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Seven Drivers to Business Growth
06/07/2008 - By Natalie van Veen
The fastest growing businesses aren’t necessarily the cheapest, the biggest or those with the highest turnover.
What these businesses have in common are outstanding products and services, combined with excellent sales and marketing and good management skills. None of this is revolutionary but it does take hard work and discipline to put into practise.
By offering an exclusive line of products, better service or the perception of higher quality, you can always keep your customers coming back, without having to undercut your competitors.
Business Driver – Quality of Goods and Services
What you need to do: Carve a Niche
It might seem obvious that the most successful businesses are the ones with the best products – until you think of all the businesses that don’t sell on quality.
By selling on quality, instead of price, range or something else, you can stand out from the pack and carve out your own competitive niche. Even better, you can target the most profitable customers and charge accordingly.
To see this idea in action, look no further than your local shopping centre. There you can find David Jones (selling on quality), Kmart (selling on price) and Myer (somewhere in the middle). And which has proven the most successful? David Jones earning shareholders a return of 33% a year over the last five years.
Business Driver 2 – Marketing
What you need to do - Generate Leads
Once you’ve carved out a niche, you can tailor your marketing to generate leads from your targeted customer group. The trick is to try a variety of marketing techniques, from direct mail to Google ads, and carefully track the effectiveness of each approach.
Often the simplest methods are the most effective – for example, creating a referral program and encouraging your satisfied customers to recommend you to their friends.
Business Driver 3 – Sales
What you need to do – Convert those leads
Having captured those leads, you need to convert them into sales. Again, the little things can make all the difference.
Business Driver 4 – Customer Service
What you can do – Keep them coming back
Too many business owners focus on attracting new customers while forgetting about those they already have. There’s no point generating leads if your customers are walking out the back door, it’s like turning on the tap without putting in the plug.
This means you need to get the basics of delivery and customer service right to keep earning repeat sales from your existing customers.
Business Driver 5 – Cash flow
What you need to do – Don’t go broke!
Rapid growth can put your business under severe financial strain, with expenses continually increasing as you ramp up to fulfil new business.
Unless you run a strictly cash business, a cash flow gap can easily develop while you’re waiting to get paid for those sales. That’s why you need to stay on top of accounts receivable, and always make sure that you have a cash reserve in place.
Business Driver 6 – Operational efficiency
What you need to do – Put systems in place
Efficient systems not only help you manage cash flow, they also boost your profit margins by keeping costs down. And they’re essential to maintaining consistent and high-quality delivery.
Business Driver 7 – Value for Money
What you need to do – Get your pricing right
Pricing only just sneaks into the top seven – and even then, it’s not cost, but value that is the most important factor.
The trick here is to always make sure that your customers feel they’re getting better value for money, even when you’re charging a premium over your competitors.
