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Grow a Business
If you’ve been in business for some time – you know that it can be tremendously fulfilling. To develop your business, you need to think of it as an asset that at some point will be promoted and either sold (for cash, such as for retirement funding or family legacy) or transferred to someone else’s care – who you hope will continue to feed and nurture it so it will continue to fulfill it’s mission. Business Growth is not a static process. It requires continual assessment of the market, the company itself, and current opportunities and threats. Prior to moving to the next section, review the business planning under Start a Business. If you are missing any of the Plan sections, you need to develop them, as the following section builds on those concepts. And make sure you include key management, advisors and/or employees in the process. They will have a greater ability to support your company’s goals when they’ve been part of the process.
A word about operational excellence | Validate your vision | Do a SWOT analysis | Set annual goals | Develop action plan | Track your performance
First, A Word About Operational Excellence| Back to top
As with a new business, a good business plan will help you achieve your goals. Rather than focusing almost entirely on market and sales however, the more mature plan also looks at operational aspects – as the better an organization’s infrastructure, the more efficient and effective an organization is, the more quickly that organization can react to opportunities and threats that may come its way and thus help grow the company. And as an added benefit, companies with structured, repeatable processes and procedures train employees faster, can continually improve operations, can more rapidly open new lines of business and markets and are worth more to potential partners, investors and potential buyers.
Validate Your Vision | Back to top
It is important to periodically revisit your Vision. A Vision can be thought of as a persona. It generally stays pretty consistent across 5 to 10 year spans but evolves according to it’s environment. The description of the vision should be concise, and should be something that you, your employees, your partners, alliances, and customers all would agree to. If it is not, we recommend you revisit this with those parties and rework it so it does. The exercises associated with the Develop an Idea section of business planning can help with this activity. Once you’ve refined the Vision, communicate it to everyone. A good Vision is an excellent tool for inspiring your staff, informing prospective customers and will assist in management decision making.
Do a SWOT Analysis | Back to top
A SWOT (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats) Analysis is an excellent tool that is used in business planning to objectively inventory your company’s:
- Strengths – Those areas of your company in which you excel, and which can be used to your competitive advantage (for example, if you are an employer with an excellent reputation, this will encourage low employee turnover and you will attract highly talented, desirable employees).
- Weaknesses - Those areas of your company where you are weak, and which you have control to improve (for instance poorly trained employees can be trained)
- Strengths and Weaknesses are items over which you have influence and can control
- Opportunities – Environmental factors over which you have no control to change, but which can be used to your advantage to help you achieve your goals (for example, a competitor closing it’s doors, may enable you to bring industry experienced employees into your company)
- Threats - Environmental factors over which you have no control to change, but which are now or will become a threat to your business (for example, a competitor offering your employees significant salary increases to join their company).
The SWOT analysis should be done by appropriate management team members or key team members to allow as much as objectivity and creativity as possible. In addition, it is highly beneficial to look at which of the SWOT components are critical to your business. Major road construction can have a tremendously negative impact on retail stores and would require more resources and attention, than it would for a customer service center, where service is provided over the telephone.
Set Annual Goals | Back to top
Once you’ve completed the SWOT analysis, look where the greatest
opportunities and threats lie. Set goals to address the highest
potential and probability opportunities and mitigate the greatest
impact/highest probability threats. Some of your goals may span
multi-year timelines. If this is the case, break down the goals into
current and subsequent years. SMART goal setting will ensure you
accomplish what your plan requires. SMART is simply an acronym to help
you in your action plans. Goals should be:
S – SPECIFIC
M – MEASUREABLE - Saying you will increase sales is not a goal.
Saying you will increase sales by 25% is measurable and therefore
meaningful
A – ACTIONABLE/ACHIEVEABLE (e.g. realistic)
R – RESPONSIBLE PARTY is assigned.
T – TIMELINE associated. For example – Sales will be increased 25% by the end of the year.
Develop Action Plan | Back to top
Each goal will need resources and specific steps to complete. Here is
where it is very important to understand inter-dependencies and if
resources become tight – which goals take priority. Breaking down the
steps and associated timelines will help with this process. Create a
calendar by month that shows Operational and Technical Goals,
Fulfillment Goals, Production Goals, Sales Goals, Financial and
Marketing Goals, as well as others appropriate for your business.
Additional considerations:
- As you develop action plans – remember to think creatively and take risks.
- Question everything – how you do things, how and why your customers buy from you -what is the value proposition for them, how you work with other vendors and suppliers.
- Look at new channels for
- Remember to compare yourself against your competitors each year. The greatest risk to your business is the competitor who is not visible to you.
- Review your sales plans to ensure they are in line with customer demand, review your customer attrition rates, and develop a plan to reduce it.
- If you have employees, incent them for finding ways to save money. All of your employees should understand some company financial goals – in fact the best run companies provide full access to financials to their employees.
- Incent employees for bringing in new business. Every employee should be able to articulate your value statements for customers.
- Be consistent in branding, but consider jettisoning one marketing program a year.
- Align employee performance goals and associated appraisals with the company goals.
- Implement measures for employee and customer satisfaction as indicators of company performance
- Implement feedback systems - whenever a customer or sale is lost, or an employee leaves – find out why – this information can be invaluable in determining future goals for the year, and how you will achieve those goals.
- Look to your competitors, as well as other industries for best practices – is there opportunity to do things better, faster, differently?