8 Essential Growth Levers
Small business owners want to know how to grow a company successfully. The passion and real commitment it took to get your business started stays with you. And you want to keep that momentum going and buffer your business from possible decline. It’s hard to know which small business growth strategy to follow and when. It’s important to assess company growth the same way you would your marketing strategy or your financial planning. You need to assess where you are, where you want to go, and adjust as you go through the business stages.
Sources Of Growth
Because markets, consumers, and operations are complex, growth, and its hindrance, come from many different sources. It helps to break these down first into internal and then external growth factors. And then to further break them into the achievable growth result, focusing on the ones that have the most impact on small business growth. And finally, exponential and sustainable growth comes from assessing which of the 4 stages of business growth your company is in, where you want it to go, and then sequencing which levers to use when.
External sources of growth, like capturing market share, being first to market, expanding product offering or sales distribution tend to have the largest impact on revenue. Internal sources like talent management, operations improvement, systems management and strategic planning are equally important. Their growth may not be as strong for revenue but they can certainly hinder revenue and have a more direct impact on profit.
Sequencing Growth Levers
Additionally, some levers can’t happen without others being in place. For instance, it’s really hard to be successful at product innovation, if you don’t have the right senior leadership to lead it or if you don’t have the right processes in place. Companies often implement product innovation to the detriment of their own growth. Without clarity of purpose in operations or streamlined processes, the shiny new object of innovation can mess with your productivity and output. Basically you are feeding blood into a dying patient. Their vitals look fine because the new blood is keeping their vitals in normal range but underneath you aren’t healing the patient to ever leave the hospital on their own accord.
Therefore, achieving exponential growth doesn’t happen by only looking inside or outside your company. It’s a mix of both and includes engaging 8 essential growth levers based on where your company is currently at -- and where you want to go. With earned experience in company growth and global expansion, my expertise is knowing which growth levers to pull and when in order to execute your unique company goals.
8 Essential Growth Levers
Think of these as the 8 business growth strategies for small businesses:
Product Innovation Innovation is required to keep pace with changes in markets and consumer behavior. Ensure the product development process effectively optimizes business capabilities, penetrates markets faster than competition, and is poised to seize ever-shifting market opportunities.
Customer Expansion Define product niches, new target audiences, and best market opportunities. With an ear to customers wants and needs, and a keen eye on where and how to cross-segment, prepare to confidently expand customer reach.
New Markets Current markets are maxed out. Customers are coming from unforeseen markets --how best to capitalize on opportunity? The key is expertly analyzing markets and consumer trends, implementing initiatives, and defining the quickest path to the most sustainable return.
Market Opportunity Markets are constantly changing. So are consumers demographics, behaviors, environmental factors, and competitors. Is there a shift in the market that be taken advantage of? Translate shifts, changes, and future projections into optimum objectives.
Employee Engagement Organizational drag or churn hurts productivity by up to 20% (HBR). Happy employees work harder and care more; loyal employees reduce training, recruiting, on-boarding, time and money. Define and implement top-down management that creates employee engagement and a productivity mindset.
Strategic Focus As businesses grow, priorities within the organization get challenged and fractionalized. “Tactics without strategy is the noise before defeat.” Sun Tzu. Maintain operational efficiency, a unified company culture, and forward/upward motion with a clear vision, mission, and strategy expertly in place.
Profitable Processes Increase revenue, margin, profit Identifying obstacles within execution of growth initiatives is just as important as setting new ones. This isn’t about processes or systems for systems sake. Streamline and assess top-down operational, transactional, and relational processes to define which are helping and hurting company growth
Benchmark Team The second level of leadership in small businesses makes all the difference in executing growth goals and translating vision into results. Develop a high-performing senior leadership team and assess organizational structure, onboarding, and management on an ongoing basis.
I have helped companies achieve multi-million dollar revenue growth and double-digit profitability improvement using my process and growth-lever expertise. The key to company growth is, really, are you ready for it? Do you want to do the work to make it happen?