Tips and Business Growth Strategies to Achieve Success in 2019
20th Feb , 2019
Using feedback from businesses in Australia and around the world early in 2019, International Business Mentors has put together a number of tips and business growth strategies that you should consider as a focus for the rest of 2019.
Our business mentors and business coaches support many businesses across a wide range of industry sectors. They support individuals with all strategic requirements and particularly with their business growth challenges.
Issues raised by our business coaching and mentoring clients as major challenges in 2019 include:
Disruption
Technology changes, the use of social media and digitalisation of processes is disrupting markets and competitors at a rapid rate. You need to consider what is available and move to embrace these changes, as appropriate. If you do not move with the rapidly changing competitive landscape and your competitors do take advantage, then you may be pushed out of your markets or your cost structure will be too high to compete.
Culture
Driven by disruption, culture has been an important issue in the last few years and will continue to be in 2019 and beyond. You must build, manage and lead the highly targeted culture that you need to succeed by incorporating such factors as productivity, engagement, customer centricity, cost awareness, quality, continuous improvement, sound ethical standards for building and maintaining trust and good reputation, and competition.
To overcome issues with disruption and culture, a business coach or mentor can be a valuable resource. To help you get started, here are some tips from our business coaching professionals:
Focus On Your Business’ Strengths
Focus on the core strengths of your business. What are you valued for as a business with your customers? Do not get distracted from your core strengths or waste time and resources on non-commercial outcomes. Understand what is important in your business, prioritise necessary actions or decisions, and don’t lose sight of what really matters.
Look After Your Key People, Customers and Suppliers
Your key people, customers and suppliers are your greatest assets. When you look after them, recognise and reward them, and develop them further, you can expect even greater business benefits. Foster loyalty with your people and customers, lead them properly, communicate effectively with them and manage their performance, and you should find that your people will reward you with greater effort and better retention.
Keep your supplier relationships strong with clear cooperative plans to reduce the risks to you and your suppliers. You should meet at regular intervals to discuss how you can improve business together and discuss future plans to see if you can both come up with ideas and plans to work closer together in the future to your mutual benefit.
Recognise Your Weaknesses
Until you recognise that you or your business has weaknesses, you will not consider improvement that needs to be made so you can implement effective business growth strategies. No one and nothing in business is perfect, so identify any shortcomings and work to correct or improve these. This is the start of the continuous improvement process.
Remember Your Investors − Both Debt and Equity
Your debt and equity providers are taking a risk investing in your business. They need to feel wanted and valued, and they also need to understand what their position is. Ensure they are kept properly informed (no surprises) and take the trouble to speak to them and find out what their expectations are of you and the business. Then plan to give them more of what they want in performance, culture and growth.
Diversify to Get Broader Teams and Better Talent
You should consider the advantages of employing a greater diversity of people with the right skills, including wider genders, ages or ethnicities. Diversity can enrich a business through complimentary skill sets, backgrounds or experience. Increasing diversity may provide fresh eyes in all areas of your business, ensuring you’re not holding back business performance unnecessarily.
Seek Help to Grow Your Business Performance
If you’re not happy with your business performance growth, then you should consider business coaching. A business coach or mentor will act as a trusted sounding board and can assist you to examine your strategy and the detail of your business.
Your own well-matched business mentor or business coach will be selectively matched to meet your specific requirements and will assist you with your business’ growth, strategy and other challenges.
Improve Strategy, Decision Making and Business Learning
A business coaching professional can help you become better at making decisions, learn effectively from experience or lost opportunities, and keep you strategically looking forward.
Keep Gathering Knowledge
You must continue to learn, and you need to strive to keep up to date and look beyond today into the future, leveraging your industry and business knowledge. With a business mentor or coach, you can re-assess where you are leading the business and its likely success in that future. If it’s not good enough, you should consider different futures for you and your business.
Embrace Change
It is a fact of life that business will see enormous advances, particularly in technology, and that change will continue. You must adapt yourself and your business to survive. If you are too slow to adapt, then seek help.
Get Help from a Business Mentor or Business Coach
A business coach or mentor from International Business Mentors can support you and your business in all of the above scenarios. We take care to get to understand you, your business and the strategic direction you want to pursue. We then provide you with a well-matched business mentor or coach to support you, by considering with you all aspects of your requirements including experience, skills and background.
Your business coaching professional will be matched to your personal fit and with your business to improve growth and provide you with confidential support. Call us now to find your right business mentor or coach.