12 Vital Steps for Business Growth
12 Vital Steps for Business Growth
1. Give Yourself a Check Up From The Neck Up
You must have the right mind-set to grow or you will constantly fail until you do.
Do you understand what your personal values are and have you ensured that your team share these? If you don’t you will fail to reach your potential
Have you defined your core purpose and the core purpose of the business? If you have yet to do this, you will fail to reach your potential until you do
Does your enterprise have a compelling and clearly defined mission for both your personal and business life? If you don’t you will fail to reach your potential until you do.
Are you working on the business rather than within it? If you are exclusively or largely working in the business you will fail to reach your full potential
2. Review your Cashflow
If you want to grow your business, start by reviewing your cash flow.
Work out how much money comes in and goes out and watch it daily.
Use the information to plan the year ahead. Your plan should identify how much cash you need to invest in your company’s growth and what you will use it for – for example, hiring employees or buying equipment.
Remember it is often a bad idea just to use your income to cash flow your business. Bootstrapping is all well and good however to be truly successful you will need to borrow money
3. Review your day-to-day processes and then systemise everything!
Could you and your staff be more efficient in the way you do things? Do your business practices and policies get in the way sometimes? If yes, it might be time to review your day-to-day processes to identify what you can improve.
Then write it down, start to create your operational procedures. Start to implement these into your CRM.
You are then starting to systemise your business that means you can either scale or franchise your business.
If you don’t systemise every element of your business you will fail to maximise your potential until you do.
4. Prepare your team
Having your team of committed and skilled employees is an essential part of any business, particularly one that plans on growth.
If you want to grow your business, first take a step back. Ask yourself:
o Do I have the right team?
o Can I rely on my team for leadership?
o Do my people have the right skills?
o Do my people understand our core purpose?
o Do my people have similar values and do they fit with the values of the business?
o Do they feel sufficiently rewarded?
o What can I do to keep staff and help them feel more committed?
o Have I planned for staff turnover?
Think about how you can prepare your team for change and company growth.
5. Know your market competition
It’s important to be really clear about your place in the market.
Take time to look at your market share.
Do the same for your main competition.
Who are your competitors today and who will they be tomorrow?
Carry out a SWOT (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats) analysis to work out your direction.
6. Update the content on your website and LinkedIn
Before you attract a new audience to your website, LinkedIn or blog, check the content is up-to-date and works for your target audience. Remember, for most businesses LinkedIn and the web will be the two largest source of client and customers.
o Make sure that you are maximising your potential on LinkedIn. If you have a B2B business its likely that all your future clients are on this platform so drop facebook as your lead social media platform.
o Make sure that your website can easily be found online, using SEO. Use the Google Keyword Planner tool to check you have the right keywords for Google search. For example, if you are selling women’s tennis shirts, include those words on your web pages.
7. Set up New Partnerships
You can’t do everything alone.
Think about whether you need to set up partnerships with other companies.
What strategic alliances can you create to boost your activity and income?
Maybe it’s time to invest in or buy another business?
Selling online might work well if you already sell offline. Setting up a franchise may be an option.
8. Bring in External Experts
It’s always good to get a fresh perspective from a trusted outsider.
Ask an expert to review your business operations, your LinkedIn strategy, your marketing strategy or how your growth is being financed
Get someone skilled and knowledgeable who is comfortable giving honest, constructive feedback you can use to improve your business.
9. Prepare for an Economic Crisis
No one likes to think about a downturn. But we all know they happen.
Make sure you’re ready.
Review your cash flow and identify the liquid assets you have.
Set up an emergency fund (if you don’t have one) for when times are lean.
Set up a SSAS pension and transfer profits into this as an investment vehicle. After all you will not pay tax on this money. If you cannot raise funds from a bank, your SSAS pension can lend up to 50% to your company.
10. Review your Products and Services
Make sure your products and services are ones that people actually want to buy!
Achieve this by carrying out market research on your current and new clients.
Use the results to improve what you offer and to identify the language your customers use to talk about your products and services. Reuse their language in your company communications.
11. Update your Communications Plan
A well-thought-out communications plan will identify the key messages you want to get across to your customers. It will also identify how you want to communicate.
Update your plan to ensure it covers all the bases – from purchase confirmation emails to customers who’ve bought your product online through to invitations to exclusive events for VIP customers.
12. Plan, Invest and Grow….
There’s no easy shortcut when it comes to growing your business. Instead it takes hard work, smart thinking and plenty of research, planning and investment.
Use this checklist to grow your business and succeed.
If you would like to guidance on growing your business, then give me a call. We support high growth businesses and ensure that you maximise your opportunity
Written by David Hargreaves of The Growth Gurus The LinkedIn Gurus The Start Up Gurus
To contact me just email me on [email protected]
Or call on 0333 939 8683
Please check us out on www.thelinkedInGurus.co.uk