Growing a Business is Hard Work

I started my first business in 1994 in Virginia. It was a web development company back when there was very little competition and everyone thought a webmaster was some kind of magical wizard. I had been a biomedical engineer and didn't know the first thing about running a business. That lasted until 1999 when I took a "real job" using the skills I had learned. Well, fast forward to 2013 when I launched my second business, the growth agency Click Laboratory and I just have to say, growing a business is hard.

The One Common Characteristic of Growing Companies

I've been inside some BIG companies like Google, Outback, BMC and have helped a small army of smaller companies across a whole lot of industries. The one consistent thing across all of the ones that grew was a focus on trying new things that drove business growth.

Sure, there were many cases where new things were terrible failures, but they had the courage and willingness to experience those as long as they were growing.

Take the recent explosion of generative AI as an example. A lot of companies dove in head first while others sneered at the idea of using it. It isn't whether it works or not (depends on how you use it I have found), but that new things like AI are tested to determine what its impact is on improving workflows, driving new business, saving money, or any other metric that can grow a business.

Most strategies and tactics these companies take have just a small impact on growth. If you have heard of growthhacking, it is just an attempt at taking shortcuts to growth, which can work when you get lucky, but they don't work for long. Growing a business takes hard work over the long haul.

When you have lots of small improvements over time, that equals big gains for you overall.

Growing A Small Business

Back when I started my first company in 1994, marketing was limited to word of mouth, advertising in a newspaper, or TV/radio. Today, we have so ... many ... choices we can make on avenues to grow a business. Bigger businesses have the money to try new things way easier than us little guys.

The "World Wide Web" used to be considered a place that leveled the playing field. The little guy could compete with the big players. That is no longer the case, not even close.

A local business has a lot of options, whereas a national business like e-commerce or a services business has more challenges. So here are some basic growth ideas to look at doing for a small business:

1. Get a Google Business Profile, and ask for reviews from customers regularly.
2. Answer a key problem. This should of course be why your business exists. Solve their problem.
3. If you are a services business, you need a lead magnet so you can collect emails from people who like what you have to say. Then email these people, regularly (weekly if possible).
4. Your website needs to be good. The days of people accepting lame websites, poor graphics, and salesy copy are over.
5. Don't stop communicating (email, social, podcasts). I have noticed in my own business, that as soon as I stop, the lead flow stops. People have short memories. Stay in front of them with helpful content.

If you search for strategies on any of those, you will find a ton of ideas, or drop me a message and I can point you to some more specific to your business.

Now, with all of that said you have to find what works for growing your business. You have to put on the analytics hat to monitor what works so you can make decisions and not waste your time on what doesn't.

So don't give up when you feel like you are hitting a brick wall (as long as you have enough cash flow).

If you have a great product or service, and people like it, then growth will just take some hard work.