Want to Double Your Business Growth Every Year?

Check out These Strategies to (Almost) Painlessly Double Your Growth

I first became a business owner at age 18, when I started a landscaping firm. At that time, I had no choice but to begin modestly, but I never wanted to stay small. That’s why I became an obsessed student of the business world. Early on, I was able to double the size of my landscaping company each year. Of course, in the first few years, that was pretty easy. But as the enterprise grew, sustained growth required real thought and planning. I kept increasing my landscaping company until it got big enough that it was a stand-alone commodity that I could sell.

When I sold my first business, I was pretty young. I was wealthier than I ever thought I could be. But instead of feeling “finished,” I was energized and ready to go at it again.

I wasn’t done creating companies. Next, I started a construction company using my profits for startup cash and implementing the same basic strategies I’d developed for my landscaping outfit. Once again, I started relatively small, and then doubled the size of my business year after year until it was big enough and profitable enough that I had buyers lining up. Once again, I sold my business, and once again, I was shocked at how much money I had made.

Most entrepreneurs know that the biggest challenge for businesses isn’t growing in the first few years—many organizations can do that without much trouble. But to continue to DOUBLE your growth year after year takes more discipline. In my best-selling book, The 7 Stages of Small Business Success, I talk about the difficulties of rapid growth. It can be hard to keep up. When things are moving fast, bottlenecks are created. If you're not careful, people are overstretched, stressed out, and lose their motivation.

Let's face it. If you want to keep growing, you need to maintain a stable balance between passion, motivation, and old-fashioned law and order. It sounds tricky, but it's not impossible. In the years I doubled the size of my own businesses, I tracked and recorded the reliable management strategies that served me well. 

Double Growth Strategy #1: Track Data and Identify Predictable Outcomes

While fast growth sounds exciting, it's not possible to sustain it year after year without rigorous data collection. You heard me: rigorous. Your team must understand how long activities take, how much manpower is required for each operation, expected success rates, average turnover time for any given project, and more.

Once you gather data, you can begin creating predictable ratios, which will help you understand what works, what resources are required for success, and the average ROI on any given activity.

For example, when we send out a postcard, we know how many hours it takes to create, how much it costs to produce and mail, and our expected rate of return. If it starts to take more time than estimated, we find out why and fix it. If our printing or postage costs increase, we know that we must get a higher rate of return in order to continue with this strategy.

It also helps to gather data on softer activities that aren't profit driven. For example, if you want to hold a company picnic every summer, how much planning time is required? How much will it cost? Do employees enjoy the picnic or dread it? How many people attended the previous year? Ask those people to fill out a short survey to find out if your efforts increased morale and improved teamwork (or if it just felt like an intrusion on their personal time). Did you get a good return on the time and costs? If so, continue or even expand with other company events. If not, pull back and think of different ways to bring your team closer together.

Double Growth Strategy #2: Create Systems to Maximize Efficiency

Once you start gathering data, you will begin to see patterns that help you understand the time, investment, and resources needed to maintain or accelerate growth. Over time, more information helps you make better and better decisions.

You will use that data to create systems. You'll be able to create ratios that help you understand when and how to scale up.

A simple example is paper. Your data may show that your ten-person sales department uses two cases of paper per month or one-fifth of a case per person. When your sales department increases to fifteen, you know you need to increase your order by one case per month. Your monthly paper order ratio is five salespeople = one case of paper. 

Of course, data can address more significant challenges as well. Data-driven ratios will help you understand the direct relationship between your income and the number of employees you need. Let's say that your business brings in $500K of revenue with five employees and you have a healthy profit. This means that you can predict that you will need to add one employee for each additional $100K of annual income.

If you grow your business to $600K and remain at five employees, you find that everyone is stressed out and you start losing people. You find that the ratio of $120K per employee is just too high.

 You want to staff a bit ahead of growth to relieve the pressure (and keep good people) but you don't want to staff too far ahead, or your profits dip. In this example, your data-driven ratio is one person = $100K in revenue.

 These kinds of ratios really help when you start doubling the size of your business. So, if you grow from $500K a year to $1M annually with this kind of ratio in place, you know you can expect to increase your team from five to ten people.

 The point is, if you don't gather data and create ratios to help guide your decisions, you have to guess at the right answer over and over again. Data enables you to understand relationships and make decisions with predictable results.

Double Growth Strategy #3: Let the Numbers Predict Your Needs

Once you create these kinds of ratios, depend on your numbers to guide your decisions. Many business owners want to reexamine every situation before making each decision instead of relying on established ratios. Or worse, they ignore the numbers and "go with their gut."

If you've gathered your data and created ratios, use them! Numbers are predictable; they don't lie. And they are fast and save time. So, stop rethinking every decision (or ignoring your data) and let your numbers do the work. You'll find that this takes a lot of the stress off you (and your team) as you grow.

Double Growth Strategy #4: Stay Watered

I think of myself as a plant that needs to be watered to thrive. I need to take care of myself if I want things to keep going. As a business owner with a growing business, you too need to "stay watered."

Find a system that works for you. For example, I do goal planning and then create an audio recording of my goals. I then play my goals and affirmations back to myself every morning as I'm getting ready for my day. It reminds me of what I'm doing, why it's important to me, and what my plan is to achieve my goals. It puts my ultimate vision in front of me and keeps me totally motivated. I really do this—every morning—and it fires me up!

Of course, everyone is different. Other people need to make time to work out in the morning, eat dinner with their kids, or spend time on their boat once a week. Whatever keeps you calm, centered, and motivated, make that a priority. You absolutely can't keep going strong if you never run yourself dry.

Double Growth Strategy #5: Never Stop Planning

How can anything happen without goals and planning? I recommend looking as far ahead as possible. It's not enough to say, "I want to double my business's revenue this year." What about next year? How long do you want to run a business? Do you want to sell? When? Why?

 I am a huge fan of planning. I don't just plan out my week; I think through what I want to do for each DECADE of my life. Every year I set aside time to rewrite my bucket list and goals, for my business and for myself. I then review my progress towards those goals each week (yes, weekly!) and think about the specific activities that need to happen to get me closer to my short-term and long-term goals.

And finally, I put everything on my calendar, so I have something that tells me it's time to do a task. I calendar out a weekly review, a monthly goal review, and of course, my annual rewriting of goals. My calendar forces me to stay accountable. (Heck, I even create appointments to take my vitamins!) My calendar is my way of keeping track of the biggest and smallest tasks and goals.

Let's Hear From You!

Got your own tips for better business success? I would love to hear from you. Add your ideas to the comments below. I value your feedback and will answer each comment.