Published: March 11th, 2020; By: Judi Hughes
Do you have a career path to achieve the growth you want for your business?
Recently a client asked me, “why do some business owners grow and achieve the success they want with their business while others stall and struggle to get through an invisible growth ceiling?”
My immediate response was to clarify that we all have our own picture of what success looks like for us.
But I did ponder this question for a long time considering our clients who have achieved growth in their businesses over the years.
In addition to hard work and determination, I identified 8 common characteristics of the business owners who achieved the growth they want for their business.
Every one of them:
- Have a crystal-clear picture of what success looks like for them and for their business; they are driven to build and grow a business not only make more money.
- Value and make time to work on the future of the business.
- Make the development and implementation of systems and processes a priority.
- Know their numbers and monitor and manage finances consistently to ensure ongoing profitability.
- Develop and follow a defined business development process that makes it easy for Ideal Clients to buy.
- Keep promises not only to others, more importantly, to themselves.
- Know that the success of the business includes a team and other senior people.
- Respond and embrace the changes that come with business growth.
As I worked through my thinking on this, it occurred to me that these people all started their business because they were really good at “their profession” and they felt they could bring something to customers in a better way.
They were excellent Property Managers, creative IT people, outstanding Recruiters, remarkable Trainers, and so on …
I always say, “the skills you need to start a business are very different to the skills you need to grow a business”, and that is true of these people.
They went into their business with a dream, passion and determination. They didn’t start with the skills needed to build a strong and sustainable business.
- Most had no idea what a business model was, let alone how to make it profitable.
- Few had hired or trained a person; and then had the anxiety of having to fire that same person.
- Many had no understanding of the required “management gap” so they could effectively lead their team.
- None had any idea it was going to be such a bumpy journey with so much change and so much to learn.
These business owners had to constantly be proactive in preparing themselves for a more complex environment with every new stage of growth.
They defined the next stage of growth, identified skills gaps and decided how to fill them.
If they were hiring and delegating to fill the gap, they learned enough to hire the right person.
They constantly developed themselves in a purposeful way to ensure the success of their business and their team.
Perhaps most importantly, these business owners recognized that they could not delegate the leadership of the company. It is the leadership that gives a company “the pull” to fulfill on the dream. So, they also needed to learn to be strong leaders in order to create an environment where people could shine and thrive.
As I thought this through, I had an aha moment ….
When they started their businesses, each of these business owners had their own unique set of skills.
With every stage of growth, they did an honest assessment of how well they were doing their job as business owner.
They decided what skills they needed in order to take their company to the next stage and they found learning platforms to gain the skills they needed to do their job better.
They had the insight to set a career path for themselves as business owners!
What is your career path?
When was your last performance review?
What is your professional development plan?