Have you ever imagined what your business would look like 2 or 3 years from today?
If you’ve passed the 2nd year of business, or have not crossed the 5th year yet (maybe you have but find yourself struggling to survive),?
1 in 2 small businesses with employees will not survive their 5th year in business. Here are the top 3 primary reasons for failure reported by CBInsights:
- 42% because there is no market for their products or services
- 29% because they run out of cash
- 23% because they don’t have the right team running the business
Regardless of the stats, the question remains: Why do so many businesses fail?
Here are the seven pillars of any business that has to be consistently managed to grow and succeed.
Because any business requires consistent improvement in all seven pillar areas, simultaneously, to compete and win.
Often, entrepreneurs have some core skill sets — perhaps they’re extraordinary at writing code or creating excellent products — but their marketing skills are low.
Or, their marketing skills might be world class, but their inability to make correct financial decisions destroys all they’ve built.
Poor decisions shape our business outcome.
7. Create healthy relationships:
with customers, suppliers and employees.
Satisfied employees and customers leave you when somebody gives them a better deal.
You want customers and employees that are loyal and forgiving when you mess-up, because you have built strong, trusting relationships in the past.
Know what the customer experience when doing business with your – customers don’t buy products or services. Customers buy experiences.
1. Knowing what your strengths are and creating an active business map.
Plan around your strengths and ensuring your weaknesses are covered.
The greatest difficulty for business leaders is that they’re not realistic about where the business is and what their capabilities are.
Denial is when they see themselves or their business better than it is, which keeps them operating but hinders them reaching their full potential or even destroys the company.
Knowing what business you’re really in, or what business you need to be in the long term is crucial.
Knowing the reason, you’re in the business and ultimately what you want to achieve with the business is significant for a business owner.
Then, you have to know your strengths and abilities and who you need to have with you in your business for long-term success.
You also need to know where you are currently on the roadmap to success.
What to do in your business is entirely controlled by where you are.
FORTIX Business Acceleration is designed for SME owners/key decision-makers with a vision and ideas for growth. Our THINK PLAN DO approach isn’t just a writing on the wall. It is manifested in the people, processes and systems as well as facilities at our premises at 34-50 Stirling Street, just 5 minutes from Perth Train Station. To understand more of our THINK PLAN DO approach, email us at [email protected].
2. Effective and innovative systems of delivery:
Finding a way to meet your client’s needs better than anybody else.
You need to understand with no uncertainty how your business makes money. Once you know how your business makes money then systemise your processes.
Start trying to work yourself out of a job in specific roles like customer support, website design and development, writing, or any other functions you could hire out.
Focus on repeatable methods and inclusive or tools that don’t require a person to operate them.
Then document the methods and process so new people you add to the team can get up and running quickly.
You won’t be needing to reinvent the wheel and train people every time.
Your business will only be as good as your systems. Efficient, simple systems reduce questions and clutter, paving the way for success.
The third pillar of business is world-class, strategic marketing. That just means having a process that gets as many people as possible to want to do business with you. Or, more importantly, attracting the ideal client you want,
4. Sales systems.
It’s great that your marketing strategy is attracting clients, but that doesn’t mean anything unless you produce continued growth and sales.
Consistently work on:
- Buying new clients,
- Increase transaction value,
- Increase the number of times the customer buys from you over time
5. The power of both financial and legal analysis.
Most SMEs, especially the younger ones think revenue.
If you aren’t able to understand and analyze the financial condition of your business on an ongoing basis, you’re like a pilot of a plane who doesn’t know how to read the gauges in front of him.
It’s easy to fly when there are clear skies (i.e., a good economy), but when you find yourself surrounded by storms and fog, if you can’t read the gauges, you’re going to crash. It’s only a matter of time.
6. Create consistent prosperity.
Most people think in order to have fantastic growth they have to make giant changes. If you understand the principle of working on your business instead of in your business you can grow your business consistently while others are taking wild risks that don’t always pay off.
