What are Key Drivers to Business Growth?
Do you feel your business has plateaued? When you’re prepared to grow your business and have the impact be more meaningful to you, don’t just focus on increasing your revenue or sales; you also want the growth to positively affect your bottom line, yourself and your team.
Here are the 5 key drivers you should have in the mix for business growth:
- Your Endgame
- Strategy
- Your Team
- Sustainability
- Customer
Know Your Endgame
Clarify your vision – your ultimate goal – that you want to achieve from your business in the long-run. Why did you get in the game to begin with? What were you trying to accomplish for yourself and for your customers? When it’s all over and you’re sitting back having a conversation with a grandchild, how would you finish this statement “I’m so happy and satisfied that I was able to __________________ through my business.” Really be clear, try and picture it, but remember one thing while doing so. Don’t underestimate yourself! Dream Big!
The idea is not only to have something to shoot for, but to have that clear picture to turn to during the tough times, because let’s face it there will be tough times along with the good! You’ve probably experienced some already.
Once you have that clear picture of where you want the company to go and what you want to provide to your customers, be sure to share it with your entire team. The idea is to have everyone working toward the same outcome because it will take more than you to accomplish success, after all they say it takes a village.
Create Your Strategy
Your strategy is going to be your blueprint that will get you from intent to successful outcome. If you go in blindly, your company will be on the defensive every single day; you’ll be in constant reactive mode, seemingly always trying to catch up. Why not plan on getting ahead of the game instead? Be proactive and control where your company is going.
By creating a strategy you can pinpoint what to focus on at any given time to drive your business forward. By being alert to the plan you can monitor how you’re doing and anticipate when things have to be changed up as a result of unexpected variables.
The key to strategy, and the most difficult part though, is the execution. As I’m sure you’ve found already it’s very easy to get sucked in to putting out fires daily, dealing with issues, and being knee deep in time wasting tasks. There has to be a process to keep you focused and working on the path you created in the plan. This is where an outside perspective comes in very handy; again, it takes a village so make sure you’re covered with support.
Align Your Team
As I mentioned earlier you want to make sure your team is aware of, and on board with, your endgame goals. Just as important is that they hold the same values your company represents; make prospects aware of the culture, and make inquiries during the interview process to determine their fit in the culture you’ve created. This is, after all, part of your brand – your company’s image from customers and vendors outside looking in. You want to see consistency in expectations, performance and results.
Putting together a team can be compared to fitting the pieces of a puzzle because you want your members to complement one another in experience, knowledge and offerings. You want to make sure the team will work cohesively together to build a strong foundation.
You’ll also want your team to know how important they are in the company and its future. Encourage ideas, cooperation, flexibility, personal growth, and the like.
Build Sustainable Growth
If you want your company to last, it can’t just grow; you have to have the capability to sustain the growth. You will accomplish this through leveraging of your resources. Be sure to create scalable processes. You have to be aware that as you hit new stages of business, what got you to one point won’t get you to the next. There will be systems you outgrow and will have to modify with alternatives that are moving with you – be prepared.
Acknowledge Your Customer
Be sure to know your customer. Who do you serve and what do they really want? What they want today may not be what they want tomorrow. How are you going to deal with that? You’ll need to be observant and somewhat predict adjustments that will be needed on your end. Don’t be afraid to test ideas on customers. Talk to your customers and pay attention to trends happening in the world with respect to your product/service. Don’t underestimate the relationship in continued growth of your business, both from a recurring and new business standpoint.