Take massive action! If your dreams don’t scare you, they are not big enough! The textbooks are overflowing with wisecracks like these that leave the good guys feeling deflated and inadequate.
The reality is that if we want sustainable business growth, we need to ensure that the steps we take are small enough that we can manage them organically. Yes, this does in no way imply that you can sit on your butt and have a ‘tomorrow is another day’ attitude.
5 Steps to Sustainable Business Growth
1. Have Layered Growth Plans
It’s key to have layered growth plans for one, two, and five years with goals and projections that are attainable. Following a framework will ensure you know how you’re on track. Entrepreneurs by nature take calculated risks, but these risks should be strategic and part of long-term thinking. The emphasis should not be on bigger and faster growth all the time. It is more important to think about organic scaling.
2. Add to your Company’s Story
Entrepreneurs need to find a way to continuously evolve their company’s story via innovating, collaborating, and scaling while at the same time keeping the purpose consistent. It is extremely easy to fall into the trap of comfort zone paralyzes if you are in a mature company. If you are the second generation in a family-owned business, chances are that you are doing the same-old-same-old and your company is busy dying a slow and painful death. And you do not even know it.
3. Be An Empowering Leader
Growth brings tremendous pressure to leaders to keep delivering. It is necessary to give up “power” over time. Become a more empowering leader to nurture your subordinates and allow them to shine. This will encourage creativity, innovation, and increased motivation in your organization.
Empowering your people can unfortunately only be done if you have the required know-how and self-confidence. If you are unsure of what you are doing and where you want to go, chances are you will not empower your team and over time, they will lose their enthusiasm to contribute productively.
4. Make Learning Part of your Culture
It is important to consistently build new strengths for yourself and your team. Nurturing a learning culture is of utmost importance for sustainable growth. Continuous innovation can only be achieved through formal and informal learning. Formal learning does not imply yet another useless university degree. There are multiple short courses available from companies that have ground-level experience on the subject that they teach.
Encouraging your team to read as much as they can on their core subject as well as auxiliary subjects will empower them to increase their horizons. One step at a time.
5. Simplify the Complexities of Business
The world is overstocked with individuals who are trying to sell the so-called expert knowledge. In an effort to sound like an expert they keep on adding unnecessary steps to the process. Take the 4-P’s of marketing for example. What started out as a simple concept, has evolved to an infinite amount of P’s to this pot and each year there seems to be more P’s being added.
If you really know what you are talking about, you will keep it simple and straightforward.
Conclusion
You have a choice whether you and your team are going to step up or crash out.
Keep your own steps simple and easy to attain.
Ensure that the steps required for your team are just as simple.
From here, the sky is the limit.
Have fun.
