grow
hen you start a small business you spend a lot of time getting the product or service right, thinking “this is the hard part, when this is perfect it will be easier.” Hmmm, sorry to break it to you but it’s
just the beginning. In fact that’s the fun stuff, your happy place, its what you know and where you are comfortable but it’s not the part that will grow your business.
To grow you business you need a strategy to get you there. Most people know that, they just don’t know where or how to start. What does that even mean for a small business you started in your spare room? Do you really need a strategy? You might not be looking to make megabuck bucks and just want to supplement your family income or afford nice holidays - that’s totally fine but you want to maximise the results and minimise the time and effort you spend right?
I work with many businesses small, medium and very small. The size actually doesn’t matter
because the problems are the same for all of them and I’m sure you can apply at least one of them to your business.
● They want more customers
● They don’t know how to get them
● They are overwhelmed with everything they
need to do to grow their business
● They are working really hard and are not
making much progress
● They get tired, frustrated and disheartened
I can’t help you with all of these in this one article but I can tell you what makes one business
more successful than another - being focused and taking action. The businesses that get
focused, stay on track and work through action steps are 100% more likely to succeed and grow than those still thinking about it.
So how do you get focused and take action?
Create a very simple plan.
Don’t over complicate this, most people don’t stick to plans that are just too hard; Keep it realistic around your time, resources and other commitments and it shouldn’t be more than one page.
1. What is your business goal for the year? How
are you going to get there? How are you going to do that? Eg Increase sales by 20%, Online marketing and markets, set up website, set up social media schedule. Register for upcoming markets, prepare market display
2. Break this down into monthly steps. What do
you need to do each month to get you closer to your goal? Fill this out at the beginning of each month
3. Break your monthly steps in to weekly ones. Fill
this out at the beginning of each week
They are your action steps, we love to do lists so this part is easy and it’s such a great feeling when you have it written down and planned out. It’s the staying focused that’s the tricky bit.
We start all fired up with the best of intentions...but we get distracted or something comes up and we’re off track and do we really need the plan anyway and we’ll get back to that
soon...Nek Minnit...
Get focused
and take action to
w
By Iona Elwood-Smith
your
business
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