The Signs of Business

Rick Franz - Optimal Business Solutions in Evansville, Indiana

Guest post by Rick Franz. Rick Franz is the owner of Optimal Business Solutions, a business consulting firm based in Evansville, Indiana, serving customers all over North America.

In the first installment of this series, we reviewed the high incidence (67% in the first three years) of new entrepreneurial startups that fail, why they fail, and what to do to avoid being a new business startup casualty. A quick recap shows the primary reasons for failure include:

1. Lack of experience or knowledge of the business
2. Insufficient capital
3. Poor location

These pitfalls can be avoided by following the “Small Business Success Formula”:
P.O.A.C. = Planning, Organizing, Actuating and Controlling.

Doing your homework up front can save you a lot of time, money and broken dreams. Simply having a good idea and some available funding is not enough to ensure you will succeed in any venture. Having a comprehensive plan before you start will not only address the major reasons for new start up failure, but will position you well to grow your business in the future. So . . . let’s assume you made it through those challenging first years and now have an encore challenge – what do I do next? How do I take my business to the next level?

The challenges of growing your business are very similar to those you faced when you first started thinking through your initial business plan. You now know how to survive, have established a capital base that lets you sleep at night and have established a market reputation so that your customers know where you are or how to reach you. The simple answer to How to Grow My Business is this:
The cost to grow my business is at least what it took to get this far – and then some more.

The same level of detailed planning, hard work and focus that served you well in starting up your business will be what is needed for you to take your business to the next level. But wait – it actually takes a little bit more. To understand how much more, there are a couple of caveats that you should be aware of:

Inertia.

Know that in order to even maintain current position, you must be aware of and ready to act to changes in the market place or even within your organization (had any turnover lately?). Inertia is that incredibly powerful force which sometimes convinces us that problems solve themselves or that no one else could out-compete me in my own market. Overcoming inertia in growing your business will require that you think “outside the box” in examining what else is possible. New opportunities abound if you are open to recognizing them.

Limited Resources.

Have any idea where you spend most of your time? Do you know where your employees spend most of their time? Is it spent on high priority activities that have a high likelihood of a large return? Take the time to examine how your resources are deployed – make sure you have the right people doing the right things for the right reasons. It will not only make you more profitable, it will normally free up resources needed to attack new or different market segments.

Goals.

Without a doubt, the single most effective marshaling technique to moving forward is to know where you want to go and how you are going to get there. Goals start with a dream, become tangible through strategic planning, grow with tactical implementation and show results for the forward thinker. If every entrepreneur spent as much time planning how they were going to successfully open and grow their business as they do when planning for vacation, the world would have far more success stories and successful entrepreneurs.

Conclusion

So what did you learn from these two articles? Do you have what it takes to be a successful new business owner? Are you ready to grow your business? Follow the old adage – Plan to Succeed and Follow the Plan. There are many well qualified Consultants and Business Coaches out there to help you. Give one a call and see if they can help you formulate your Plan for Success!

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