How to plan and successfully grow your business? What is the “trick” to growing in times of crisis like the one we are experiencing?
In this post, we answer these and other questions to help you create a resilient business growth plan.
Business growth strategies are a guide to business transformation. They must include the entire sequence of steps that will be taken to change the size of the business. In addition, they must include the different possibilities depending on the circumstances of the environment.
Because the truth is that, when planning the growth of your company , you may be influenced by several factors: fear of changes and the effects they may have, lack of knowledge about colombia email list how to do it, the investment required to execute it... To overcome these obstacles, the first step involves drawing up a growth plan .
A growth plan is a document that basically contains your company's growth objectives and the strategies to follow. The plan can be modified over time taking into account circumstances or developments in the market.
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Steps to plan and grow your business
There comes a time when your company needs to grow. To do so in an efficient and orderly manner, you will have to follow a series of steps such as those we propose below:
1. Set growth goals
The first step in your growth plan is to set the objectives you want to achieve in the short, medium and long term, both in your company and in each department. These objectives can be, for example, the following:
In addition, for your objective to be effective, it must meet a series of requirements :
Be specific . For example, you might think about what percentage increase in sales you want to achieve.
Be possible . It may be a challenge, but it must be realistic.
Be measurable . At any given time, progress towards the goal should be measurable.
Have a deadline . In the example, this would be the time you think you need to reach your sales goal.
2. Find the right business growth strategies
Once you have clear objectives to achieve, you will have to set business growth strategies and, based on them, the actions to be taken to achieve them. For example, if you want to attract new clients, you will have to ask and answer questions such as:
However, when it comes to strategy, consistency is essential . You can't expect everything to always go according to plan. Therefore, it is essential that plans are balanced, that they maintain a balance and flexibility across all departments and aspects of your business.
To achieve this, the most logical thing is to make decisions based on data . A good idea is to have comprehensive tools to manage them, such as Sage 50. Accounting, invoicing, treasury, purchases, sales, inventories... Everything has to be aligned in the direction of business growth strategies and, to do so, these have to be designed according to the reality of the business.
Data, when processed coherently, is the best guide on the path to business growth.
3. Find out the investment you need to grow
The first thing you will need to analyze to know what investment you need for your growth project is your accounting . You will get a true picture of the company's situation through the accounting data.
In addition, you will need to take a financial approach. This will require you to transfer cash flow forecasts (receipts, payments) into your plans. In some cases, you will adjust accounting information to translate it into financial 'language'. In others, you will need to make projections based on all kinds of data : commercial, production processes, human team qualities, economic environment, competition, etc.
