If you want to grow your business, you know that things need to change. As the saying goes “Keep doing the same things and you keep getting the same results”.
Now change can be daunting and also costly, both in terms of time and money if you get it wrong. And with a sense of responsibility for the livelihoods of your team, your stakeholders and your own family it can also put you under a lot of pressure. You need to be sure you’re focussed on changing the right things. So, understanding what the key drivers behind substantial growth are, is really important before you embark on any significant programme of change.
Here are the four key areas you’ll want to focus on:
Building a World Class Team – Including employees, customers, suppliers, and investors
Ask yourself this question, given where you are now, would you rehire all of the above? If the answer is no, then you have a problem which needs addressing and something, or someone, needs to change.
All of the people who are invested in your business, whether employee, customer or supplier, needs to be fully behind what you’re trying to achieve or it simply won’t work.
Aside from creating inefficiencies in your business, it’s also incredibly emotionally draining to deal with people who don’t support your vision.
Even customers; while it might sound counterintuitive to growth, some of your customers may need to be “encouraged” to buy elsewhere if they’re actually costing you money.
Standing out from the crowd – A clearly defined strategy
Can you clearly communicate your strategy in a single sentence, or maybe two? If you can’t, then how can any potential customer be expected to fully understand what you offer and why you’re different to the competition. And without that you won’t be able to lead in your industry or geographical sector and achieve the massive results you want.
You’ll need to have a clear USP and a strong guarantee that sets you apart from the crowd and that you use in your marketing.
Of course, being able to write the sentence is one thing, you also need to be able to deliver on it.
World Class Delivery
To be able to back up your strategy, you’ll need to be able execute delivery of your product or service flawlessly. And its part of the reason you need to have the right people in place AND be able to retain them and recruit more.
As well as the right people, you’ll need to implement systems within your business to support flawless execution, ensuring consistency of delivery. These systems should support an “easy to buy” mentality, making it straightforward for customers to get what they want from you with the least hassle possible.
Plenty of cash!
Finally, you’ll need lots of cash. You will need to invest in both your business and yourself to grow significantly and that takes money.
As your business is probably already performing well its likely that you’ll have been more closely focussed on profitability and revenue than actual cashflow and that will need to change. You will need to pay as much attention to how each decision and change you make will affect your cashflow as how it affects profit.
This level of change doesn’t happen overnight and it needs to be well thought through and planned, but significant growth and massive results are achievable if you really want them.
Get in touch if you would like to know more about how ActionCoach Liverpool can support you in making the changes needed to significantly grow your business.
