How To Plan For Business Growth
Plan for business growth using these five tips so it’s not a daunting task.
You feel like you’re just about keeping your head above your to-do list as it is, without adding in extra tasks and future planning for your business success.
But without a vision of where you’re going and what steps you can take to get there, you are just churning out work for the sake of it. That might sound harsh but working without a strategic plan for business growth can feel like you’re stuck.
Luckily it really doesn’t have to be complicated to work out your new business strategy.
Read on to find out my top 5 tips to help you plan for business growth
Tip 1: Know what kind of entrepreneur you are
The actions you need to take to scale your business are all based on where you are in the natural lifecycle of being an entrepreneur.
After over a decade of working with entrepreneurs I’ve identified four key stages;
- The Visionary
- The Go-Getter
- The Quantum Leaper and
- The Scaler.
We all go through these stages at some point and in order to plan for business growth you need to know where you are and focus on tasks specific to that stage.
Do you want to know which type of entrepreneur you are?
Take this 45 second quiz to determine what your entrepreneurial future holds.
Once you know which stage you’re at, you can instantly delete things off your to-do list and focus on key growth tasks.
The Visionary
Who are you: You’re new-ish to this entrepreneurial thing and really want to start with success and take the right steps, but you’re struggling to work out what those are.
This stage is all about connection and driving sales so you can reinvest in your business.
Focus on building relationships, collaborations and establishing your credibility.
The Go-getter
Who are you: You’ve had success in the messy start-up stage getting some clients but you never quite know where your next client or sale is coming from. You’re now dreaming of reliable income.
This stage is all about being consistent in the right things – content creation, visibility, in your routine and in how you manage your energy and mindset. Check out this blog on planning tips
Want to get a full action plan to grow your business? take the quiz
The quantum leaper
Who are you: You’re so happy with your products and services, you know they are helping your clients with big transformations.
You just need more eyeballs on what you’re doing. This stage is all about ramping up your visibility and creating a stream of ideal clients who are fully engaged and ready to buy.
We’re talking a scalable system with funnels, opt in’s and all the fun things to create a lead generating system which you just feed with your amazing content.
Are you a quantum leaper? take the quiz to find out and get a plan perfect for this stage in business
The scaler
Who are you: You’ve officially joined the consistent income club, but your behind the scenes is pretty chaotic.
You need to really step up and embody this role of being a CEO and let your business catch up with all the growth you’ve already experienced.
This stage is all about setting up the right systems, bringing on a proper team and becoming the true leader and visionary in your business.
Tip 2: Market your business based on your voice
Growing a business is all about consistency and being visible.
Ensuring enough people can find you, hear your message, really buy into your mission and become loyal to what you do and how you do it.
From my 13 years+ experience, the key for how to market your business to achieve these goals is about finding your natural voice and using that as your pillar content. Understanding how you naturally communicate will ensure you consistently create content and is my number one marketing tip.
Podcasting: Do you like to have conversations, chat to people and understand things by talking it through? Then podcasting would be a great marketing ideas for you.
Video: Are you confident in front of camera, love jumping on a quick live or IG story. Do you love to wave your hands around and communicate through body language? The videos would be a great way to promote your business
Blogging: Do you love to write? When you’re trying to work something out is your first instinct to grab pen and paper and write it down? Do you love to journal? Then these are clues that blogging could be a great way to market your online business.
Once you’ve created your initial ‘pillar’ piece of content you can then repurpose it across different platforms. Want more help with content creation? check out this blog post. Want to come up with content ideas? check this post out
But don’t try to market your business in a way that feels really unnatural, it’ll cause a barrier between you, your message and your lovely community.
Tip 3: Intentionally design the customer journey
Scaling your online business doesn’t need to be complicated. let’s keep it simple.
Any business, from the likes of Amazon and Deliveroo, to solopreneurs, need to focus on the same three simple things, working out how your customers will:
find you - love you - buy from you
That is literally it. This is what I call the customer journey through your business. It’s about how you take them from now knowing you, right through to being repeat customers.
Spending time to intentionally design the customer journey through your online business so it is as seamless and natural as possible is a huge part of how to grow a business.
What does your customer journey look like?
Tip 4: build great relationships
Relationships are at the heart of what we do as entrepreneurs, but it is so often an overlooked and untapped part of a strategic plan for business growth.
It boils down to three key relationship areas:
- Collaborations – who can you collaborate with to provide value to their audience and get more eyes on your business? – think masterclasses, guest expert slots, Facebook or Instagram live sways, podcast interviews, guest blog posts – to promote you and your business
- Customers – obviously great customer relationships are crucial for your business. I ask myself everyday ‘how can I delight my customers?’. This helps to ensure you deliver on the results you promise, but also helps with customer referrals and testimonials. Word of mouth is the most powerful marketing idea that there is
- Community – you need support as an entrepreneur if you want to scale your online business. Being an entrepreneur is definitely a rollercoaster, so having a supportive community of online entrepreneurs who you can bounce ideas off, get support from and generally cheerleading you is crucial
Tip 5: Invest in support and at the right time
Finally a big part of planning for business growth is ensuring you are bringing on the right support at the right time.
It is impossible to be an expert in everything needed to build your business.
So think about what areas you need to hire in help for. I ask myself:
- What do I put off doing in my business? This is something you likely hate doing and will be draining your energy
- What do I know I need to be doing in my business but I don’t know how? This is something that you don’t need to invest your time or money in learning – get an expert in
- What is the number one thing stopping your from scaling your online business? Pay for support in that area, be it mindset coaching, business coaching, tech VA support, funnel creation, whatever it is, get help
I also love to get the help before I desperately need it. This stops me hiring from an energy of desperation. I can take my time to find someone who really fits the values of my business and knows what they are doing.
It also means I’m not constraining my business and capping it’s growth. There is enough capacity for it to grow as I have the help in place just before it is needed (and before I get overwhelmed!)
SO THERE YOU HAVE MY TOP 5 tips to plan for business growth
The key to success is really being honest about where you are in your entrepreneurial journey and creating a plan for growth that focuses on the right tasks for that stage.
So many entrepreneurs try to work at the level above before they’re ready. I know I have definitely done that.
However that leads to:
- frustration as you aren’t getting the results you want
- wasted time as you’re not focused on the right things
- the dreaded overwhelm, stagnation and not taking action.
Want a personalised plan for business growth to ensure you’re focusing on the right things?
Do you want a personalised success plan for building your business?
Helen Munshi - Quiz Expert & Business Growth Strategist
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