When I talk to business owners, they frequently state they want to grow their business. They believe that to be successful they need more leads and more sales.
However, I believe BEFORE you go about growing, ensure that what you are already doing is running really well and smoothly. It’s a statistical fact that the average business, as it increases in size and turnover, becomes less efficient. So, before you start growing, it’s important that everything is running as optimum first.
Take this quiz to know if you are ready to grow your business.
Before you grow your business
Staff & Systems – ensure that your staff know what they are doing, are fully trained and working to peak efficiency. If systems (and staff) are not working well now, how would they perform if you doubled the workload?
Reduce Waste – another important aspect of any business is the waste levels. Whether that is waste of staff time, or resources or materials – again if a smaller operation has glitches, mistakes and errors occurring, as well as inefficiencies, things won’t improve as you get busier.
Cashflow – one of the biggest reasons a business fails during large growth is the cash-flow. If you can’t pay your suppliers and payroll now at the lower level, once the big jobs start, it’s only to get worse and become more stressful. Have you got great collection processes in place? Do you have KPIs which track important fiscal markers in your business? Do you invoice promptly, and as importantly, don’t forget or miss items to be invoiced?
Budgets & Reviews – do you have budgets in place which are reviewed weekly or monthly? Do you review and monitor your fiscal reports each week and month? Is your bookkeeper up to date with the books and they are in good stead? Once things hot up as you grow, the volume of transactions is going to increase and the back end of every business is a critical factor in its success.
Use this Time – I frequently discuss quiet times with clients, encouraging quieter times to improve processes, train staff and do all those things that often get left behind when you are busy. If you are thinking about growth, then absolutely do staff training and processes updates now, rather than waiting until everything is urgent, flat out and hectic.
Once you have your business running like a well-oiled machine, then it can be full steam ahead! You can now concentrate on increasing your marketing and improving your sales conversion rate, so that business grows – knowing all the time with confidence, that your business and your team will be able to handle that growth successfully with the self-assurance that your finances will improve with the extra work and effort.
I can coach you on how to get your business right and then grow it!
