Many businesses do not make it through the five-year mark. Most often, this can be traced to the lack of a growth strategy in their business plan when they started. Or, if they had one, it was not an effective growth strategy. Thus, businesses need to know how to implement growth strategy in order to be successful in the long term.
What is a Growth Strategy?
A growth strategy is an effective and detailed plan of action you design for your business to improve its sales, (or intended growth metric) over a particular period of time.
Furthermore, an effective growth strategy has to be suited to the business and aligned to the business goals and resources.
How to implement growth strategy
Here are some key tips on how to implement growth strategy for your business.
Set SMART goals
First, you need to have growth goals. Surely, if you do not know where you are growing to, you will not make meaningful progress. As such, you should begin by setting SMART goals that are Specific, Measurable, Achievable Realistic, and Time-bound.
For example, you may set a goal to “grow a net profit of 20% sales turnover for the next financial year.
Remember to set Key Performance Indices (KPIs) for your goals.
Create strategies for your growth goals
Second, develop strategies for your growth goals. You can begin with the smaller goals. For example, if you have a goal of generating a reach of 50 website visits for the month, you would need to create strategies that will drive website traffic. As such, you would have to decide if you would run web traffic campaigns on your other channels. Likewise, you may decide to improve your content marketing or email marketing.
Make use of tools to support your growth strategy
Third, you can make faster headway if you invest in tools and software that enhance your growth strategies. For instance, you could make use of email and workflow automation tools or social media publishing tools to organize and run effective marketing campaigns.
Take action
Yes, that’s right. All plans and no action will get your business nowhere. Take action on your growth strategy. Assign specific responsibilities to team members, equip them with needed resources. Implement your inbound strategies.
Remember, you might not see immediate results. But, be consistent in the implementation of your strategy and tactics. If you create good strategies, you will likely see some results soon.
Track and analyze the performance
Furthermore, do you remember those KPIs mentioned earlier? You need to track them. See what numbers you are making relative to your milestones. Do take a look at the big picture. See the wins and the challenges. Identify the underlying reasons for the wins and the drawbacks.
Optimize Your Strategy
Next, apply what lessons your analytics provided. Do not change your winning formula but duplicate them subsequently. Also, change some things for those strategies that did not give results.
Set new goals and continue improving on them
True, when you get to the top of the mountain, then, you begin to climb. You do not sit on your haunches after achieving your first set of goals. Re-evaluate the position of your business. Then, set new SMART goals. Also, create relevant strategies to help you achieve them. After all, your growth strategies need to adapt to the needs of your business.
Cultivate the winning mindset
In conclusion, you basically need to cultivate a setting that improves the growth mindset in your team. Begin with setting SMART goals and take the subsequent steps on how to implement growth strategy. Very much like the mathematics of 2 + 2 makes 4, you will most likely find yourself at your destination.
