Building A Better Equestrian Business: Elizabeth Rhodes On Why The Next Stage Of Growth May Already Be Hiding Inside The Business You Have Built
Most businesses do not suffer from a shortage of good ideas; they suffer from too many good ideas that were never designed to work together. The website may be good, the product may be good, the branding may be good, people may be talented, and technology on point. Even with these things in place, an equestrian business can face difficulty with scaling. Customers fall through gaps, information gets lost, teams duplicate work, and growth seems to require increasingly more effort.
Elizabeth Rhodes believes the problem may be hiding in a place business owners rarely look: gaps in the interaction between the parts.
Rhodes came to the equestrian industry through an unusual route. Her career has crossed working in institutional equities at three major banks, animal health, entrepreneurship, brand development and technology. Her earlier work in animal health included creating the Mirataz logo for KindredBio, which received a Bronze VETTY Award in 2018. Mirataz would later become a significant commercial asset: in April 2020, KindredBio sold the product and its worldwide rights to Dechra Pharmaceuticals for $43 million upfront, together with royalties on future global sales. Her multidisciplinary background also includes studies in disruptive innovation at Harvard Business School and artificial intelligence at MIT Sloan School of Management.
Today, Rhodes leads SP Rhodes Equestrian Identity, whose work spans branding, technology, ecommerce, product development, manufacturing and retail in equestrian sports. Its portfolio includes the brand identities of the Winter Equestrian Festival, Global Dressage Festival and Great Charity Challenge, along with multidisciplinary work for Wellington International.
Working across so many traditionally separate areas led Rhodes to an observation that eventually became the foundation of what she calls the SP Rhodes Methodology: a business does not perform simply because its individual parts are excellent; it performs because those parts work together well.
Rhodes formalized that thinking into seven stages: Discover, Define, Design, Digitize, Productize, Activate and Scale. The methodology begins with one surprisingly simple question:
Where is the disconnect?
The problem in your equestrian business might not be where you think it is
World of Showjumping: What made you start thinking about equestrian businesses this way?
Elizabeth Rhodes: It happened gradually. We were hired to solve one problem and often discovered the real problem started somewhere else.
A client would come to us wanting a new website. Once we started looking at the company as a whole, we would realize the website was actually doing its job reasonably well. The real problem might be that nobody had clearly defined what made the company different, so there was nothing particularly compelling for the website to say.
I am naturally a problem solver, sometimes to an annoying degree. If something isn’t working, I need to know why. I am never satisfied with, “Well, that is just the way it is.” My goal is always to take it apart and understand what is actually happening.
What we kept finding is that visible problems are not necessarily the real problems.
Imagine an equestrian retailer that wants to increase online sales. The natural response is to increase ad spend. If traffic is already good and customers are leaving because the value of the product is unclear or shipping is confusing, more advertising will not solve the problem. You are simply paying to send more customers into a bad user experience.
That is where the question “Where is the disconnect?” came from. Instead of immediately asking what a business needs to add, I want to understand which parts of the business have stopped working together.
Equestrians already understand this
World of Showjumping: You describe a business as a system. Does that make the methodology quite technical?
Rhodes: It can become technical behind the scenes; however, the basic idea is simple. The irony is that horse people already understand it instinctively.
Think about a successful show jumper. You can have an extraordinarily talented horse, but talent alone is not enough. The horse and rider require a system around them: trainers, veterinarians, farriers and others all contributing to the program. If one part of that system fails, the rest can suffer.
I don’t think anybody in our sport would find this concept particularly revolutionary; we live it. What I find interesting is that we do not always run our businesses the same way.
We tend to separate everything. Branding in one place, the website in another and sales strategy somewhere in between. Product development can become disconnected from actual demand. Then we add technology and AI on top of it all.
Even if every individual part is good, a business can still underperform because nobody is looking closely enough at the intersections.
At the highest level of equestrian sport, everybody has good horses, good veterinarians, trainers, farriers and equipment. The advantage increasingly comes from how well the entire program works together.
I believe businesses reach the same point. Equestrian businesses just starting out improve the parts. More advanced businesses have to improve the connections.
Seven stages, one connected business
World of Showjumping: How did that idea become an actual methodology?
Rhodes: Mostly through repetition. We were seeing different versions of the same issues. Over time, a sequence emerged in the way we were solving them.
