“We need more growth!”
I hear these words every day. Growth, sales, more revenue – every day.
Sound familiar?
The push for sales growth is admirable. But the common disconnect with this thinking leads to my next question. Is the business ready to grow? Are systems, processes, and people in place to allow the business to scale without tripping over itself? Does your team know their goals within the organization and have clarity on what they need to achieve to be successful?
A thorough understanding of the business you’re attempting to build and long terms goals are crucial. But the business must have the execution and contingency plans in place to work in lockstep with the increased stress on an organization as it grows. Far too often the business will charge forward without stopping to think about being ready to accommodate growth.
I’m not advocating to stop pushing for growth when it makes sense within an organization, but we have to look at what systems and processes are in place to help that company achieve ultimate success. For example, do you have an inventory management system in place that will allow your point-of-sale to speak with your accounting software to avoid needless manual data entry or error as systems are speaking with each other? How do you handle multiple sales channels pulling from the same inventory stock? Is it that tracked manually in a spreadsheet (gasp!), or is software in place to help automate this process? Are your operations clearly defined with manuals and workflows to allow for efficient and cost-effective the fulfillment of product? Is your team well trained to be able to handle routine customer service and sales questions without having to constantly go upstream to get those answers? How does your sales team track all of their customer relationships? Are you able to see where they stand in real-time with their sales goals? Where is each prospect or contact in the sales funnel? And lastly, have you communicated the business growth goals with your team so everyone is aware of their annual, quarterly, monthly, weekly, and daily goals?
These are just a few example areas that you must assess before letting the clutch out and driving growth. Successful growth comes from great planning. Get your team and organization on track to grow with a strong business foundation.
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Brad Kreutz is an Advisor for small business owners with Cultivate. Brad has a passion for translating business goals into strategy. Pulling from more than 17 years of experience as a 4x co-founder/owner, Brad brings an outside perspective to help business owners overcome their challenges, create a scalable platform, and grow their business.
