4 Key Strategies To Gain Control Of Your Business Growth
A growing business is a good problem, right? Finding customers for your product or service is the toughest hurdle to overcome so a growing business is absolutely a great problem to have but you still need forward planning and strategies in place to manage growth. Working with businesses gives me the opportunity to identify and implement strategies to help businesses manage their growth across many different types of industries. Below is a set of strategies that you can implement in your own business to help you manage growth to take advantage of a growing customer base.
Using a scalable management model
With any business, the opportunities for improvement and management are endless. Breaking the business down into key areas and having a rhythm to give specific time to each area is vital. Your own management model will be unique to your business but there are five specific areas that you need to focus on:
1. Business Vision
Have a clear and documented vision and strategy for the business – Where do you want to be after 5 years, 10 years? What is the end goal – Will you sell your business, pass it down to the kids? Importantly this commonly changes over time, however, having a vision and strategy is exceedingly important to be able to manage your business as it grows.
2. Marketing, Sales, and Branding
What this looks like for you will depend on your vision and the stage of growth that your business is in. If you are just starting out your focus will be on defining your ideal customer and finding them. You will develop marketing strategies that are designed to attract your ideal customer and build that audience. A good Sales strategy should piggyback off you’re marketing to cover your audience into customers. Branding is something that should always be present, but this will change over time as your business matures and your objectives change. Branding is distinct from marketing in that the objective of a branding strategy may not always be to grow your business, it may be to position your business as a thought leader or expert or to identify with a section of your audience. Some things to think about when it comes to sales and marketing strategy are:
Marketing channels – social media, print media, referral partners
Marketing tools – Content creation, CRM
Ideal Customer Avatar
Customer journey
3. Customer Care
Customer care or service delivery should really sit as part of the Marketing, sales, and branding function. Obviously converting an audience into a customer is important to your business growth but a lot of businesses miss the opportunity to turn their customer into advocates. For me, this is one of the most powerful strategies when it comes to growing your business and the most important step in the customer journey. Develop processes that nurture your customers and make them feel special so they will tell everyone about you. Whether you are selling products or providing a service, you should have a plan to manage the customer experience.
4. Finance and Administration
Obviously step one here is to find yourself a good accountant that can help you with this. At the very least you need the right guidance when it comes to putting processes in place to manage your finances. Some things you need to consider are:
Having a budget
Understanding the cash flow requirements of your business at multiple growth levels. What are the fixed costs v the costs that are variable and tied to the number of customers you have?
Keeping track of expenses – this includes the cost of marketing and branding projects
Build and improve on quality internal processes – time is money. Always be looking for ways to deliver projects more efficiently
5. Human Resources
Having the right people in the right roles is especially important when your business is growing. Your Human Resources plan should predict your requirements as you grow, a lack of resources can have a negative impact on customer experience. There is no use making sales if you can’t deliver what you have promised. This doesn’t mean they have to be employees, there are benefits of outsourcing some processes to other businesses too.
Service the customers exceedingly well
Most businesses are built on the success of how they service the customer. The most important aspect of managing growth is maintaining the reputation of the business and the servicing of the customer. As mentioned earlier this is a key part of the customer’s journey. Why work hours trying to make sales when your customers could be doing it for you. An important aspect of servicing your customer is attracting the right customers in the first place. So, it is important that you have a good understanding of your product or service and the audience that you are targeting. As you grow you will identify those customers that just aren’t right or are not a good fit. It’s ok to say no to a potential customer. Over time you can use your bad experience to help in your onboarding processes and say no when the fit isn’t right. Actively listen to the customer and seek feedback through surveys and engagement on social media.
Understand and manage the cash flow cycle
Most businesses that fail do so because of cash flow problems. As Accountants, we see this all the time and there are always things that these businesses have in common when it comes to managing their cash flow. Some quick tips when it comes to managing cash flow are:
Successful and growing businesses all have ever grown cashflow requirements. Understanding and planning ahead is the key
As a business grows the working capital requirements of the business typically grow, funding expenses before revenue is collected, new asset purchases, increased costs of service delivery, more space and more employees etc
Know your margins – knowing what is the cost of sales is and what is profit. This won’t be a flat per sale amount as some expenses are fixed meaning that the more you sell the more you make per sale. The business owners that know this have more accurate and quick decision-making.
Forecast and budget for cashflow needs in line with the growth
Surround yourself with the right team
No, I don’t mean your staff here even though is an important part of growing. You need support too as a business owner You should surround yourself with a team of advisers helping in the areas where you may not have the skills or experience. Their contribution can be the difference between floundering or growing your dream business. Seek out professionals that have experience in growing a business. As you grow you can tap into things that have worked in the past. For example, a good Accountant or Lawyer should give you more than just a tax return or draft a contract, they should be passing on their experience working with hundreds of other businesses. Some people you need around you to assist you to manage business growth are:
Accountant
Financial Adviser
Lawyer
IT expert
Banker
Mentor
Business Coach
As with everything in business, planning ahead is the key to success. Whether it’s documenting your vision, preparing your budgets, or leaning on other business owners' experience, your chances of building your dream business are far better with plans in place. At The Fox Group, we are always planning ahead with our clients and working with them closely as their business grows. Reach out to one of our experienced Business Advisers to get your business moving in the right direction.
