Your company is doing ok, but you need to grow your business. You are feeling stuck.
The best businesses are always looking for ways to keep growing. Every company has two paths, whether it is rising or dying.
According to data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, approximately 20% of new businesses fail during the first two years of being open, 45% during the first five years, and 65% during the first ten years. Only 25% of new businesses make it to 15 years or more.”
Here are five skills you need to be the 25% who make 15 years or more in business.
1. Mindset
Setting a growth mindset is one of the most important things about growing your business. One example of the growth mindset is how you see failure. Most people don’t go further because they are afraid of failing. But one lesson about it is that failure doesn’t define you. It’s something that you need to face, deal with and learn from it. Whether you win or learn. You failed when you quit.
Another mindset you should change is to think long-term. Big things take time to happen; they don’t happen overnight. So, to be successful, you need to be consistent and patient.
Also, every day you need to be better than yesterday. It would be best if you improved by 1% every day. Be a student forever because there always be something to learn and improve.
If you like to read, I recommend the book Mindset by Carol S. Dweck.
2. Sales
Sales are the heart of the company because if there’s no sale and no client, then there’s no money. Consequently, there’s no business. Any company has two paths; whether your company is growing or it is dying.
So, to get clients, you need to focus on building your branding, finding your ideal client (who you want to serve), creating a sales process, and investing in digital marketing and social media.
To sell more, you should discover what your clients’ problems are. So, ask your prospect what their pain points are so that you can provide the solution for them.
Be aware of the difference between value and price. Always focus on aggregate value to your customer before trying to sell anything to them.
Use tools such as CRM (Customer Relations Management) to keep track of your prospects.
Go to networking events and meet new people. Business is all about people because behind an EIN number, there’s an SSN.
3. Leadership
The next skill that you need to improve is leadership. To grow your business, you need to build a team so that the team will grow your business. You might have heard, “If you want to go fast, go alone; if you want to go far, go together.” This proverb shows the importance of having a good team.
So, to build a good team, you need to teach them, trust them, allow them to make mistakes, and learn from them. Someone with character and principles but no experience or technical knowledge is better than someone with a lot of technical expertise but no character.
To be a great leader, you must give constant feedback to your employees.
You give them directions and tell them how they are doing. Many employees think they are doing great, but their supervisor or manager (leader) believes the opposite. When the leader gives feedback once a year, the employee gets upset; consequently, their performance decreases.
Recognizing your employees is fundamental to having a good team. When an employee does something great, let everybody knows about it, this attitude will encourage other employees to do the same and increase the company’s standards.
Another characteristic of a good leader is to listen to your employees. By doing that, you may discover their goals, dreams, and fears. Helping them achieve their goals and overcome their fears will help you to keep talents in your company. Then, they will work as hard as you do to grow your business.
4. System
Your company needs to have an operational system. These systems are a set of processes and procedures that everybody in the company needs to follow so that you can work on the business, not in the business. This means you need to build your business without yourself. Everything needs to run even though you are not doing it by yourself. Here are three steps:
1. They must be simple so that anyone can follow them.
2. Make operations manuals – Document What, how and the result you get by following the processes.
3. Your job’s result must be consistent; This means your job must be standard. For example, it doesn’t matter which McDonald’s store we visit. Every store has the same process and results in the same sandwich. So, more than building the system is required. You need to improve them often. You can use a tool called PDCA. Plan, Do, Check, and Act.
First, plan the step-by-step process, and put it in a spreadsheet or Word file. After that, execute it for a while. It may be a week, a month, or a quarter.
Then, analyze the results and what went right and wrong. So, improve it to be more efficient.
By doing that, you will constantly be improving your system.
5. Finances
Finances are the reflection of every department’s behavior. Any movement we make in our company reflects the company’s cash. It measures how your company is doing.
Think about your car’s dashboard. It shows everything about your vehicle, how much gas it has if you need to change the oil, how many miles you have driven, etc. So, your business must have a dashboard as well. It will show the most important indicators of your company. This indicator comes from the financial statements.
For example, sales revenue, Cost of goods sold, contribution margin, net income, cash flow, etc. These numbers are essential to diagnose your business; based on them, you will know where you need to fix or improve something to go towards your goals. If you don’t have metrics, you can’t manage your company.
Another important thing you need to take care of is your company’s cash flow.
Cash flow means tracking every dollar that comes in and goes out of your business. If you don’t look at it closely, you may struggle to keep money in your company. You may have heard that “Cash is King.” So, pay attention to the “King” to grow your business.
So, remember you are the captain of the boat. You are responsible for taking the boat to the right path and getting to your destination.
You are the person to give direction to everybody in the company so they can achieve your employee’s and the company’s goals.
You need to think of the long-term because big thing takes time. But to achieve a long-term goal, you must do it now because we plant today, to get the harvest later.
Contact us if you want to keep more money in your business and be more profitable.
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