Proven Principles of growing a successful Business/company
Imagine if there was a
proven, step by step method to take your business from where ever it is now to
the point where it was a cash-generating machine that could work completely
without you!
There's no need to
imagine anymore. Here it is!
Source: amazon.com
Whether you
are a startup business or you possess an already established company the same
basic business principles apply to grow a successful business company.
A successful business company could be described as one that allows you to have more free
time on your hands. One that allows you to live the kind of lifestyle that is
less stressful and that doesn’t require that you work long hours. It is also one that can run even without your
presence and with little troubles from customers and staff.
Does that the definition also match with what you have in your head? Then you would what to
follow these laid down principles that are helping Forbes 500 companies and
that can help your business to grow and be self-sustaining.
To be an effective business leader you need to possess the ability to understand people. A lot of
people I have met find it hard to understand people at a deeper level and find
even harder to organize them to work together for a common purpose.
If you have to be a true business team leader you need to
develop a knack to understand people. After all your business is not going to
be only about yourself, it includes your team members or employees and then
your customers. The way to understand or relate to them would determine how
successful your business would be.
Your sales
and marketing skills are determined by what you know about people. Your
leadership skills with your staff to get them to perform as well as you do is
determined by your knowledge of people.
So how do you get to understand
people in business?
Scientists have proven that 97% of the communications we make
are unspoken. So it is important to be able to read non-verbal clues of your
workmates. This would include looking at what their dressing tells you, observe
their posture, how they move their bodies, and definitely their facial
expressions.
Another way to understand people is to imagine what it would
look like to be in their shoes.
We do not want to be fast in judging people from what our
intuition tells us about them. Try to gather as many facts or clues as you can
about the person and why they act the way they do.
Look for the good in others and how to make their strength
and weakness work for the good of the team.
Be tolerant in relation to their personal beliefs, morals and
values.
Now this skill of understanding of people, how they think and
act only gets better as we practice.
I was in my second year at the university and I had this great business idea. I wanted to
tell everybody about it; especially people who I felt had the business
experience, the needed skills, and discipline to make it happen.
One day I
met one man, who we would call Mr. Ezra Jones.
He was a successful man in his career and lately has been thinking of
starting a business of his own or investing in a successful venture.
As we sat over
a drink, one evening, I told him about this great business idea that has been busting
in my head, that I couldn’t wait for him and the whole world to hear about. After
pitching the idea to him he then said something that struck me.
Ezra said, “Your
business can make a huge turnover in millions of dollars, but not profit.”
There it
dawned on me. I was dazzled and speechless for a few seconds. That was the first
of many lessons in my entrepreneurial journey. Yes, you can be making huge
millions of dollars in your business but not making a profit. That meant that if
the business cannot prove how it can make money overtime or get a break-even then
that business is in line to crash.
Your aim
should be to increase your net profit percentage of turnover, as this allows
you to grow and pay yourself whatever you desire.
Increasing
your net Profit percentage comes from improving everything you do. From cutting
expenses to creating cost-effective marketing strategies, and even to small
things like how you talk to a client on the phone, where and how you place your
ads.
Another
principle of business success is cash
flow.
Cash flow
means having more cash in your bank account that is flowing with your customers.
If customers cost you money before you get any back, that's negative cash flow,
if you get cash before you incur a cost that's positive cash flow. The better
you get at getting money upfront with deposits and getting people to pay on
time the better your cash flow.
Set Goals
and Have a Plan to Achieve Them.
Next step
you have to take to achieve business success is to set goals. Write them down
as you would a business plan. These goals can be financial goals, marketing
goals, and management goals.
Once you get
to set your business goals then the strategies you want to use to achieve them
would easily come together. Align your
business goals with your mission statement.
To set goals
that leads to success you need to set goals that we call S.M.A.R.T.
Specific: when your goals are specific you know
exactly at you want to achieve, when you want to achieve it, how you want to
achieve it, who would help you achieve it, why you want to achieve it, and what
alternative ways of achieving the same result.
