Your business may be running, but is it growing? I have often found myself around businesses that continue to keep going but have not grown. As a leader and an owner, you need to start pushing your business.
Pushing the output of your business will improve the business as a whole and also help you understand your business and what makes it tick.
Business owners sometimes find themselves stuck and here are three reasons I found that completely stops a business in its tracks:
● Doing urgent things rather than important things – You are spending time on things that are taking your focus off the big picture. If you keep doing urgent things, there will be no time for the important things.
● Don’t know how your business runs – Lack of business management. Are you effectively using each team and does that team have the right people?
● Not sure what you are measuring – The business is running, but what do the results mean? This affects the core of the business and a lack of direction in vision and results keeps you distracted and again stops you from focusing on the important things.
Over the last year, I really started pushing my business, resulting in new and improved sites and an office full of motivated individuals. The three things that initiated the growth for us were:
Hiring
Over the last year, we doubled the number of employees we have. Increasing the number of employees you have is a key indication that your business is growing. This is a process I take quite personally: we are where we are today because of the determination of each individual.
My number one consideration when hiring is work culture. Is this person going to have the same drive and motivation as the rest of your crew? It doesn’t matter if you hire the best writer or developer in the world, your business won’t grow if that person is hindering the rest of your team. If you build your team based on your work culture and values it helps the whole business grow, not just one part.
Defining your work
Every team and employee in your business contributes to delivering value to the business. I realized in order to increase output I needed to define each part of the business as a team.
Then you need to identify what each team will do to impact your business as a whole. Communicating this responsibility to your team and where they fit in the big picture will keep your employees focused on how they contribute to the business.
Now that you have a team, motivate them with a target and a deadline. The target needs to be realistic, worthwhile, and something that will have a positive impact on the business. If each team in your business sets out to complete this goal, you will be scaling all areas of your business.
Monitoring
Once you have the right people and you have the right targets, it is your job as a leader to make sure that everyone is on point.
Set aside time to review the team – what have they accomplished? Should they be producing more work? Look at what is slowing them down or what is working well and improve it!.
After the team has been assembled and are working away find out where are they excelling. Are they supporting other parts of the business as a result of their work? Find ways you can increase the output of each team based on their feedback and performance.
Even though my business was running, I took the time to look at each role and how they contribute to the business. I took action and tweaked small parts of the business to have a bigger impact. These actions not only achieved my set goals but exceeded them.
Fred Schebesta is the director of Finder.com.au
