What is Growth?

Business growth is essential 

There are 1.21 million small-medium enterprises in Canada, 98% of which have fewer than 100 employees (Government of Canada). One third of businesses fail within three years of startup. We know that business is a tough game; the challenges, obstacles, and problems are piled high, yet so are the potential rewards. Owners face major dilemmas throughout the startup and growth phases of their businesses, such as:

• Creating an effective business plan and securing finance
• Constructing a business and marketing strategy
• Driving business growth
• Find, hire, and retain good employees.
• Managing business finances and profits

Most business owners are not equipped with all the skills and experience they need in order to accomplish this feat alone. The key to avoid becoming another static or failed business is to extend your skills – to be sharper. It’s not about becoming an expert in every aspect of your business, after all you’re not about to take a degree in marketing in order to get better at it. Your job is to choose what and how to take appropriate, important, and concrete advice whenever you can.

There are many ways to grow your business, but we first challenge you to stop and think about what growth actually is. What does it even mean to grow a business and which parts should you focus your growth on?

Business growth refers to an increase in any of the following over time:

• Company size
• Revenue
• Client base
• Number of employees
• Market share
• Profitability

This can be achieved through a variety of means including:

• Expanding into new markets
• Developing new products and services
• Increasing sales

We know how hard it is for business owners to get away from the day-to-day operations in the office or shop floor and stand back to consider how they can grow rapidly and profitably, without collapsing under the weight of their own success. 

Whatever part of your business grows, be it sales, staff, product lines, costs, or client base, it is going to stress the company. As you spend money to find more clients, you suddenly realize you do not have the staff to accommodate the demand and are forced to grow. Instead, be ready for that growth and develop a Growth Strategy! But before we dive into the details of Growth Strategy in this pillar, let’s discuss how growth really drives a company.     

Growth functions like a cycle that expands and shrinks based on how successful your growth strategy is. Add more staff, then you need more sales, you need more sales, then you need more clients, to find more clients you need more marketing, and thus we land on the full cycle of growth.

If you grow your staff then your monthly costs go up, but you’re trading it for more people-hours in the hopes you can use the extra hours to generate more revenue. But if you do not find those extra sales then your staff has grown but your company has shrunk in terms of profitability. The complexity continues, as you realize each node that grows brings stress to the business be it costs, staff or management. Your first focal point is then to earn more profits by focusing on client acquisition, so you can turn around and grow your business by adding more staff to respond to the growth you get from more clients. Your client strategy is the first step to your growth strategy. Growth is then achieved with things that make your business more valuable, which you can then turn around and advertise, and finally obtain more clients, purchases, and higher prices.

If we follow the image to the left, we can see how things are chained together and create growth as the final result. It all begins with marketing your company, which attracts more clients, or landing big new contracts (think new construction and installing all the water heaters or maintenance on an entire building). This will spur more sales, which creates work for your company and then the need for more staff. The number of staff you have limits the amount of work you can do. By tweaking one area of your business, can cause a chain reaction within your company. Here are a few areas you can focus on in your company to stimulate growth: 

• Marketing: Branding, Google Advertising& Generating Reviews 
• Clients: Value Propositions, Referrals& Financing 
• Sales: Closing Rates,Sales Material & Gap Selling
• Work/Staff: Acquiring Staff, Pricing & Efficiency Processes