Have you ever wondered…
“Why do some businesses blow up with growth while others struggle just to pay the bills?”
The key that makes the difference is the drivers behind those growing businesses.
There are a handful of drivers that make the difference between a stable and growing business, and one that is wobbling along. If applied to your business, they will help you develop rapid, stable growth.
Driver #1: A Clearly Defined Niche
This is absolutely paramount and impossible to live without.
If you are interchangeable with every other company that provides what you provide, your clients are extremely unlikely to buy from you. Why? Because now you’re a commodity, something to be looked at in terms of bartering and finding the lowest price. And commodities don’t make enough money to stay in business long term. Commodities don’t stand out, so they don’t make enough money to create rapid growth.
To create rapid growth, you need a clear marketplace niche. In other words, you need to know exactly what kind of people you’re targeting with your product/service and who you’re not.
Driver #2: Proper Pricing
One of the greatest inhibitors to creating rapid growth is improper pricing.
Why? Because when you price yourself too low, you don’t have money to accomplish imperative activities like:
Paying Yourself
Paying a Team to Help You
Purchasing Product Parts
Paying Service Providers
Poor pricing issues relate to the concept of being a commodity. When you are only in the running for someone’s business because you’re a low-price option, you’re setting yourself up for failure. If you can’t pay yourself or your team to prevent exhaustion and wearing thin, motivation and quality deteriorates.
However, if you give your price enough padding to have profit margins while still paying yourself and your team, you can motivate yourself and your team. People get excited about working in your company, and quality rises to the point that growth accelerates.
The key is that, in order to price yourself properly, you have to be able to communicate WHY you’re worth the higher price point through your marketing.
Driver #3: Solid Sales Strategies
This one goes beyond knocking on every door on the block or attending every event until someone buys.
I’m talking about Sales Strategies, plural. Not a sales strategy. It’s all about having different things going on all at once. Not just having a website that is going to convert sales, but also having projects in motion like sales teams actively recruiting additional clients. When you only have one avenue for sales to come in, you’re putting yourself in a precarious position. It’s like having a chair with only one leg. Knock the one leg out, the whole chair falls down. But when your chair has more than three legs, knocking one of the legs out doesn’t send it crashing to the ground.
When you have three or four sales strategies going on, you have sales continuing to come in even if one of them breaks down for a bit.
Driver #4: A Well Developed Brand
First off, you need to know that a brand is different from a marketing strategy. (If you want info on marketing strategies, check out my other article here)
A brand is what you are known for. It is what people think of when they think about your company. It is the emotions that run through their mind and the words they associate with your company.
Your brand is built on everything you do in marketing AND in fulfillment:
The messages you send out
The colors of your company
The tone of your advertisements
The way you communicate your values
The list goes on. But my point is that everything you do must be intentional and planned out.
For example, if you want to communicate that you have a luxury brand, you’re going to have to choose luxury colors for your brand. You’re going to have to ensure you have an elegant feeling and looking website that’s easy to use. You’re going to have to ensure that everything your company does in the public eye drips with a feeling of luxury. Everything you do is going to have to clearly communicate luxury.
Often this requires hiring someone to come in and help you design a brand, but that’s ok! Because a well-designed brand is invaluable for taking you out of the commodity bin and creating rapid growth.
Driver #5: A Team
Not just people working for you, you need a team.
Rapid growth companies don't happen with one person. I know, I tried it for three years: it didn’t work very well.
My company started growing rapidly when I started to rely on a team to support me and help me out. And the difference between a team and a group of people just working for you, is that a team is a cohesive group of people who are all driving towards the same goal. They all have different skills and values that they bring to the table, but they’re all willing to acknowledge that they need each other to achieve the greater vision of the business.
A team enables you to form a business that is working towards a vision greater than all the people involved could accomplish on their own.
Driver #6: A Strong Leader with a Clearly Communicated Vision
And every strong leader will have a clear vision that they communicate well.
One of the most interesting issues I’ve found in so many companies lies with vision communications. When I speak with employees and ask what the goal is, they often respond with “Well, to grow?” but they have no idea what that looks like. They have no idea where the company is going, or what their role will be ultimately.
The issue is this creates a lack of clarity which creates hesitation and resistance in employees and team members, even if it’s subconscious. They may all be following the leader, but unless they know where they’re going you’ll have a hard time getting them excited and hopping eagerly onboard with growth strategies.
Communicate where you’re going and what that will look like for them, and you’ll have a much easier time getting eager involvement and excitement for growth.
Rapid growth comes down to these key areas that drive your business.
If you can’t say that you have all of these drivers in place, maybe it’s time to sit back and look at how you can develop them in your business. Because with them, you can create rapid growth even in unstable and shifting economies.