Tips for Growing a Successful Business

With today’s increasing demands of the economy, growing your business is going to be a challenge. Compared to 10 years ago, consumers are now more meticulous about the products and services to choose. Competition is stiffer and everyone just wants their place in the market. Despite these factors, one can still succeed by being steadfast and consistent. My mentor Larby Amirouche has taught me well, giving me things that I have to keep in mind. Below are some of the ideologies that you can apply to your business to stay profitable and relevant.

Keep Company Records:

This is the simplest way to avoid financial woes and legal issues. Keeping records of expenditures and revenue can help you identify if your business is successful or not. It can also be used as a reference point in making decisions for a huge purchase. Keeping past and present employee records is also very important in driving performance. Knowing your employees’ opportunities is vital in setting future goals for the company.

Create and Maintain Policies and Procedures:

Most human resource personnel refer to this as the employee bible. Invest in hiring a human resource person and lawyer to draft a solid company policies and procedures, and have it posted on an intranet site for the employees to refer to. Our boss Larby Amirouche has hired a HR manager to take care of the company policies. It will not only discipline employees but also make everyone aware that you care for them. Educating direct reports on the company’s PnP will help the workplace be more respectful and productive.

Focus on Your Customers:

Making profit is the primary goal of every company. However, being profitable should be the result of having a strong customer base. Knowing a customer’s wants and needs should be the undertaking of every business owner. Shaping up your marketing strategies to fit the current trend is a great recipe for success.

Measure Your Success:

Every company should establish a set of Key Performance Indicators to measure success. There are a couple of KPIs that you can measure like sales margin, revenue rate, and conversion rate. These can be used as numeric indicators that can be used to define the success of your campaigns. Furthermore, you can optimize them based on trends and customers’ behavior to get a better understanding of how far you have come.

Research About Risks and Rewards

Going through business plans is always a thrilling conquest especially if you are going through it for the first time. It’s always an exciting time when plans take shape, and goals are gradually met. However, these things don’t always turn out perfectly. Our CEO Larby Amirouche would always tell us to weigh the consequences of our actions.

There are times when a company would struggle, and worst, be forced to close down. That is why we need to research about the risks and rewards of our action plan. Moreso for the risks as it can spell doom for your business. Reading about other companies who have been through it would be very helpful. These learning will help us identify what to undertake, and what to set aside.

Be Creative:

We’ve always concluded that everything has been done before. That all of the innovation has already been done, and all we can do now is recycle them. This is partly correct depending on how you see things from a corporate perspective but there are still heaps of ideas out there that are left untap. Who would’ve thought that Youtube would be the empire that it is now? That billions of people would be reliant on social media for their communication and entertainment needs? 20 years ago, no, 15 years ago, we wouldn’t have imagined it this way. What might have come across as a simple idea now drives a big part of the world’s revenue. It was unreasonable, but creative minds made it possible.

Being creative also means always exploring the market and the industry you are working in. Start implementing blue-ocean thinking to your brainstorming processes. This strategy will allow you to explore a part of your market that no one else has noticed before. You can come up with a completely new idea, which is not implemented by anyone else and later it can turn into your unique way of differentiation. Even if finding your blue ocean market is not an easy thing to do and requires a lot of creativity, once you do it, it will help to outperform your competitors in your own unique way.

 

Know Your Competitors:

Before you launch your business, you have to make sure that you are aware of the current landscape of your products and services. Identify your target market and investigate what they clamor for. Know what other companies are doing, and try to match what they have to offer. This is very important because if you neglect this, it can potentially break your business. If you do this diligently, it can be your ticket to success. As the old saying goes – knowing is half the battle.

Be Firm and Decisive:

Be ready to be faced with tough situations. As a business owner, your decision-making skills will play a vital role in your company’s success. Roll well-thought out plans, and be clear with what needs to be done. If you cannot decide on certain things, ask someone who has been there like your mentor, or business partner. Your employees will follow your footprints so having a solid, comprehensive plan is fundamental to your growth and success.

Be Patient:

There are typically 5 cycles in the life of a business – introduction, growth, expansion, maturity and decline. Each of these represent the phases of a business. The success of it is determined by how long it can stay into maturity before it declines. It is very important to be patient during these stages to remain profitable. Go out to see what’s in the market and re-calibrate your goals regularly based on what you see.

You can never go wrong with these tips in mind. Businessman Larby Amirouche has been successful by going through these tips. Read them thoroughly and take in what works for you. Most importantly, follow your passion and be happy doing it.