Building dreams with small businesses

Whether you’re thinking about starting up your own business, or you’re already established and are starting to explore your growth potential, there’s every chance that you’re going to forge your own path in the world of business[ST2]. Setting up a business that can deliver you financial independence might sound like a dream, and indeed the majority of new business owners cited“being your own boss” as their primary motivator. It’s a dream that really can come true, though!

Whether it be supporting in the fight against the global COVID-19 pandemic, or keeping absolutely up-to-the-minute on the latest technological advances, there are a wide range of opportunities to explore business growth in 2020. In the US, small businesses amount to 99.9% of all of the companies in the country, and there are an estimated 31 million [ST3] of them. Whether you aim to grow your small business to one with tens or even hundreds of staff, or if
your ambitions are somewhat loftier and you plan to breach the 0.1%, it’s critical to have a business growth strategy, and a key part of that is knowing your end goal, your ambition; your business’ dream.

Following the advice of Simon Sinek’s memorable “Start with Why” TED Talk[ST4], your company’s mission should shape your leadership and will help you to focus your business growth strategy on exactly what you aim to achieve. If your goal is to become a world-beating e-commerce platform, as much as you should have this in mind when considering developers and branding, you should keep it in mind when thinking about how you’ll grow from your first $1 to your first $50bn, from your first interview for a member of your team, to your 50th executive board briefing, and at every step along the way.

Equally, if your goal is to operate as a sole trader and make enough money to earn yourself an average income, then the same applies (except your team might only comprise one person, and you might want to divide that $50bn by around 500,000). Your mission might also involve having enough free time to spend with your family, or it might involve buying a holiday home in each continent. In any of these cases, and for anything between the two, it’s important to build a
business growth strategy to help you get there. Not only this, it’s important that your business growth strategy is focused on your goals; your mission and your business growth plan should always work in harmony.

Before any of that, let’s dial it back and look at the first stages of building your dream. Fix a coffee – that’s right, we’re talking admin. Whether you are planning to start up a business, or you already have one established, I’m sure there’s admin that you’ve been putting off, but it’s really important to get this done, and get it done soon. However complicated or simple it is to set up a business where you’re based, it’s a necessary evil. The sooner you get this out of the way, the sooner you can start focusing on the “real” experience of running your business (and yes, some of this is admin, too). You’ll also be able to start looking at how you can nurture your dream and grow it into a successful business.

A key part of your business growth strategy might be reducing waste; your business might have fantastic untapped growth potential, but it’s all tied up in manual administrative duties, manual labor, or outdated systems and processes. Your business growth plan might well highlight that the best thing you can do for your business, is to take a step back from the “doing” for a week or two. Look at how you’re doing it and simplifying that; it might be involving a Continuous
Improvement expert to do that for you. This is another opportunity to start with “why” – throughout your career, it’s important to consider why you’re doing things a certain way – if the process can be improved if the task can be done differently, and if quality can be improved as a result, it’s worth looking at in more depth. Never stop asking “why”.

Either of the two elements mentioned above might mean that part of your business growth plan involves staffing, and it’s really important to keep this in mind. You shouldn’t only be building your own dreams with your business, you should be hiring like-minded people with like-minded dreams. You can spend your whole career focused on growing your business, but without the right team, you risk pulling in different directions and losing focus. Temporary staff and freelance consultants might seem like a useful idea, but they might not share your vision, but full-time staff might be too much of an investment at the moment – it’s important to understand what the right thing to do is, and when it’s the right time to do it.

With a business growth plan, you will be able to drive your business’ growth, but you need to make sure that, before any of that, you know what you’re doing, and you know what you’re selling. You can build your small business dream into a reality, but you need to make sure you’re ready to commit to it, too. That means not giving up, it means having the tenacity to act on every element of your business growth plan, and it means having the drive to see everything through to its fruition. Most importantly it means keeping in mind your dream and making sure that you’re doing whatever you reasonably can to achieve it.

Whatever your dream, Booming Businesses can help you to discover what you need to grow. Get in touch to find out how.