According to Harvard Business Review, there are 5 stages of small business growth: the stages of existence, survival, success, take off and resource maturity.
Understanding each and every phase of this growth is very crucial to the successful running of a business.
This is because it allows you to access current challenges of the business and identify the key requirements at every point.
The stages explained
At the stage of existence, the main challenges of the business are limited to obtaining new customers and facilitating effective delivery of the product or service.
The key problem at the survival stage has to do with balancing the relationship that exists between revenues and expenses.
When the business has achieved some levels of success, the business owners will shift focus and start making decisions about expansion, stability and increased profitability.
At the take off stage, the main areas of concern are how to achieve rapid growth and financing that growth.
Lastly, the greatest concerns at the resource maturity stage of a company are to consolidate and control the financial gains brought about by rapid growth.
But between these stages of business growth, you must ensure that you do what’s essential to make your business successful. Here’s a quick run over them.
Get the basic things ready
The single most important basic thing that you need to do is your company formation. The easiest way to set up a company is to hire online company formation agents to do the heavy lifting for you.
Putting this in place covers important aspects such as memorandum and article of association, company’s name, registered office address and nature of business. It’s the first prerequisite for business credibility.
Hire competent staff
The need to hire experienced people requiring little or no training is non-negotiable especially for a company just starting out and trying to get some credibility.
For example, you need experienced accountants to handle your finance, qualified marketers to promote your products and services, and every other personnel that would add value to your team.
Build a workplace culture
Every organization needs to build a formidable team around a workplace culture. These unique ways of doing things will produce clarity of vision, unified thought patterns and must drive them towards achieving their common goals.
This culture must be reflected in the business brand itself, employee attitude to work and relationship with customer.
Motivate your staff
Most times when the issue of motivation is mentioned, we often restrict it to rewarding top performing workers with monetary incentives.
However, motivating your employees goes beyond this constricted viewpoint. It also involves good communication, leading by example, employee empowerment and providing opportunities for advancement.
All these put together will definitely lift your company to towering heights.
Provide great customer service
As a business owner, you must realize that providing great customer service is important to the overall success of your business. So when you begin to map out those profit-making strategies, it should be with the aim of satisfying customers.
Doing this will help you to attract more loyal customers, and that would generate repeat sales for you, instead of spending exorbitantly to attract new customers.