If entrepreneurship runs through your blood like me, you’re constantly on the lookout for quality ideas that can help you grow your brand, improve your processes, and if you’re lucky at the end of the day: put more cash in your personal bank account.
Here’s several insights to help get your business growing bigger right away and for years to come.
1. Conduct a personal audit pronto.
Gary Vee says it best when he recommends all entrepreneurs “audit who you really are” in order to be able to cultivate your enthusiasm and confidence. One of the most rarely talked-about intangibles of any business is the confidence of the founders and other key players contributing to the growth of the business.
2. Audit your social circles and cull the dead and dying.
Literally! You know, those soulless types who hate life and have no faith in themselves or you, and who usually believe success — financial or otherwise — is a product of luck and not desire, intelligence, or hard work. Get rid of these people right away. You don’t need them. I’ve talked to more than a few jilted-friend-types over the years who felt they “got left behind” by a friend after that friend started on the fast-track to success. You just can’t change some people — don’t let them change you or get in the way of your goals with their crap attitude.
3. Take external motivation with a tongue-in-cheek attitude.
You need confidence to grow your business. Though I’m a huge fan of Robbins, Brown, Tracey and the late great Jim Rohn, they can only provide you with guidance not actual motivation. If you find yourself watching motivation videos on YouTube every day to get yourself jazzed up, then something’s missing. Go back to #1 and start over!
4. Quality over quantity.
In business, you can’t get by or become successful by throwing *%#$ at a wall and seeing what sticks all the time. Sometimes it works, but rarely still. You can’t try to overwhelm the market with superfluous products and ideas. Spend more time researching what the market really wants and then develop those ideas. This applies to all areas of your business, even your social media efforts: Spend your time on the platforms your customers hang out on, not the ones you or your employees like the most. The Pareto Principal needs to rule your life!
5. Create a business for the love, not the profit.
This is another Gary Vee ideology that’s echoed the world over by successful entrepreneurs. If you spend all your time always chasing the next customer, or next billion dollar idea, you’ll always lose in the end. Either with poor profits, outright failure, or a lack of happiness and fulfillment in life, regardless what your balance sheet and personal bank accounts look like. Though if you decide to parlay your business fortunes into becoming a Venture Capitalist some day, please don’t become a Herjavec-ian type and only invest in passion projects.
6. Become a mobile mogul.
Last year (2015) became the first year that mobile browsing stats overtook the desktop. Not a big shock if you’ve been watching since the first smartphone was released and simply knew it was the wave of the future, including the future of online marketplaces as a whole. There are a thousand-and-one free platforms you can use to build a mobile-responsive website and apps to support sales and after-sales services. Don’t be a stubborn old cow.
7. Focus on service first, profits second.
To some, this comes naturally. To others, it’s like asking any member of the Kardashian klan to take the back way into an event to avoid a photo op! If you want to grow your business, you have to be a business that actually CARES about their customers. Focus on the service and your business will grow faster than ever before.
8. Forget the past, push forward.
One of my favorite quotes is “the past is the past.” Quite a simple mantra to live by, yet one that so few can follow. Shift your focus to never looking back, unless it’s to data that can improve your business. All the letdowns, people who hurt you, things that got in your way, etc., won’t matter when you’re dead anyway.
Comments always welcome.
Main Image: Phil Dowsing Creative/Flickr
