What do I need to get right to grow my business?

Agile, future proof businesses are well-positioned to compete with bigger businesses or to compete effectively with other SMEs, to become key parts of bigger businesses’ supply chains. You are able to make quick decisions, and you really care. With access to the right kind of help, small and medium-sized businesses can transform their growth, bringing more enjoyment and greater value to everyone in the business. As someone who wants to improve, you are asking, “What do I need to get right to grow my business?”

1. Start with the end in mind. Be clear on the growth formula you are trying to achieve. Create simple success measures.
2. Create realistic plans. Work backwards to understand what you need to change within your 5Ps (purpose, people, processes, products, prospects) to drive those outcomes. Create a plan and commit to making the changes.
3. Get help, but only if you need it. If it is cost effective to do it yourself then do so. However, success in growth is achieved by companies who know what they are good at. Who understand what their customers want. Then, knowing the power of leverage, they use the best outside organisations to do everything else.

Understanding How Results, Drivers and Enablers Work Together

Successful growth relies on several ingredients or “Business Growth Drivers”. These are made possible by the interaction of several enablers. Getting this right can really accelerate the growth of your business. Let’s look at an example.

An IT services company was looking to drive up their lead conversion rate. Lead conversion is a growth DRIVER – more customers and therefore more revenue is the RESULT.

In order to improve their conversion rate, they needed to make several improvements to ENABLERS in their business.

1. First, they made some revisions to their strategy and shared this information across the organisation. This meant that everyone was clear about the priority of the changes.
2. Then they designed a new product based on asking a previously uninterested segment about their needs and wants.
3. In tandem, they trained their salespeople on the product differentiators and benefits and created a buzz about the new offer.
4. They needed to make some changes to their CRM process and systems to capture the new customer data and provide after sales support.

In short, they asked, “What do I need to get right to grow my business?”. They realised that to get a result (more revenue) they needed to identify the drivers (e.g. conversion rate), then make changes to their wider business across the enablers: purpose – strategy, people – skills, process and systems – CRM, product – a new product, which was developed based on input from the fifth P, their prospects.

When your business is strong in each of these areas, it becomes fast growing and Future Proof. Which drives several great outcomes including:

• Increased revenue
• Improved profit
• Greater enjoyment
• Enhanced business value