29 June 2021|Business Growth, Crisis Management, Latest Posts, Psychology
With a record 250,000 small businesses on the brink of closing their doors, it’s been a tough old year for SMEs and start-ups. And with new EU trade rules, inevitable job cuts and limited government support, we’re not out of the woods yet. It’s a long road ahead before the economy fully recovers and businesses can get back to ‘normal’.
But it’s not all doom and gloom! Here are four top tips, taken from successful entrepreneurs, founders and CEOs who know what it takes to not only survive the tough times, but to thrive in them.
Business growth tip #1: Don’t be afraid of mistakes
“You don’t learn to walk by following rules. You learn by doing, and by falling over.” – Richard Branson, Founder of Virgin Group
Mistakes teach you valuable lessons. If you can understand what went wrong and why, you can use your mistakes to develop and grow.
“Making mistakes allows us to discover more about ourselves. In business, they can be valuable lessons to enable growth.” – Forbes
Take Elon Musk for example. With a net worth of around $79.4 billion and as one of the world’s top 10 richest people, it’s hard to believe that Musk has ever put a foot wrong on his journey to success. From production bottlenecks preventing 1,500 Model 3s from reaching the market, to issues with crash-related battery fires and spontaneous combustion, Musk has used his many mistakes to his advantage:
“If something’s important enough, you should try. Even if the probable outcome is a failure.” – Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla
But there are good mistakes to make and there are bad ones.
Bad mistakes are usually made in a hurry, with little to no thought behind them. And, the results of a bad mistake are inevitably, terrible. Good mistakes, however, are grounded in fact-based decisions and educated action. Sure, the result might still turn out bad, but there’s no shame in that if it was a well-thought-through decision.
So, set your fear of failure aside and embrace your (good) mistakes
Business growth tip #2: Treat your business like it’s your family
“It’s the people within the business that makes it a success. It’s as simple as that.” – Barrie Dowsett, CEO of Myriad Associates
To achieve sustainable business growth, you need the support of a good team. One you can trust implicitly and one that’s perfectly in-tune and in-line with your vision for the company.
But how do you build this good team of people?
Treat them as family members.
Treating your employees like family will create a caring and supportive environment where people feel safe, respected and valued. This type of relaxed, inclusive environment breeds success. Employees will feel like they can have fun while they work. They’ll feel they can openly celebrate successes and accept failures, and they’ll start looking for reasons to praise, not criticize. They’ll naturally work well together because they’ll be rooted by a common cause: To help your business grow and achieve its goals.
“Above all, we value our – we treat everyone like family! We have second-generation employees working for us and are always happy to recruit team members’ relatives if there’s an opening they’re interested in. Our team consists of hardworking and loyal people and I’m very proud of them all!” Nabeel Chaudhry, the CEO of Al Safa Transport.
Employees crave opportunity and the support of a leadership, not a dictatorship:
“The key, I think, is something that’s easy to say and hard to do: I trust them. That means I give people a lot of freedom and flexibility and authority.” – Kevin Sharer, CEO of Amgen
Business growth tip #3: Practice prioritisation (& get the easy stuff done first)
“I think a simple rule of business is, if you do the things that are easier first, then you can actually make a lot of progress.” – Mark Zuckerberg, Co-founder of Facebook
Some call it ‘constructive stalling’, but tackling your easy tasks first is the best way to conquer procrastination. Working through the easy stuff first gets you up and working. It gets the cogs turning, makes you feel productive and sets you in a positive mindset which will help you tackle the bigger, harder tasks.
“The primary disadvantage of doing your difficult tasks first is probably that it will make it especially hard to get started on your workday.” – Lifehack
So, clear the small rocks off your plate so you can move onto the big boulders.
Business growth tip #4: Say no!
It sounds simple, but saying “no” to a task, a meeting, or an opportunity can be tough. There’s an irrational fear in most of that makes us feel like we have to say “yes” to absolutely everything. If we don’t, we may miss the chance of a lifetime or we might ruin our chances of becoming successful.
But the danger of jumping at every opportunity, task or meeting you get presented with, is:
a) you’ll burn out.
b) you’ll wind up diluting yourself, your brand and your product offering. You’ll become the dreaded jack of all trades, master of none.
c) you’ll get distracted by things that do nothing for the progress of your business.
“Really successful people say no to almost everything.” – Warren Buffet, CEO of Berkshire Hathaway
And there you have it: 4 Secrets to Business Growth During Hard Times. Taken from CEOs of both large and small organizations.
Author Bio
Amanda Greenwood. As a copywriter, Amanda loves writes interesting, informative and insightful content about R&D, innovation, tech and tax for R&D tax specialists Myriad Associates UK, Myriad Associates Ireland, Tax Cloud UK& Tax Cloud Ireland. She enjoys taking subjects that are often confusing and difficult to understand and turning them into easy-to-digest content.
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