5 Instant and High Impact Keys to Growing Your Business
My six years of working with entrepreneurs has taught me how to quickly grow one’s business. I’ve combined that wealth of information with my own entrepreneurial lessons to give you five strategic keys to growing your business.
Key #1: Remove two major success blockers
Below are two questions that if left unanswered will limit your level of success. By taking the time to reflect on each question and then act upon your insights, you will avoid wasting your time, energy and money.
1. How much money do you want to make and why?
2. What are potential obstacles preventing you from hitting your financial targets?
The most successful entrepreneurs establish a financial target AND they know the link between that financial goal and their happiness. Your business growth will be limited without a compelling motivator(s) to keep you focused and disciplined. Motivators often include the following: maintain the freedom of being one’s own boss; desire to buy a home; need to pay off debt or fund college tuition; make a down payment on a car or take a dream vacation.
Secondly, you must be able to identify potential obstacles to your success or you’ll get easily sidetracked once your challenges begin to inevitably surface.
For example: You discover that you know very little about how to network effectively. As a result, you may have missed out on opportunities to develop strategic alliances or even worse, you may have alienated others with insufficient networking skills. This is a common occurrence and one that I experienced. After a fellow networker and I exchanged greetings, she began to “sell” me on all the reasons why I should buy her health product (which I already owned) and then moved on without asking about my business. That obstacle as well as others must be addressed to prevent losing out on business opportunities.
The key to your growth is to anticipate potential roadblocks to your success and take the necessary action to avoid or hurdle them as quickly as possible.
Key #2: Budget your time wisely.
As an entrepreneur you probably love being your own boss and experiencing that sweet freedom to do what you want when you want. What is a blessing, however, can turn into a curse as you have no one holding you accountable to being efficient and effective with your time.
Managing your freedom and your time requires discipline and a plan for each day. You will have to resist the temptation to show up late in your pajamas to your morning appointment with your laptop. An occasional late appearance or distraction will not greatly affect your productivity. However, minutes do have an uncanny knack of adding up into wasted hours over a period of time.
Key #3: Market your solution, NOT your product or service
One of the most common marketing mistakes is not addressing how your product and/or service will eliminate current pain; avoid future discomfort or fulfill a desired need.
My initial marketing strategy was to sell “coaching services” by describing the power of the coaching process. I neglected to link it to the problems or desires of my ideal clients. I once heard someone selling her health product by describing (with charts) how it’s made and the number of years it took to develop. As it was an anti-aging product, it would have been much more persuasive to tell me how much better I’d look at my next high school reunion! Everyone has a problem or a desired need and it’s important to move our ideal clients closer to their pleasure or away from their pain as part of our solution.
Key #4: Match your skills, abilities and passions to your job.
I cannot stress enough the importance of this key as I have seen too many people leave a business or job because they were: A) NOT well matched to the job requirements or B) were not willing to learn the skills required for success.
I learned this lesson the hard way when I took a job where my primary responsibilities were to order food for students; locate available classroom space; and hunt down people who had not turned in required forms. It was a total mismatch of my talents, skills and passions and I began to dread going to my job. I eventually and happily left that position.
Key #5: Learn how to communicate effectively with the four personality types.
A key entrepreneurial skill is learning how to gain trust and build relationships by communicating persuasively. There is not a “one size fits all” approach to effective communication.
Years of research have validated that behavioral characteristics can be grouped together into four styles. The most effective way to influence others or establish credibility is to adapt to each person’s behavioral style.
I once observed an entrepreneur selling her product by sharing the names of celebrities who had bought the product. Though this approach may appeal to one personality type it will not appeal to the other three types. It is critical to your success to be able to recognize personality types and then vary your language and sales presentation to build credibility and trust with all four types. If this is an area of growth, I recommend taking the DISC Personality Inventory which gives you the information needed to assess yourself and others along with concrete examples of what to say and what not to say to increase your influence (and sales).
Whichever keys you select to grow and sustain your business, it is vitally important that you execute each one well and consistently. You will find your business flourishing in direct proportion to how well you water it each and every day with these five growth-producing ingredients.