Measurable: a measurable goal can be quantified. That is to say, once you can attain that
goal certain parameters or milestones should be evident.
Attainable: Is your goal achievable? That means
do you have what it takes to make your goal possible?
Relevant: you should consider if your goal is
really important to you or would help you achieve your important objectives in
life.
Time-Bound: set deadlines for your business
goals.
Once you can
get your goals right then the strategies should come seamlessly. While some may struggle with that I know of
over 300 strategies, but most people can only think of about a dozen. Brainstorm every day and come up with at least
10 new strategies every day.
Take strategies
like tools. They help you to achieve your goals faster. If you a few strategies
in
Make Your Staff a TEAM.
mbnsolution.com
your arsenal it would take you a long time to achieve your set goal.
Next, develop
a Business Growth Plan to go with your strategies. That is listing out these
strategies according to importance. This would make growing your business EASY!
Like we
mentioned early a lot of people do not understand other people easily, so
instead of having to get more people into their business and run the risk of
having drawbacks from ineffective staffs they prefer carrying out their
business on their own.
I know a lot
of people who are into small businesses say tailoring and they have been on it
for many years. Sometimes I look at them and imagine how far they would have
gone if they had more staff. Most times the only time this kind of person
grows is when their wives or their children join them in the business, because
to them that is the only people they can trust.
It is
important to learn your business knowledge with other people. Yes, these people
can learn the trade and leave you in time, but the truth is while they are with you
can achieve a lot more than you would alone. Most importantly, you would have
more time for yourself and for your family without being stressed, tired, work
long hours, and remaining at the same business growth year to year.
To turn your
staff into a working team aim at teaching everyone in your business how to do
everything you currently do, better than you do. Teach them to step by step what
to do to bring a certain result. These can be properly documented in the
company’s business plan.
This brings
to our next discussion about how to build strong foundations for your business
growth.
If you want
to build a business that really works even in your absence then you have to
build a strong foundation.
Acknowledge
that building a strong business foundation is for only business people who want
to increase profit. So if you are not looking at increasing your profit then
this subject is not for you.
There are
two ways in which you can build a strong foundation in business:
First, have a documented system. A system is just the best way of doing
something that everyone knows and uses that has been identified and written
down. It creates consistency and efficiency in a business and as the business grows
the systems hold the employees accountable, and not to you the owner. That
means you save time checking on everyone. Systems only work when you have
worked with your staff to turn them into a TEAM.
Secondly, measuring everything is part of building foundations. If
you haven't measured your Key Performance Indicators how will you improve on
them? Increasing the Net Profit percentage of turnover comes from improving everything
you currently do, remember?
Implement
EFFECTIVE Sales and Marketing.
Everyone in
business is already doing sales and marketing but how effective is it?
The question
is, “how do you know that your sales and marketing is effective?” Some of the
ways a company knows their sales and marketing is effective are when you don’t
have a lot of customers asking you a lot of questions such as the pricing.
Another way to know is when you cannot handle the number of customers coming
in. Additionally, you will know your sales and marketing is effective if you
increase the price of your product/services and still have an increased conversion rate.
Once you can
master this you can master the sales and marketing of your business then you
will get the result you desire.
Why not
consider paying a sales and marketing professional for a few months it will be
the best investment you ever make.
Once you learn
the principles of success you can be assured of significant results in your
business.
Manage the
business.
Managing a
business is the bedrock for its continuity. Managing a business effectively
would mean making new decisions based on numbers or results, developing a documented system, having a regular weekly team meeting, and sometimes a one on one team
training.
This
involves making an analysis of how many customers you are serving in a week, the volume of marketing that brought that result, how many team members was
involved and how many new employees you might want to employ.
When you
dedicate time to learn and then follow all 7 Principles, in the order above
anything is possible. I've had clients increase their monthly turnover by
1,000% in just 5 months when the business wasn't growing at all and the owners
did it with ease and grace, no stress at all!
What's your
growth potential? Are you realizing it yet? If you're not growing at 50%-100% a
year you're possibly not growing as fast as you could!
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