5 tips to help you focus on growing your business
If you are seriously consider growing your business you need to ensure you have the infrastructure around you and have considered the implications. Use these top tips and start sowing the seeds of growth.
Cashflow
Significant growth usually requires expenditure. It may be the case that you can win those large projects, those attractive customers, but if you need to spend out cash to deliver that work before you are paid – do you have the cash flow available to support your plans? Do you know how much cash you need in order to support your plans for growth?
Prepare your team
Keep your team informed and engage them in your plans if you want to keep them motivated to achieve your goals. You need to make these goals shared goals. Prepare them for the impact you believe the growth will have on their work load in the short term and the longer term, what it will mean for them in the future.
Update the content on your website
If you are about to have a big push for growth with new products, new markets or targeting new customers, be aware that this new audience will check you out via your website. Coldly review the first impressions they would get and the content available, is this the image you want to portray? Is it In line with your future plans and what you are trying to achieve? Will it appeal to that audience? Ensure this is right before you drive traffic towards it.
Review your day to day processes
If you achieved the growth you are aiming for, could your internal processes cope? How much additional work could you take on before the current procedures would become inefficient or unfit for purpose. This is essential to know, because once you have sold a product, service or project to a customer you need to deliver on what you have promised in order to create sustainable growth.
Bring in external experts
One of the biggest mistakes you can make as a business owner is thinking a. you know everything, and b. you can do everything. Just like you are an expert in your field, realise the areas where you are not and bring in experts to help you achieve your growth. Whether this is business advisors to help you implement processes, and analytics on your financials, whether it is HR to help you achieve your team strategy, marketing, to get the word out there. Don’t be afraid to use experts, they should help you get to where you need to be sooner.
Put all of the above together in a plan, a one page document of what you want to achieve, why. Then just start working on the how?