Call: 01225 851 044 | contact us
Robert Craven Website

Expert Panel
- How Can Small Firms Grow Their Business Without Threatening Their Future Prosperity?

John Davis, marketing director, Barclays Local Business

Part of the skill of growing a business is to make your mistakes on paper. Plan and test as much as you can and reduce the risk as much as possible, so that you take ‘calculated risks’. This is about working ‘on’ not just ‘in’ your business.

To further reduce risks, you need to test and systemise just about every part and stage of your business. Break down each activity (the customer journey, your sales pipeline, the sales pitch) into its constituent parts and seek ways to improve and modify your performance.

What holds back most entrepreneurs is their fear of letting go of the ownership, and of the management of the business. In order to grow a business, to grow your sales, there are ‘three plus one’ key levers to massage:

• Get more customers
  
• Get customers to spend more when they do buy
• Get customers to buy more often
  

The impact of working on these aspects of your business is quite staggering. Small changes, when combined, can have a massive impact. And what is the ‘plus one’ factor? To slow down or stop the rate at which existing customers leave you.

But increasing turnover is a hiding to nothing if your profits are not sufficient; you simply become a busy fool. To rapidly increase profits, there is a particular order to do things to get the maximum effect:

• Increase prices
  
• Decrease direct costs
• Sort the underperformers/focus on the successful clients/products

Only then should you:

• Increase volumes
• Decrease overheads

While a change in any one factor will impact the profitability, the real power comes, again, when you apply a combination of actions that will give you a more powerful, cumulative effect.

But the key to it all is action, making things happen. Being systematic, rigorous, thorough and obsessed with the customer experience: giving them legendary service that makes them want to come back for more.

To support existing businesses and help them as they strive to become more successful, Barclays are working with Business guru Robert Craven to offer 20 free seminars focussed on vital business disciplines: Let’s Talk Bright Marketing and Let’s Talk More Profit

 

Alan Moody, UK and Ireland managing director, Mamut

As with all businesses, large and small, planning for growth and future expansion is essential. No one can plan for every eventuality but having measures in place to manage change will set the business in good stead and ensure longevity.

The selection of IT and business management solutions plays a key part in preparing for growth. With IT and electronic communications an integral part of today’s business environment, having scalable, flexible systems will be vital to the future success of the business.

There are several factors to consider when choosing business software for your business, other than the capabilities and costs. Your selection should be based on various factors including your company's size, industry, organisational structure, computing environment and technical expertise. Many small businesses cannot justify a dedicated IT manager so it is essential to have an intuitive, easy-to-use system. Buying standard software and equipment will ensure training of additional personnel is minimal and that you can grow quickly and effectively.

Choosing an integrated business software solution will help meet the changing demands of your business. From accounts, payroll and forecasting to customer relationship management and e-business, this will save you time and money while increasing accuracy and efficiency. Integrated software packages are easy to use and can be supported by a wide range of services from the same provider, from training courses, to telephone support and online advice. Clear upgrade paths mean that the software can grow with you as your business develops.

For steady business growth, a customer relationship management (CRM) system is essential to streamline customer service, simplify sales and marketing efforts, find new customers and generate more revenue from existing customers. You can record customer interactions with sales and customer service personnel and keep a centralised database with current customer information that everyone in your company can access. This will allow your entire organisation to understand what each customer wants and needs and give you a full view of your business, which will help you keep customers happy and boost your bottom line.

Having measures in place to manage not only business growth but market change is essential in order to adapt and keep one step ahead of the competition and ensure the longevity of the business.

Richard Smith, employment services director, Croner

Strategic management is concerned with the overall management and direction of an organisation to ensure its continued profitability and the achievement of its objectives. For small businesses to grow successfully, strategic management is a must if they are to increase profitability over the long term.

However, this does not mean ignoring short-term results, as a ‘jam tomorrow’ strategy rarely survives. Strategic management is about ways of finding growth, development and profitability that will enable the small business to fulfil a sensibly defined vision of its future.

Fulfilling that vision is achieved by attention to both the formulation and the management of the strategy. However, this should not be taken as implying that strategic management is a formula that can be applied in exactly the same way in every organisation. The variables include the nature of the business, the size of the organisation, the structure and culture, as well as the degree of turbulence in the environment.

The potential benefits of having a business strategy are numerous and include creation of a clear long-term direction and the focusing of management decision-making on to factors that are truly important. A business strategy:

• creates a clear, long-term direction
  
• focuses management decision making onto factors that are most important to business success
  
• ensures that the organisation adapts to a changing environment, although this depends of the quality of the organisation’s information about the business environment and the strategy’s flexibility
  
• ensures competitiveness
  
• maximises the benefits to be gained from internal competencies
  
• creates an additional communication tool for employees
  
  Small businesses, should consider the following points when putting together a management strategy:
  
  
• formulate what the desired outcome of the strategy or the mission should be
  
• take into account the situation outside the organisation, eg during strategic planning, it is important to conduct an environmental scan
  
• establish goals based on the analysis of the current situation
  
• orient strategies to reach goals
  
• establish interim objectives that are timely and indicative of progress toward goals
  
• each objective should have responsibilities and timescales associated with it
  
• distribute a written plan around the organisation so everyone knows the strategic direction of the company
  
• acknowledge completion and celebrate success.
  

About Robert Craven

Robert Craven is a keynote speaker and author of the business best-sellers 'Kick-Start Your Business' and 'Customer Is King'. He has recently been described as 'one of the UK’s leading marketing specialists' and the 'entrepreneurship guru'. He runs The Directors’ Centre, helping growing businesses to grow.
For further information, contact Robert Craven on 01225 851044. (rc@directorscentre.com) www.directorscentre.com

publication details

©2006, New Business Magazine
First published in New Business Magazine, May/June 2006.