Your Business is a Living, Breathing Cell

Knowing where your business is - the Business Lifecycle will tell you what investments to make and how much.

Having and Using the Right Resources at the Right Time!

Your business is a living, breathing entity - it requires fuel, attention, care, and mindfulness. If you're not careful, it will grow weeds or into a giant hairy monster that sucks the life out of you. If we are mindful, give it the proper care and attention at the right time, and be prepared to provide it with the fuel it needs at the right time, we will grow a field of flowers and trees that produce more of everything.

What 'more' do you want? More is most profitable if it is more of what you need at the right time. Resources in the way of talent (skills and know-how), customers, supply chain, and delivery process are the key to financial rewards.

Knowing what stage our business is in matters regarding what resources are needed and how much—like a recipe. Different ingredients are required in various amounts to achieve the results we hope to achieve. As most entrepreneurs do, we can be creative and experiment to find the desired result. OR we can advance our business growth by avoiding the ingredients others have found not to work as well as other ingredients.

Experimenting with "known ingredients" is when we think 'we can do it better' or 'they just didn't know what they were doing'. The ingredients could have been applied at the wrong time, in the wrong order, or with shortcuts, all providing a different result. Sometimes, they work, but many times, they do not. The trial-and-error approach is time-consuming and costly because it uses up scarce resources.

There is one most effective way to increase results, thereby increasing profits—small business roundtables or mastermind groups. I highly recommend over 175 professionally run and organized roundtables and mastermind groups. The free ones are temporary yet a great place to start. Knowing what stage you and your business are in makes a difference in choosing the resources that will work best for you.

Business Assessment - helps you prioritize what areas of the business need support.

Strategic Assessment - helps identify if everyone on your team sees the business as you do - communication improvement.

StrengthFinders Assessment - are team members in a position to succeed

AcuMax Assessment - are your people in the right seat

The chart below helps us see where to commit resources to get the desired results.

Understanding the distinct stages of the Business Life Cycle can help us recognize the signs of transition from one stage to another, which demands a timely response and strategic planning. Let's examine these phases in more detail.

Startup Phase:

This is when the business is just a concept or an idea. It involves setting up the company, developing the product or service, and launching it into the market.

Level One:

Planning, Funding & Launching your New Business

Core Focus:

Planning, Funding, and Launching Your

New Business.

1. Clarifying your business concept.

2. Creating your business plan.

3. Testing your business concept/core offer.

4. Securing any needed start-up capital

5. Launching!

Growth Phase:

This phase begins when the business starts gaining acceptance, and its products or services are patronized. The company faces the challenge of managing increasing demand and preserving quality.

Early Stage Level Two:

Proving your Business will survive

Core Focus:

Making Sure Your Business Becomes Profitable.

1. Sell, Sell, Sell! (You need the cash flow to survive).

2. Building your four core systems

Transitional Stage:

Core Focus:

1. Growing your sales.

2. Improving your four core systems,

including introducing crude “scorecards.”

that tells you how your business

is performing in these areas.

3. Refining your big-picture strategic

plan based on KNOWN facts and

not “pro forma” guesses.

Middle Stage Level Two Business:

Building Your Business’s Core.

Core Focus:

1. Stabilizing your sales/marketing systems so your revenue base is

fairly secure.

2. Beginning to remove “YOU” from the center of your business

(incrementally replacing yourself with a triad of systems, team, and

controls.)

Maturity Phase: The business is stable, and its focus shifts from expansion to sustaining its market share. Competition becomes the biggest challenge to address during this phase.

Decline Phase: The market begins to saturate, and sales decline. Here, businesses must consider survival options, such as diversification or cost reduction.

Each phase requires using your resources differently; sometimes, you need different resources. Many companies try to use the same resources in the same way to be consistent, but those resources stop working for you and start working against you.

This is why creating and growing a small business is an art and a science. It can be so much fun! Where no two days are the same!

Over the past 30 years, I have developed six different businesses and worked with over 5,000 different CEOs and Founders to master their business.

Categories: : product development, Scaling, Strategy & Planning