Every company wants to grow their business, yet few know how to sustain it for the long-term or look beyond the next quarterly or yearly report. Growing a business requires the right intellectual capital, carefully selected strategic partnerships, and products and/or services with strong marketplace demand. Beyond these fundamentals, sustaining growth requires a strong operational foundation – to reduce the risks to the business over time.
Before your business can grow and sustain its momentum, you must take action in support of the following five things to assure your company builds a strong foundation for long term success:
Sound decision-making can be defined as one's ability to objectively assess situations or circumstances using all the relevant information and apply past experience in order to come to a conclusion or make a decision. A good way to make the most informed decision is to follow a process that assures you are taking into account all relevant information and considering each of the most probable outcomes. A step-by-step checklist like this is valuable for that purpose:
You will not always find yourself going through all six steps in an obvious way. You might be responsible for one aspect of the process but not the others, or several steps might be merged, but someone still should be going through each step in one way or another.
The market is full of talents and a wrong move can let you lose a suitable candidate. Building a strong and planned employer branding strategy can help you stand out from this competition. The niche of hiring the best talents is to make a different move and assure the aspirants of long-term career growth in your company.
What “top talent” means for you will be different than what it means for someone else. It’s not just about skills and qualifications (though it could be) but also fit and other qualities. If you run a window-washing service, your top candidate might be “fast and fearless”; if you’re bringing on board a customer service representative, a “good listener and quick thinker” may be more of what you need.
Once you’re clear on your definition of top talent, you have to figure out where to look for it. If you’re seeking a recent graduate you’ll want to contact local universities or colleges. LinkedIn can be a great source for a wide range of professionals. Depending on who you’re looking for, you may need to try different channels.
Sales has long been regarded as a numbers game. The more prospects you pump into your sales pipeline, the higher your chances of closing a deal.
While this correlation may be true, sales success is also dependent on your ability to target the right prospects. In fact, at least 50% of prospects chased by salespeople are not a good fit for what’s being sold. Without a well-defined sales targeting strategy, your sales reps are wasting precious time out of their already packed schedules.
The challenge, of course, is identifying who your ideal prospect is, where they are in the customer journey, and then making a meaningful connection with them. There’s no one-size-fits-all solution to a successful sales targeting strategy. Every business is different, and your best prospect is not necessarily your competitor’s. The key lies in the processes and tools that your organization puts into place to ensure that targeting is built into every step of your prospecting.
How can we stay current with technology trends, let alone check the pulse of future innovations, when we’re busy running our businesses?
To help your business thrive, the first step is educating yourself about new technology. You can find free resources in the form of journals, blogs, and websites, geared specifically to relevant new technology in your field. Finding the publication which speaks to you about tech developments gives you a jumping-off point, and familiarizes you with tech language and available products. This will give you a sense of what options are out there and how other businesses are taking advantage of them.
Another way to keep up with the latest technology trends is to take inventory of what technology you use and attempt to streamline your current tech needs. If you have several different programs for different aspects of your business – for example, payroll and accounting – see if there are redundancies. Research whether there is a more recent, advanced program, app, or tech development that can aggregate multiple needs into one process.
When you hear about a hot new technology or program being used in your industry, do some research on it! Find out what makes it different from older offerings and what other business owners are saying about it. For example, spas may take advantage of an app or program that allows clients to book appointments online. Moving companies may use software to manage their routes more efficiently. Take your time, ask questions, and decide whether the new technology is right for your business.
To sustain growth, you must have the mindset of embracing risk as your best friend. Sustaining growth requires you to share your momentum with others. It demands that you have the best interests of others on your team, and colleagues throughout the organization, at heart. Driving sustainable growth can never happen alone. It not only demands a strong team, but collaborative departments/business units that together make up a strong ecosystem with the right intellectual capital.
There is a common myth among many entrepreneurs that running a big business is harder and more complex than running a small one. This fear of complexity often prevents firm owners from taking their business to the next level. This is especially unfortunate because the belief that bigger means more complex is a total myth.
The key here is don’t be afraid of growth. Growth can mean many things for your business—serving more clients, building a bigger team and in turn managing more people, bringing in more revenue—but it doesn’t mean that your business will be more complex or that your life as a business owner will be proportionately more difficult. Put the right infrastructure in place, surround yourself with the right people, and above all, let go. Ready, set, grow.