceiling.
Not because the founder is doing anything wrong.
Because the business starts needing clearer handoffs, cleaner data, better accountability, and decisions that do not have to run through the owner every five minutes.
The pattern was not:
“Leigh needs to work harder.”
Absolutely not.
The pattern was: The business needed to make the invisible visible.
Where are the leads?
Where are the opportunities?
Where is revenue getting delayed?
What is sales responsible for?
What is marketing responsible for?
What does the team need to know without asking Leigh?
What does Leigh need to stop carrying personally?
Once we could see those questions clearly, the work became much more practical.
👉 Find your pattern: Take the Growth Pattern Assessment
The Work
From April through October 2023, Empower Your Results worked with Leigh to turn her growth goal into a practical plan the business could actually use.
We looked at the pieces of the business that affected revenue movement, including sales follow-through, CRM visibility, marketing support, territory growth, installation delays, compensation structure, financial visibility, and Leigh’s role as the owner.
The goal was not to make the business more complicated.
The goal was to make it easier to see what was happening and easier to act on what mattered.
The work included:
Clarifying the revenue goal and what needed to happen to reach it.
Improving visibility into leads, opportunities, and sales activity.
Connecting marketing to actual revenue goals instead of treating it like a bucket of ideas.
Looking at where Salesforce workflows and automation could reduce friction.
Identifying how Houston and Austin could support growth.
Reviewing role clarity and accountability for sales reps.
Looking at cash flow, vendor payments, client invoices, and how Leigh could pay herself more confidently.
Supporting Leigh as she shifted from carrying so much personally to leading with more structure, clarity, and confidence.
And yes, there was some very direct coaching in there too.
Because sometimes the business math is the easy part.
The harder part is helping a generous owner see that paying herself, setting clearer expectations, and asking people to be accountable is not selfish.
It is leadership.
The Unlock
The unlock was not one magic tactic.
It was not “post more on social.”
It was not “hire one person and everything will be fixed.”
It was not “buy another tool and hope the tool does the thinking.”
The unlock was clarity.
Leigh needed a clearer view of how revenue moved through the company, where it slowed down, and what decisions would help the business move faster without putting more pressure on her and the team.
That meant looking at sales, marketing, operations, finance, and owner leadership together.
Not as separate problems.
As connected parts of how the business worked.
That is where the real growth opportunity was hiding.
The Result
fun abounds exceeded its original 2023 revenue target.
The business started from approximately $15.7 million in 2022 revenue.
The 2023 goal was to exceed $19.5 million.
When Leigh and I reconnected later, she referred to 2023 as a good year and referenced revenue of approximately $20.5 million.
That represents about 30% year-over-year growth.
Leigh also shared that fun abounds continued growing after that, reaching approximately $23 million in 2025, its strongest revenue year to date.
Because Empower Your Results was not working with fun abounds at year-end, the 2023 revenue figure is based on Leigh’s later recollection, not final financial statements reviewed by Empower Your Results.
Still, the story is clear.
The business exceeded its goal.
Leigh had more clarity about what needed to change.
And fun abounds had a stronger path for continuing to grow.
Why It Worked
This worked because Leigh was willing to look honestly at the business.
That matters.
A lot of owners say they want growth, but what they really want is growth without changing anything.
That is not how this works.
Leigh was willing to ask better questions.
She was willing to look at the numbers.
She was willing to think differently about sales, marketing, accountability, and her own role as the owner.
She did not need someone to come in and tell her she had built something impressive.
She had.
She needed a thinking partner who could help her see what was getting in the way of the next version of the business.
That is different.
And it is where the best advisory work happens.
The Bigger Lesson
A strong business can still have constraints.
A successful owner can still be carrying too much.
A profitable company can still have money stuck in messy handoffs, unclear accountability, weak follow-up, slow-moving work, or decisions that live in someone’s head.
Growth does not always require reinvention.
Sometimes it starts with asking better questions:
What is actually getting in the way?
Where is the business relying too much on the owner?
What needs to be clearer?
What needs to move faster?
What needs to be tracked?
What needs to stop living in someone’s head?
For fun abounds, the answer was not to become a different company.
The answer was to make the great company Leigh had already built easier to lead, easier to measure, and easier to grow.
The Takeaway for Owner-Led Businesses
If your business is growing but still feels heavier than it should, that is not a sign you failed.
It may be a sign that the business is ready for its next level of structure.
Not corporate nonsense.
Not bureaucracy.
Not meetings about meetings.
Real structure.
The kind that helps you see the work, make better decisions, hold people accountable, and stop being the person everything has to run through.
That is often the difference between a business that grows because the owner keeps pushing and a business that grows because the right things are finally easier to see, manage, and improve.
fun abounds did not need fixing.
It needed the next version of how the business worked.
And Leigh was ready to build it.
👉 Discover the 5 patterns: CEOs Don’t Fail Randomly. They Repeat the Same Patterns Until It Breaks
👉 Find your pattern: Take the Growth Pattern Assessment
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