What’s your business strategy for next year?

Where will you focus and why?

We got together with a group of high-performing businesses to discuss their priorities, especially the ‘big picture’, strategic ideas.

Here’s the list we came up with. How does this compare with your focus areas in the coming 12 months?

Delegate!

Business owners tend to take on a huge volume of work themselves. It’s challenging to get it all done… and it wears them down.

Why don’t they delegate more? Some worry that work quality will suffer. Others say there is simply no one to delegate to. In both cases, they have failed to invest the time to build an organisation that can absorb more work. This is bad for the business because it cannot scale AND for the owner who continues to work excessively. It is also bad for employees, who don’t get the opportunity to step up.  Sure they may make errors… but we all started somewhere. And if they can’t successfully complete their work, you should find new people. Or perhaps outsource.

Focus on Value Creation

Business owners should aim to create a valuable business, and that means one NOT dependent on any one person (or a few people). A valuable business relies on good products, sound processes, a competent team, excellent technology and relevance in the market.

Very few business owners focus on value-creation and need to shift their mindset FROM “I work to supply widgets” TO “I am building a business that provides widgets”.

In the latter case, the objective is to set up other people, processes and technology to complete the work to the satisfaction of customers. With that in place, the owner can focus on other activities and the business is WAY more valuable.

Leverage Customer Relationships

For most businesses, there is huge unlocked potential inside the EXISTING Client base.

This should be a major driver of growth and the good news is that you don’t have to sell a lot more to every customer. A well-run Customer Classification exercise usually reveals a few customers who are in need of more services. Then you can get really precise about understanding those needs and offering them a relevant, profitable solution.

In many businesses, these opportunities go wasted as the owners get super busy with day-to-day work and become reactive versus proactive.

Digital Marketing

High-growth businesses increasingly understand how to present themselves in a digital world. This includes publishing content to stand out from the competition and ensuring they reach a clearly defined target customer. They measure success and constantly improve the approach to attract more quality leads.

Traditional marketing like networking in business groups and referral programs will continue to be valuable… but a digital strategy is increasingly important in high-growth organisations.

So there you have the key strategic objectives of some high-growth firms for the coming 12 months. Of course, there’s a ton of detail that supports these ideas and each business will have a slightly different set of priorities.

Need help increasing business efficiency or personal productivity? Contact Notch Above’s team of Xero Certified Bookkeepers on 1300 015 130 today.