The Reason
Our life is added some color and taste from time to time. Doing it all the same all the time will result in a place no man is ready to go. People change careers, take on a hobby, a new sport, a new social activity, a new class after work. It’s hard to find a human being who will go through life without doing something like that from time to time.
Our business is the same. It needs to take on new challenges and new paths from time to time.
The first answer to the question “why” should probably be that every business is derived from the people who create and manage it. As with their lives, so with their business, they don’t want to see it stuck. Moreover, statistics show that businesses that don’t grow from time to time, will die eventually.
Growth with businesses as with people, could mean many things. Changes do not have to be large in order to be meaningful. The main difference from our lives is that business growth is mostly about long term strategy and not about a random or spontaneous decision.
Growth for businesses is more of a science than most business owners are ready to admit. The reason for that is that businesses are fragile for most of their lives and may not endure the change as opposite to us humans who are strong and resilient and a change might do some damage, but will probably not kill us.
The Science – Growth Point, Growth Potential, Growth Opportunity, Growth Strategy
A business owner knows his or her business best. The owner is the most qualified person to decide when the business is ready to grow. Every business has its more “stable” times and more “turbulent” times and a Growth Point will always come during a business’ “stable” time, for obvious reasons.
As the person who knows their business best, Growth Potential is an easy one. If you are a business owner, you learn with time where your Growth Potential lies.
It is important for a business owners to be mindful about the market they are operating in. The Growth Opportunity will present itself if one is willing to keep an open mind and an open ear.
Now Growth Strategy should be, in theory, like a pyramid where your solid base is your existing business and on top of it, you begin adding smaller layers of Growth. In real life, for the most part, Growth Strategy will be more like a building where all floors are about the same width and foundations are not always what you expected, which makes it more important to have a solid plan.
This plan is never about focusing on one growth tactic but rather making a plan with branches, where each branch is a point that lets you decide whether you should move on with your growth strategy or fall back to your existing business.
Those are the guidelines for a reliable growth plan. Over the next posts we will review in detail each of the elements in your Business Growth – the Growth point, potential, opportunity and strategy.
