Are You Limiting The Growth Of Your Business?
Susana Marambio
President Network Cork | Business Consultant | Fractional CMO | B2B Marketing | Operations | eCommerce | Mentor | Speaker
Have you ever thought that you may be the reason your company isn’t growing?.?
Research shows us that the very management style that enables a founder to get a company off the ground — a zealous focus on tactical execution — often derails growth down the line.?
Lost in the heat of battle, many business owners fail to adapt their management style to the evolving needs of their growing organisations.
At some point, as business owner, you will have a very important decision to make, what is more important to you: growth or control?
Reason Why Business Owners Don't Let Go
Here’s the three most common excuses you might have for not letting go.
1. The Decision-maker Excuse:?
“As the ultimate decision maker, I need to do everything so I know about everything.”
2. The Quality Control Excuse:?
“Delegating tasks to other people produces inferior results.”
3. The Revenue Excuse:?
“In the time I'd spend training employees I could do it myself.”
How to Stop Limiting Your Business Growth
Growing businesses face a range of challenges. As a business grows, different problems and opportunities demand different solutions - what worked a year ago might now be not the best approach.
As business owner, you’re probably used to focusing on the detailed work of your business, however, the detail is often better handled by your team members.
Focusing your efforts on strategic activities, will enable the growth of your business.
Here we share 5 strategic activities you can start implement now.
1. Planning Ahead
The plan that made sense for you a year ago isn't necessarily right for you now. Market conditions continually change, so you need to revisit and update your business plan regularly.
As your business grows, your strategy needs to evolve to suit your changed circumstances.
Following the same business model, but bigger, is not the only route to growth. There are other strategic options such as outsourcing or franchising that might provide better growth opportunities.
It's important not to assume that your current success means that you will automatically be able to take advantage of these opportunities. Every major move needs planning in the same way as a new business launch.
2. Cash Flow and Financial Management
Good cash flow control is important for any business. For a growing business, it's crucial - cash constraints can be the biggest factor limiting growth and overtrading can be fatal
Making the best use of your finances should be a key element in business planning and assessing new opportunities.
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Some areas you should be looking very closely are: Managing working capital, effective credit management, stock control and effective supplier management
Planning ahead helps you anticipate your financing needs and arrange suitable funding.
3. Keeping Up With The Market
Market research isn't something you do as a one-off when you launch your business. Business conditions change continually, so your market research should be continuous as well.
The more you succeed, the more competitors notice - and react to - what you are doing.
As products (and services) age, sales growth and profit margins get squeezed. Understanding where your products are in their lifecycles can help you work out how to maximise overall profitability. At the same time, you need to invest in innovation to build a stream of new, profitable products to market.
4. The Right Systems
Responsibilities and tasks can be delegated as your business grows, but without solid management information systems you cannot manage effectively. The larger your business grows, the harder it is to ensure that information is shared and different functions work together effectively. Putting the right infrastructure in place is an essential part of helping your business to grow.
Documentation, policies and procedures also become increasingly important. The informality that might work with one or two employees and a handful of customers simply isn't practical in a growing business. You need proper contracts, clear terms and conditions, effective employment procedures and so on.
Investing in identifying the key processes that allows your business run smoothly as well as introducing the right systems are investments that will pay off both short and long term.
You benefit every day from more effective operations. If you ever decide to sell the business, demonstrating that you have well-run, efficient systems will be an important part of proving its value.
5. Personal Development & Growth
Business owners are the driving force behind creating and growing new businesses. All too often, they are also the people holding them back.
The abilities that can help you launch a business are not the same as those you need to help it grow. The chances are that you'll need training to learn the skills and attitudes required by someone who is leading growth.
To grow your business, you need to learn to delegate properly, trusting your management team and giving up day-to-day control of every detail. As the business becomes more complex, you also need to develop your time management skills and learn to focus on what's really important.
As your business grows, you may need to bring in outsiders to help. You'll want to delegate responsibility for particular areas to different specialists, or appoint a non-executive director or two to strengthen your board.
For many successful business owners, learning to listen to - and take - advice is one of the hardest challenges they face. But it may also be essential if you are going to make the most of your opportunities.
Help you to grow your business, is our business. Find out how our Business Success Programme can help you to unlock the growth of your business.
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To find out how our Business Success Programme can help you and your business, send us an email at [email protected]