My studies at Harvard Business School also made me think more deeply about why established business models change and where new opportunities come from. Studying artificial intelligence at MIT Sloan later brought technology and the movement of information much more directly into the way I think about businesses.
Eventually, all of that thinking became formalized into seven stages: Discover, Define, Design, Digitize, Productize, Activate and Scale.
The names are intentionally straightforward. I do not think business needs more complicated language. Discover means stop guessing and find out what is actually happening. Define means decide what you want the business to be known for. Design means make that idea visible and tangible. Digitize means use technology to make the business easier to operate and easier to buy from. Productize means turn what makes the business valuable into something customers can actually purchase. Activate means create demand. Scale means do more of what works without breaking what made it work in the first place.
The important point is that they are connected. You cannot Design intelligently until you have Defined what you want to communicate. There is little point in Activating demand if you are sending customers into a poor digital experience. Scaling something that has not been properly tested simply creates a larger problem.
Start by getting curious
World of Showjumping: What does Discover look like for a small equestrian business?
Rhodes: It can be surprisingly low-tech. Start by talking to your customers and looking at what they actually buy.
Are you pushing a product or service into a market that does not have the need, or are you solving an existing problem? Follow inquiries from the moment they arrive until the person either becomes a customer or disappears. Be inquisitive.
I think founders sometimes feel they should already know everything. Some of the most useful things I have learned in business have come from admitting to a wrong decision and continuing to ask how things could have been done differently.
Customers also frequently see your business differently than you do. You may think clients choose your stable because of the facilities, when they actually talk about how welcome their families feel. You may be promoting one service while another generates most of your referrals. Those discrepancies can completely change what you do next.
Then comes Define. What do you want to be known for? Equestrian businesses often grow organically. Somebody starts making a product or providing a service because demand creates an opportunity. The business can become successful without anyone ever sitting down and deciding, “This is what makes us different.”
Eventually that lack of clarity shows up elsewhere. You may think your company is luxury when it is really performance. Marketing is talking about tradition while product development is chasing trends. Before you consider scale, you need to know what you are trying to say and whether that matches what you put into the world.
A brand is much bigger than a logo
World of Showjumping: Is this where your branding background becomes important?
Rhodes: Absolutely. I think branding is frequently misunderstood. A logo is important, but a brand goes far beyond a logo; it is an ecosystem. It is the accumulation of what customers see, what you communicate, what you sell, how you sell it and how the experience feels.
A great example was developing the brand identities for the Winter Equestrian Festival, Global Dressage Festival and Great Charity Challenge. Each identity required its own personality because the audiences were different, but they also needed to feel as though they belonged to the same family.
The useful lesson is that consistency doesn't require sameness; it requires a relationship. The customer should recognize the same personality as they move through different parts of the brand experience.
If this is done well, your audience will not notice all the individual decisions; they will simply feel that the business has its act together. That develops trust, and trust has value.
Technology can make a bad system faster
World of Showjumping: Where does technology, and specifically AI, fit into all of this?
Rhodes: This is probably where I have to restrain myself because I love technology. I am usually the person saying, “There has to be a way to automate this.”
I have always said technology should solve a business problem, not become the business strategy. Many years ago, we became obsessed with a “build your own product” platform. The time invested was immense. The reality? Customers would email us what they wanted because the interface created too many decisions and too much friction.
The role of a business is to take work away from customers, not add work. In this case, technology worked against us.
It is also incredibly easy to accumulate technology. A website, ecommerce platform, CRM, email system, inventory software and now a collection of AI applications can each be useful independently while together creating another layer of complexity.
Digitizing a business is not about having more technology. It is about making information useful and getting customers where they need to go with as little friction as possible.
AI makes this particularly interesting because it is an extraordinary accelerator. I think it will give small companies capabilities that would have otherwise been unimaginable. However, if your strategy is unclear, AI can also create confusing content much faster and accelerate your brand in multiple directions.
AI can accelerate the system but it can’t decide whether the system is pointed in the right direction.
When the product becomes part of the brand
World of Showjumping: Productize is a confusing stage. What is it and why is it included?
Rhodes: A product can carry an extraordinary amount of emotional value, especially in equestrian sports.
A sweatshirt sold at a horse show boutique is technically just a sweatshirt. But ask someone about one they still have from ten years ago and you may hear about the horse they were riding, what happened at the event or the Grand Prix they watched that Saturday night.
The product has become connected to an experience and a memory. That is why merchandise should not be treated as an afterthought. With proper execution, it can become one of the most tangible expressions of a brand.
