The secret of fast growth companies is to consistently have those working with you looking for ideas for business improvement, efficiency gains, price reductions and improvements in service – this will lead to higher customer retention rates, profitable gains and topline sales increases. Focus always on developing a culture of continual improvement to maximise and realise your growth potential.
Here are the top ten things that you need to know but will never learn in Business School.
- The People Pain never goes away but experience makes change manageable. Prioritise putting together a team of ‘A-Players’;
- Timetabling discipline around financial focus and maximising the sales hours of each day are imperative to business success. Book diary time for both;
- Reward people according to what they want, not according to what you think they want. So ask them!
- Internal and external training and education build cultural strengths that are priceless. If you build in mechanisms to share learning, example – Top Ten learning points I will action;
- Relentlessly pruning the bottom 20 per cent of your customer base builds business value. Client retention and penetration are powerful assets, avoid leaky bucket syndrome;
- Mapping the customer touch points and perfect order process should be a continual system of review. Progressive improvement in your culture is priceless;
- Reports aren’t always utilised. If the people in your business don’t know why they do something, tell them to stop doing it – it probably won’t be missed;
- Make every prioritisation decision, based on a sense check against your vision, value and profitability. ALWAYS!
- Say ‘No’ much more than ‘Yes’ to anything that doesn’t fit the business focus. There are 24 hours in a global day, use every one profitably; and
- Exiting does not mean you have to sell the business. An exit sale is not the only option, but you must develop a fast growing profitable business in order to open up choices based around your asset.
Lara Morgan is an entrepreneur and founder of Company Shortcuts.
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