how to prepare for business growth
Business growth, we all want it. We want more customers. Higher Sales. Bigger profits.
However, we know business growth isn’t that easy to achieve. More importantly, it’s certainly not easy to maintain.
Sustainable growth: Achievable growth that a company could maintain without running into problems.
Sustainable growth is really what we should be aiming for as business owners and here are some things you should consider in order to achieve it.
Do you have enough staff to cope with demand?
As your business grows and you get more orders and more customers, you’ll need to be able to service the growing demand. I’ve seen companies ‘over-trading’ – winning more projects than they can cope with – which often leads to having disappointed customers and the risk of earning a bad reputation. Ensure you have enough staff, and in the right areas. Hiring new people is proving more difficult right now, so it’s important to plan well ahead.
The employees will also need to be fully trained. The last thing you need is an untrained worker sending out the wrong equipment or badly packaging products so your customers are disappointed with their order. It’s crucial that you keep your customers happy and well-trained staff will do that.
Do you have a good enough relationship with your suppliers in order to get more stock?
There’s no point even attempting to grow your business if you cannot supply the demand.
Let’s say you own a local bakery and you’ve put strategies in place to win more customers. Then the customers coming flooding in, but you’ve only bought ingredients for your usual number of sausage rolls. That’s going to be a lot of disappointed and sausage roll-less customers! Then those customers aren’t going to come back and you’ve missed out on a lot of business.
Alternatively, you could be prepared and place an order for 3x the amount of pastry but your suppliers can’t cope with the order. It’s important to have a conversation with your suppliers to see if they can cater to your growing orders. Or do you need to find a new or additional supplier?
If you offer a service rather than tangible products you may need to consider office space and equipment. If you’re getting in more team members they’ll need somewhere to sit and equipment to use!
How will you look after your staff?
Growing your business rapidly can be a big change to the staff within your company. The increase in work and pressure to supply all new customers can be overwhelming. It was difficult enough to manage your team’s welfare when they were all in the office, but now that many are working at home, there are new challenges.
Over-worked and isolated employees can become stressed, their productivity can fall and they might want to leave your business. That’s why you need a plan of how you’re going to look after your staff, to manage their welfare and to keep up their motivation. A happy team is a stable and productive team.
Are you listening to your customers?
It’s often said that the most dangerous time for any business is when things are going well. We’ve seen so many cases of businesses benefitting from a sudden surge in demand and then falling straight back down because they haven’t listened to their customers’ feedback or kept an eye on changing trends.
Ask your customers for feedback. Find out what they like about your products and services? How could they be improved? And don’t be afraid of the feedback. Showing that you’re listening to your customers and meeting their specific demands will help you form stronger relationships with them and build customer-loyalty.
Do you want to know how you can grow your business and be able to maintain it? I would be more than happy to set up a call and discuss some ideas with you! You can contact me.