5 steps to relighting the fire of growth in your business

If your company growth has plateaued and you’re struggling to get the business to the next level, then here are five steps that will help you to reignite the flames of growth within your business.

Step 1: Fan the fire not the smoke

Figure out the root of why the growth has stalled.

Ask “why” about everything. Talk to your workforce to gain a holistic view of how the company is going and root cause of why things have slowed down.

Also ask your current customers about their experience with you.

This will give you a clearer idea of where your focus should be. Do you need to improve your customer service quality, or focus on innovation and product development? Do not guess, find out!

Step 2: Can you picture the bonfire?

A strong vision for your business helps guide your employees towards tasks that make sense for the company’s overall success.

Evaluate your vision and check whether it is still relevant to you and your employees. If so, then does everyone in your organisation have real motivation for achieving it? If not, talk to your team and revaluate the vision so that it provides a sufficient challenge to achieve more, while illuminating a bright future.

Write down your vision. Think about your personal goals first. Most successful companies are those where the business goals are working towards helping the business owner achieve their personal goals. Use this Personal Goals Template if you need a structure.

Step 3: Check you have the right fuel

Different stages of growth in your business will require different resources; different individuals with different talents.

During the early stages you will need to look for entrepreneurial individuals, however, as your company grows, different types of personalities and individuals are needed.

When you experience a slow-down in growth, evaluate the team members and their current roles. Consider running a DiSC assessment to understand their working style and strengths.

Consider what kind of strengths are needed and if you are missing some, then acquire new people to fill those. Our clients use The 4-Hour Recruitment Process.

Step 4: Create a proper structure

When companies first start, one of their tools to success is the ability to pivot and adapt. However, if you want to grow, you will need to re-evaluate your organisational structure.

If your organisational structure currently seats yourself – the business owner – in more than one critical position in the company, then you are facing a structure that is inhibiting growth.

As your business gets larger, you will need a structured and clear organisational model in order to allow processes to flow effectively. This allows each employee to have clearly defined roles and accountabilities, so they can perform effectively and understand how they fit into the larger picture.

Step 5: Make sure you keep watch on your fire

Testing, measuring, tracking and reporting. These are critical for business growth; I’ve rarely seen a business grow to great heights without a clear tracking system in place.

Sometimes the reason a business is not growing is because there isn’t a system in place to measure that growth.

As the manager and leader of the business, it is down to you to consider and define the Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) for your employees. What is the primary metric that determines their performance? How are you tracking this?

You can then get a clearer picture of who is in the right roles, and where there is room for growth – and so you can adjust your business growth strategies to be aligned with the metrics where your company is currently weakest.

That fiery growth that you experienced in the initial stages of your business may begin to wane. So get it back by taking these five steps and you’ll reignite the flames of growth.

By Shweta Jhajharia of The London Coaching Group