3 Mistakes Frequently Made When Growing Your Business

One of the most challenging problems business owners face is inconsistent growth. One year you have stellar results, your income goes up, and you think you have it all figured out; then, just like that, the wave drops back down, leaving you frustrated and confused. If you find your business in this up-and-down pattern, you are experiencing what I call an income sine wave. If you are on this rollercoaster and unsure of why you can't grow consistently, then you are probably making a mistake in one of these three areas – strategy, systems, or authority building.?

Develop A Personalized Strategy

Strategy is always critical; without it, you will wander around and waste time and energy. A solid business strategy is the one piece that allows everything else to fall into place and puts what you do into perspective. When I ask people about strategy, I get all kinds of answers. Some will say they don't have one, and others think they have a strategy, but in reality, they are just copying what is working for someone else, having never developed a strategy specifically for their business needs.?

Within a successful strategy, several business components must align for your overall business strategy to work – a marketing strategy, a branding strategy, lead generation sales – and to experience success, they all have to work together. This is why a cookie-cutter approach rarely works with strategy. If you do not have a solid strategy designed for your specific business needs, you are making one of the big mistakes in growing your business because your strategy puts everything you do into perspective.

Align Your Systems

Building a system is a vital part of growing a successful business. By aligning your systems with your strategies – workflows, blueprints, teams, onboarding, client services, communication, etc. – you can keep your business consistently moving forward. Often, this is the step in building a business that many people think is optional and can be overlooked – it can't. You cannot grow your business without systematizing your business and putting processes and procedures in place. Do not skip this process because it seems overwhelming or something you can do without -- you must have systems in place to grow your business effectively.

Build Your Authority

To create authority or expert status, you must build a deliberate client attraction strategy and system that is reverse-engineered, concise, and consistent. Building authority is not about becoming an influencer or going viral. It's about revealing yourself as an authority and gaining exposure as an expert in your area of expertise. Most of us, especially those who talk and give advice, will rarely reach an influencer level, and that's okay. The goal is not to go viral or obtain celebrity status. Your aim is to put the pieces together to reach expert status – speaking, networking, executive roundtables, LinkedIn strategies, masterminds, podcasting – whatever aligns with your strategy and personality. Building authority allows you to turn on the client attraction machine that will bring leads into your system and then convert them into sales and clients.

If your business is not growing, it almost always falls into one of these three areas – strategy, systems, or authority building. After reading this, you may have identified your problem, or you may be confused about your primary area of concern. At the Growth Architect, I want to help you determine which growth blocker you are experiencing and help you overcome it to grow your business. I encourage you to take two minutes to take my free growth blocker quiz – then you will know where to start to get out of the income sign wave and grow your business. If you want to learn more about growing your business watch my video , and contact me when you are ready to develop your growth strategy!