How to grow a successful business

BY DON TAYLOR

Don Taylor is president and CEO of Data Staar Communications in Amarillo, Texas, and co-author of Up Against the Wal-Marts and Solid Gold Success Strategies For Your Business. He can be reached at P.O. Box 67, Amarillo, TX 79105.

Every entrepreneur’s dream is to grow a successful business — a business that generates a good profit, provides for retirement and brings recognition and respect from one’s peers.

However, growing a business is like running in the dark. You can tell how fast you’re going, but you may not always know where you are, nor can you always see the obstacles you’re about to run into.

I’ve watched and worked with many successful business owners over the years. It is a joy to watch them grow and mature. I also find it interesting to observe how many things they have in common. Here are a few of the most common success characteristics:

• Understand the barriers to growth. You must overcome these seven obstacles before you can achieve solid, sustainable growth: 

1. Little or no profit. 

2. Declining or negative equity. 

3. Having no written plan for growth.

4. Losing touch with your core customer base. 

5. Neglecting to keep quality in your products and services. 

6. Underestimating your competitor’s abilities. 

7. Losing your focus and trying to be everything to everyone.

• Know your strengths. I’ve never seen a business grow that concentrated on doing more of what it does poorly. Consider carefully what makes you successful. Build on those strengths. You should work to improve weak areas, but don’t stop doing what you do well.

• Create a plan for growth. I’ve heard a hundred hackneyed sayings regarding planning. Though most business owners are tired of hearing about planning, it is a common factor of growth success. If you don’t know where you want to go, no road will take you there. The planning process is simple. First, determine where you are, then decide where you want to go and, finally, lay out the steps to get from where you are to where you want to go.

• Surround yourself with good people. No business ever outgrows the quality of its people. Some business owners won’t hire people with superior abilities because they fear that person might take over or even steal their secrets and become a competitor. Here’s my advice: hire carefully, train continually, delegate responsibly and pay fairly.

• Clamp down on costs. One of the first tendencies of fast-growth companies is to add people, equipment and facilities before they are really needed. Those that sustain long-term growth always seem to be behind this overhead cost curve. They find new ways to become more efficient. They excel in getting more done with less. They use it up, wear it out, make do and do without.

• Seek outside advice and counsel. Business owners are prone to develop “tunnel thinking.” They often find themselves in the “we’ve always done it this way and it still works” mode. Fast-growth companies plan to outgrow themselves, and when they find themselves on a plateau they look for outside guidance. I have benefited from the wisdom of bankers, accountants, attorneys, business consultants and business peers. I can’t know it all, but I can find someone who has the expertise I need.

• Think “better,” not “bigger.” The fastest growing companies are not focused on growth. They are focused on getting better. They are focused on serving customers more effectively, providing better value and finding ways to be an indispensable resource for their customers.

Remember, growth is a choice. Choose to grow and use these success factors as your foundation for success.