What Kind of a Mindset Should Small Business Leaders Have to Help their Companies Grow?
Leadership decisions will always have a profound impact on the company’s future, irrespective of whether we are discussing small-medium sized enterprises or multinational, multibillion dollar corporations. Focussing on entrepreneurial mindsets in the SME segment, here’s a look at some of the thinking processes considered crucial for fuelling growth in the SME segment through smart leadership.
Not Settling for Mediocrity
Settling for mediocrity is when a leader accepts certain shortcomings of their business practices, without making any plans for improvement. In the real world, it is not possible to immediately identify and rectify all shortcomings that are currently hampering a company’s future. Nevertheless, the process of problem identification, prioritisation, and planning for action on them should be a continuous process.
For example, if the customer care is mediocre at best, management needs to acknowledge that fact first, and then devise a step-by-step plan that can be implemented to at least make incremental improvements. On the other hand, if leadership acknowledges their business’s mediocre customer satisfaction rate as acceptable, growing a sustainable customer base will prove difficult.
Growing with the Business
No business leader can expand their company beyond a certain point, without growing beyond their own former limitations first. In fact, small business owners will often find it difficult to even realise what they are lacking, unless they receive wider exposure and proper guidance. Join the Business Growth Club to learn how you can enhance your own leadership skills and apply them to grow a business. It’s an opportunity to find new business connections, while learning personally from some of the leading business growth experts.
Understanding Sustainable Growth
Ideally, a successful business should see growth in their revenue generation every year. It does not happen as such in the real world, and bad years are very much a part of being in any trade. However, you can easily note an instance of unsustainable, poorly planned growth by looking at the company’s revenue pattern over the last few years. See if the annual revenues spiked for one or more successive years at a high rate, only to come crashing down in the years after that.
There are exceptions to that rule, as massive geopolitical shifts, natural disasters, and of course, pandemics can also have very similar effects. However, if the dip cannot be justified with factors that affected the entire industry or a geographical region, that is a clear sign of unplanned business growth. Even multibillion dollar companies have managed to bankrupt themselves by making the same mistake of growing faster than they should have.
If revenues and profits are not generated in a manner that can be sustained down the line as well, it is better to aim for comparatively incremental business expansions. Small, but well-planned steps ensure a continuous growth rate for the company. It builds the foundation that the business will need at a later point to grow faster after they are fully equipped to sustain that growth.