Are you unintentionally limiting the growth of your business?
While we always want the best for our own business, sometimes we can actually unintentionally limit the growth and expansion of it. Through my experience working in SME’s over the last 20 years, I found that across various industries, the same challenges emerged. Regardless of whether it was a service or product-based business, whether it had employees or contractors… the challenges were the same.
The challenges were the signs of a business struggling to grow. Growing pains. Now let’s be clear, there is always a little discomfort with growth, but this was more than that. The challenges that presented in these businesses were cumulative and were in fact a direct result of the actions and in-actions of the business owners.
What you do directly impacts the potential growth of your business. The same can be said for what you don’t do.
I’d like to share with you a tool that can help you identify when you might be “getting in the way” of your business growth: 8 Signs That Your Business Growth is Being Limited. If you can identify with some of these scenarios, then…
You will know that there are more growth opportunities for your business.
You will know that you must make a few changes,and
You will know where to start.
Here are the 8 Signs:
1. You’re spending most of your time fighting fires
There’s often last-minute emergencies to handle, you might be behind on deadlines and you don’t seem to get a chance to come up for air. You know this is not sustainable but you don’t know how to get out of this loop. It can be chaotic at times and you may feel overwhelmed and out of your depth.
2. You don’t have as much time to spend working ON your business as you’d like
You may not have a lot of fires to put out, but you feel that you aren’t able to spend much time working ON your business. You’re so busy working IN your business in what we call the “day to day” and there’s not enough time for planning and really creating a path for where you want your business to go. You may feel a bit out of control, disempowered about what you can do.
3. You have not brought to market a new product or service within the last few years
New products and services bring in more sales and new customers. They keep your product/service fresh and current, they keep you competitive and help your business to grow. If you haven’t created a new product or service recently, it’s a sign that your business is being limited.
4. You accept that your business will look about the same this time next year
If you think you’ll be doing about the same next year as you have done this year, then this is a sign that your business is being limited. You are not trying to grow. This could be because you think you cannot handle any more things to do, that you’re at your maximum. It could be because you believe that growing your business will affect how much you have to work and you don’t want to change that. However, often there are many way to grow your business without impacting your working hours.
5. You avoid using technology
Technology and social media are readily accessible and can be great tools to grow your businessand your influence. If you are shying away from technology because you don’t understand it, you’re scared of it or your feel it’s just not you… this is limiting opportunities to grow yourself and your business.
6. You don’t market your businessWhen you started your business and you were hungry for clients, you were hot on the marketing trail. But now that you have a steady stream of clients, are established and you’re busy, you feel you don’t have time for marketing. You start to think it’s not that important anymore anyway, after all you’re doing fine.
7. Business performance is stagnatingYou may have more sales but costs have also increased or you seem to have hit a ceiling and can’t seem to increase your business revenue. The numbers ALWAYS point towards the truth. They will always tell you what’s going on. Stagnating numbers= stagnating business
8. You do not have a system for your business tasks or operations
Efficiency in a business is essential, especially as a solopreneur or small business owner. If you have no systems you are far from operating at maximum efficiency and there is no way you can grow without getting busier. Systems create efficiency and consistent outcomes which frees up your time and provides a base for your to grow your business sustainably.