There are several keys to achieving growth in any business. Knowing your starting point, where you want your business to go, and how to measure and track your progress will certainly help you meet your goals.
Whether you want to scale up slowly or grow your business at a faster pace, here are some important steps to build a business growth strategy that works.
What does success look like?
The first step to a successful business is to decide exactly what that success will look like. After all, if you don’t know where you’re going, how will you know when you get there? What is your primary goal? What do you want from your business? Is your primary goal more customers, or increased profits? Are you instead planning to build your business to sell? Your vision of success may be a combination of these or something completely different.
Be clear about where you see your business short term—in the next six or 12 months—then project out to five years and then ten years. The goalposts will change along the way, but clearly defining where you’re heading is the first step to achieving success.
Understanding your business and its KPIs
Now that you have decided what your business success will look like and set your goals the next step is to work out which key performance indicators (KPIs) will best measure your success. The measurements you choose will vary depending on your business, but a good place to start is to measure where your business is at today.
Your financials will give you one part of the picture. Keep track of your costs, your cash flow, and your profit. It’s also quite easy to monitor the growth of your customer base and customer spend, but what KPI do you choose if a key component to the success of your business is customer satisfaction?
The same challenge of determining the right KPI also applies to your staff. What KPIs do they need to reach to help make your business a success and—just as important—what KPIs do you need to hit to make sure your staff are happy and able to perform at their best?
Tracking your progress
Once you know where you’re heading and what KPIs you need to hit along the way, the next step is to track your progress. You need to know how you’re doing at each step so you can adjust and improve as you go. In today’s technological world, everything can be measured, so decide what are the most valuable metrics for your business as you journey towards success.
Make sure your targets are attainable and realistic. If you break them down into smaller, manageable tasks, they will be easier to achieve. This also means you can celebrate many smaller wins along the way rather than slog it out every day waiting for that big final goal to materialise.
Create a daily practice and involve your team
Developing your business growth strategy shouldn’t be something you do once and then forget. For your goals to be realised they need to be revisited every day and incorporated into your culture. Every team member should know your business goals and the part they play in reaching them. Clever managers involve their team in the planning and implementation and reward them for their achievements and contributions.
Build a brighter future for your business with Bartercard
Once you and your team are empowered to make the changes needed every day to create the desired results you will be well on your way to success.
Bartercard is a great resource to discover untapped potential in your market. For more great tips on how to grow your business, download our eBook 7 Habits of Highly Effective Small Business Owners
