Growth for growth’s sake is dangerous. As a turnaround guy, I have seen my share of organizations that have grown close to bankruptcy. There has to be a well thought out approach and strategy as what growth vehicle you will use. What you need a business growth strategy.
Business Growth Strategy
Your business growth strategy has to be aligned with a number of factors. Ask yourself:
- Does the business have enough working capital to support the period between idea and cash? I have seen a number of businesses that grow themselves into serious financial trouble because, oddly enough, employees want to be paid every two-weeks and often customers want to stretch out their payment to you for long as they can.
- Are your delivery processes scalable? Scalability is critical if you don’t want your team to burnout or piss customers off.
- What is your business growth strategy? There are a number of different possibilities. Which ‘one’ are you going to go with and… stick to? In a previous blog I mentioned one route of exploring the unexplored or being super-innovative. Another is what I call ‘Growing adjacently.’
Growing Adjacently is all about…
- Understanding, with exhausting detail, your customer persona. Who they are? What makes them tick? Why they buy from you? How they use your product or service? Where? When? You can’t understand your customer enough.
- Understanding, explicitly, what your key strategic differentiator is versus your competitors.
- Growing adjacent to your distinctive excellence in a way that your organization doesn’t have to do any heavy lifting to deliver or serve.
- Selling to customers that look similar to your current customers. Once again, your team will not have to be ‘double-jointed’ or bend in unnatural ways to deliver or serve.
This business growth strategy is all about using the DNA of your organization to leverage into growth opportunities. This all about recognizing that not every one of the 7 billion plus people on the planet are your customers – that is a segment that will be raving apostles about your product or service, and you are laser-beam focused on your customers only and those that look remarkably close to those customers.
Robert Murray is a Vancouver, BC based Business Strategy Consultant, #1 Best Selling Author, and International Keynote Speaker. For further advice, insight and inspiration on how to unlock your inner leader, follow Robert on Twitter, LinkedIn, and Facebook.
Click here to get his weekly Tuesday Tune Up blog posts straight to your inbox.
Tags:
Business,
Business Goals,
Business Strategy,
Growth,
Marketing Strategy,
Strategic Planning