Productize also goes beyond merchandise. A trainer can turn knowledge into a clinic. A service business can package expertise into a repeatable offering. A farm can create an experience around something that makes it special. The question becomes: What value have you created that customers will want to buy?
Every time somebody buys something, they are also telling you what they value. If you listen carefully, the product does more than generate revenue; it helps make your next decision easier.
The hidden cost of success
World of Showjumping: You use a term called “Business Alignment Debt.” What does that mean?
Rhodes: This is one of those things that almost every established business owner understands the moment you explain it. A successful business rarely gets complicated because of one catastrophic decision. The complexity comes from years of sensible decisions that were never designed to work together. It is a “slow drip” that leads to what I call Business Alignment Debt.
You built a website three years ago. It needed ecommerce, so you added that. Managing customer relationships became difficult, so you introduced a CRM. You needed better social media, so you contracted that out. Then you hired an agency, and now everyone is experimenting with AI.
None of those decisions are necessarily wrong. The problem is that the whole thing was never designed together.
I have seen it in businesses of all sizes, including versions of it in our own business. Growth can be messy because you are always solving the problem in front of you. We do not always have the luxury of stepping back and designing the perfect system.
That is why I think successful businesses occasionally need periods when they stop adding and start subtracting.
Fix sequence before scale
World of Showjumping: Is that what you mean by “fix sequence before scale”?
Rhodes: Yes. Don't hire more people when your process is flawed. Don’t scale a website that doesn’t convert. Don’t generate more inquiries if nobody is following up. Don’t add more products before understanding why the existing products are not selling. Implementing AI simply because it is available is not a good reason either.
This is where Activation comes in. Advertising, social media, sponsorship and partnerships turn up the volume on the business.
If something is working, amplification can be extremely powerful. If something is broken, amplification creates a bigger broken thing.
Sometimes doing one thing in the right order is more valuable than doing five things at once.
Your audience does not care how your company is organized
World of Showjumping: Has working with a large organization such as Wellington International changed the way you think about these connections?
Rhodes: Our work with Wellington International has reinforced this idea repeatedly.
It is a fascinating business environment because so many things happen at the same time: world-class sport, events, sponsors, hospitality, competitors, spectators, merchandise, retail and a substantial digital environment.
Internally, those things involve different people and responsibilities. The visitor is not thinking about any of that.
Someone may discover Saturday Night Lights online, visit the website, arrive at the showgrounds, interact with sponsors, watch the Grand Prix, buy something from the store and later follow results online. Within the organization, that journey has touched numerous departments and vendors. To the visitor, it was all Wellington International.
That is the point. Customers do not experience your organizational chart. They experience the business.
Start with a piece of paper
World of Showjumping: If I own an equestrian business and want to implement the methodology tomorrow, where do I begin?
Rhodes: In all seriousness, all you need is a piece of paper.
Start by following the customer. Write down how somebody discovers your business and follow that person through the purchase process. What do they see? Who responds? Where might you lose them?
Then follow the information backwards. What did you learn about that customer and where did the information go? If five customers ask for the same thing, does anybody responsible for the business ever hear about it?
Finally, follow the money. Where are you spending to attract customers? Where are you losing them? Which products or services actually generate the strongest results?
You can learn an extraordinary amount about a company simply by paying attention, without purchasing one piece of software.
The key question is still: Where is the disconnect?
Business is always evolving, and we certainly don’t have everything figured out. I don’t think anyone really does. Every time our business grows, we discover something else that needs to work differently.
I think there is an important distinction between building a business and growing a company. Building comes first. It is the structure, processes and connections that allow the business to function. Growth is putting more volume through that structure.
Building a business is about creating something capable of growth. Growing a company is about becoming bigger.
My final thought is to encourage curiosity. We understand this intuitively with horses. No one expects a horse and rider to reach the highest level of our sport without making adjustments because the relationship between all the pieces is always changing.
Equestrian business is no different. Take a good look at what you already have before making an addition. The opportunity for growth may have been sitting between the pieces all along.
Written by Elizabeth Rhodes
SP RHODES Equestrian Identity
SP Rhodes helps ambitious equestrian businesses move beyond traditional branding by connecting strategy, technology, customer intelligence, product development, manufacturing, and real-world brand experiences into one integrated system.
WEBSITE: https://sprhodes.com/
This article is from the October 2026 issue of Equine Business Magazine
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