Written by Sujan Patel @sujanpatel
Growth is fundamental to a business' survival. Roughly 66% of businesses survive their first two years in operation, about half make it to the five-year mark, and just 33% will celebrate their tenth anniversary. Those numbers are remarkably consistent across most industries — but they also highlight how important it is to plan for growth from day one.
In 2018, 53% of American SMBs planned to grow, and 22% planned to hire additional staff. That marked an impressive uplift from the 2017 figures of 46% and 9%, respectively. A concrete growth strategy is more than a marketing strategy, it's a crucial cog in your business machine. Without one, you're at the mercy of a fickle consumer base and market fluctuations.
So, how do you plan to grow?
Strategize, consider the available options, and build it into your business plan. Depending on the kind of company you're building, your growth strategy might include aspects like:
- Adding new locations
- Investing in customer acquisition
- Franchising opportunities
- Product line expansions
- Selling products online across multiple platforms
Your particular industry and target market will influence your decisions, but it's almost universally true that new customer acquisition will play a sizable role.
Not sure what that looks like for your business? Here are some actionable tactics for achieving growth.
- Use a growth strategy template.
- Choose your targeted area of growth.
- Conduct market and industry research.
- Set growth goals.
- Plan your course of action.
- Determine your growth tools and requirements.
- Execute on your plan
1. Use a growth strategy template
Don’t hit the ground running without planning out and documenting the steps for your growth strategy. Sign up to be a Success Systems Free Member and you will gain access to the Strategic Planning Guide that will help you make a plan.
2. Choose your targeted area of growth.
It’s great that you want to grow your business, but what exactly do you want to grow?
Your business growth plan should hone in on specific areas of growth. Common focuses of strategic growth initiatives might include:
- Growth in employee headcount.
- Expansion of current office, retail, and/or warehouse space.
- Addition of new locations or branches of your business.
- Expansion into new regions, locations, cities, or countries.
- Addition of new product(s) and/or service(s).
- Expanding purchase locations (i.e. selling in new stores or launching an online store).
- Growth in revenue and/or profit.
- Growth of customer base and/or customer acquisition rate.
It’s possible that your growth plan will encompass multiple of the initiatives outlined above, which makes sense – the best growth is not in a vacuum. For example, growing your unit sales will result in a growth in revenue, and possibly additional locations and headcount to support the increased sales.
3. Conduct market and industry research.
After you’ve chosen what you want to grow, you’ll need to justify why you want to grow in this area (and if growth is even possible).
Conducting research on the state of your industry is the best way to determine if your desired growth is both necessary and feasible. Examples could include running surveys and focus groups with existing and potential customers or digging into existing industry research. The knowledge and facts you uncover in this step will shape the expectations and growth goals for this project to better determine a timeline, budget, and ultimate goal. Which brings us to step four…
4. Set growth goals.
Once you’ve determined what you’re growing and why you’re growing, the next step is to determine how much you’ll be growing.
These goals should be based on your endgame aspirations of where you ideally want your organization to be, but they should also be achievable and realistic – which is why setting a goal based on industry research is so valuable.
Lastly, take the steps to quantify your goals in terms of metrics and timeline. Aiming to "grow sales by 30% quarter-over-quarter for the next three years" is much clearer than "increasing sales."
5. Plan your course of action.
Next, outline how you’ll achieve your growth goals with a detailed growth strategy. Again – we suggest writing out a detailed growth strategy plan to gain the understanding and buy-in of your team.
This action plan should contain a list of action items, deadlines, teams or persons responsible, and resources for attaining your growth goal.
6. Determine your growth tools and requirements.
The last step before acting on your plan is determining any requirements your team will need through the process. These are specific resources that will help you meet your growth goals faster and with more accuracy. Examples might include:
- Funding: Organizations may need a capital investment or an internal budget allocation to see this project through.
- Tools & Software: Consider what technological resources may be needed to expedite and/or gain insights from the growth process.
- Services: Growth may be better achieved with the help of consultants, designers, or planners in a specific field.
7. Execute your plan.
With all of your planning, resourcing, and goal-setting complete, you’re now ready to execute your company growth plan and deliver results for the business. Throughout this time, make sure you’re holding your stakeholders accountable, keeping the line of communication open, and comparing initial results to your forecasted growth goals to see if your projected results are still achievable or if anything needs to be adjusted.
0 Comments