Managing the pace of growth in business, intentionally.

When you’re passionate about something, you have natural momentum pushing you forward. You’re not short on motivation. It’s this energy that gets you up in the morning and helps you make great leaps, every day.

While this spirit will carry you through the inevitable ups and downs of business, it’s also something to be wary of. To grow sustainably and create longevity in your business – whether you’re a start-up or established company expanding into new markets – it’s important to stay realistic, measured and intentional.

Start with the end in mind

What’s the end goal? What are the metrics you’ll use to get you there? Know your ‘North Star’ – the heart of why you do what you do – and keep it front and centre. Apple, for example, don’t sell tech devices. They sell a worldview, a vision, a power-to-the-people revolution, with their ‘think different’ promise.

With clarity around what’s driving your business, you can create collective buy-in within your team, clients, and community. It puts everything you do into perspective and helps you realise when you’re off-track.

Set your growth goals & timelines

With your greater cause and reason for existing clarified, you can create growth goals through this lens. Set a variety of growth goals that you review frequently:

• Sales, revenue, and profit
• Number of customers
• What customers are buying
• Audience and community growth
• Press and promotions
• People talking about the company.

By reviewing your growth metrics every week, you’ll know where to add, move around, or pull in resources. Your resources could include money, people, added hours, tooling or external support.

Know your numbers

Cash flow makes and breaks businesses. Give yourself at least a 12-month financial runway, so you’re not making decisions from a place of fear or reactivity. Do you require outside investment or a business loan? Engage a financial advisor to help weigh up your options.

By maintaining a year of expenses, this will help guide your decision-making around hiring and whether you can dial it up or down.

Be meticulous about your budget, align your spending to your growth goals, and always hire (and fire) with culture foremost in mind. In any new business endeavour, chemistry between the core team is more important than you realise.

People, processes & priorities

With the right people who believe in the business’s ‘why’, supported by strong processes and clarity over priorities, you’ll have a dream team.

In a fast-growing business, understanding what’s important vs. what’s the most pressing priorities will help move projects forward. This will also reduce overwhelm, burnout and resentment in team members. For business longevity, take care of your people first.

Consult your customers

Go straight to the source and use this growth period to capture feedback from your customers and community. Listen to what they’re saying, verbally and non-verbally. Understand their true needs and what motivates them. Learn about their most intimate pain points, their deepest desires, and wildest dreams.

In the early days, this is a special moment where you can foster and lean into this, personally. Don’t ignore the cues. Stay close to your customers. It’s your most underrated competitive advantage.

Better business, better life

Need fresh, outside eyes in your business? We’ve grown and sold businesses – and can help achieve your version of the same. We’re a business advisory firm with a fierce ‘why’ of helping owners find balance in work in order to reach life goals.

Get in touch to get started with our free business health check or strategic advisory to support your most ambitious goals.