5 Business Growth Insights That Will Drive Success

Do you want to learn how a business grew from $150K to $25 million in just 5 years?

I interviewed serial entrepreneur, Tim Stannage to get an insight into how he built fashion accessory retail outlet Ice Accessories from a single store into 30 within just five years, turning over in excess of 25 million dollars off a shoe-string budget.

Ice Accessories retail chain was later sold and is now known as the popular retail chain Gloss.

Here are 5 tips that could help you put your business on the right path to creating sustainable business growth.

Insight 1: You can’t grow without a product

This may seem logical for a product-related business, but the question still has to be asked – do consumers see your product as a “must-have?” Make sure what you are offering is actually solving a problem and becomes a need, rather than merely a want.

With regards to service orientated businesses, you need to embed products into your service offerings. By integrating technology and humans (specialised/expert knowledge) you can re-engineer and automate your offerings so they become productised and scalable, allowing you to increase margins as you grow.

As Tim puts it "Product is the foundation of growth. Without it sustainable growth is impossible."

Insight 2: Marketing alone is not growth

"Creating buzz about your business alone does not mean you have grown unless it results in more sales and more importantly more profit" Tim wisely points out.

In the case of Ice Accessories, they didn’t have a traditional marketing playbook and didn’t use paid online or email marketing. Instead Ice Accessories relied on the product (store fit out + customer experience + suppliers) to grow.

Insight 3: Don’t cater for everyone

Everyone is not your customer. By taking the time to work with an expert to analyse and identify who are your ideal customers, business growth and success may actually come from knowing who isn’t your customer.

Tim was after the 15 to 25 year old females. “I designed an edgy surf shop look and feel with loud night club music and staff to match and guess what it worked. I knew who I wanted to attract and isolated anyone I didn’t, this allowed me to focus on delivering a great product for a narrowed customer channel” said Tim.

Insight 4: Fail often and fast.

Just as you should plan for when things go wrong, also plan for when things go well.

There are a thousand ways to fail, so take your planning to the next level and know how you can avoid, adapt to and overcome your biggest key business risks/threats.

Tim firmly believes "When you’re prepared for growth, you can better manage the detours or surprises and adapt quickly without massive impact and disruption to your business growth goals."

Insight 5: Don’t do it alone

Growth is not a one man show! A business growth advisory board is your ticket to getting the independence, alternate perspectives, new ideas and the necessary reality checks to accelerate your business growth journey.

Tim didn’t achieve the incredible success results on his own. He created a network of people who were smarter, to guide him on his journey. “I selected a small advisory board that helped me smooth out learning curves and keep me on my growth track. Sometimes I didn’t agree with them and that was ok. In growth no-one is right or wrong, but having someone pointing out possible pitfalls that I couldn’t see was invaluable to evolving the growth strategy” said Tim.

Get the right help and support to accelerate your business growth

Budget One can provide you with the peace of mind you need to make sound business decisions about the direction you are going.

We provide you with a road map, refuelling points where we check your progress and recharge you, as well as help you plan for unexpected detours, ensuring you reach your final destination.

Successful businesses have financial road maps created by highly skilled employees, but small businesses just like yours can’t afford such a luxury and that's why Budget One created our "Start Up Success" and "Business Success" programmes.

Each is designed to complement the other, at the start up phase we help plan your journey and create the tools you need to navigate the early stage start up period and the stresses that this places on your cash flow.

As you start to gain momentum you transition smoothly onto Budget One’s Business Success program to not only maintain the results you are achieving, but provide you with the confidence to charge harder and accelerate growth.

Feeling stuck? Don't know where to start?

Sit down with Budget One and let us help you create a road map and GPS system that puts you back in the driver’s seat and navigate your way to success.

Call us today on 03 9583 7925 for a chat or book a free non-obligatory appointment. It’s free!

Author Taso Tounis

Taso Tounis is a strategic business planning, cash flow management and budgeting consultant. He is passionate about equipping soon-to-be and existing business owners with a roadmap, GPS system and dashboard reports so they can make the right choices to achieve extraordinary success. Learn more about Taso.

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