Are you one of the many business owners who wonder why growing your business seems very difficult? You ask yourself—why won’t my business grow? Why am I having a hard time in trying to expand my operations?
In this video, I discuss one factor that significantly impacts how much and how fast your business grows—and how you can overcome this limitation.
Why won’t my business grow?
There are many reasons why businesses won’t grow—or why your business won’t grow. Some of the more obvious factors that can impact the growth and profitability of your business may include:
- Nature of the market where you do business. How big is the customer base? How many competitors do you have? How big are your customers?
- Nature of the industry where your business is. How regulated is the industry?
- Availability of resources.
However, from my experience in working with businesses across industries, one of the most significant factors that can influence the size and the probability of a business to succeed is the business acumen and the managerial skills of the people who run the business. This especially applies to the business owners themselves.
Many studies claim that management skill is the most significant business constraint. In the early stages of a small businesses, the business owner overseas all aspects of the business—operations, production, marketing, finance, logistics, and sales. In small businesses, the business itself is cared for by the owner or a small team of staff members.
When tasks balloon too much for one person to handle, the small business owner hires people and delegates tasks.
Can one person handle everything?
The small business owner still makes most of the decisions for the company. And herein lies the constraint. As the business grows, the operations not only grow in size but also in complexity. There is only so much that a business owner can handle. Production, marketing, sales, finance, and logistics become individually more complex, too.
The business owner needs to have enough time, the right resources, and the suitable skills to manage and maintain a growing business. The reality is, the business owner alone cannot manage all of these areas singlehandedly—and this is why the single most significant constraint of any small business is the capacity of the business owner.
Your business can grow no bigger than what you can effectively manage.
How can you overcome your limitation?
The good news is that there are many ways to overcome this limitation:
Become a life long learner. Read regularly. Talk to people smarter than you. Listen to people. Learn from your experiences and mistakes. Learn from other people’s experiences and mistakes. Learning a new skillset allows you to do more—you become more aware of what is required to grow a business.
Be good at something, delegate the rest. Delegating expands your capabilities and it gives you time to focus on the things that matter. Delegating, however, is not easy—it is not easy to pass on a task and have confidence that it can be done the way you would do it. If you are concerned about how a delegated task is going to be handled, make sure that you communicate well.
Outsourcing allows you to concentrate on what you do best, save money, be more flexible and manage growth effectively. It also allows your business to gain access to outside expertise and technologies while also building and empowered team. However, as your business continuous to grow, you may find that you may need to bring in some of the outsourced tasks in-house to gain better control of how you produce your product or deliver a service.
- Seek help.
Find someone who has the business experience to help you with your own. All of the successful businesses I know work with a team of experienced professionals whom they can consult with on a regular basis. If you believe that having a team can help you with your business goals, find them. Find a mentor or a business coach—surround yourself with people who can help you achieve your goals.
If you are interested to know more about what a business has to go through when facing exponential growth, you can download the first chapter of the book, ”$20K to $20 Million in 2 Years” absolutely free here. The chapter talks about the differences between a good and a great business and puts out questions that make you consider how you can turn your business from good to great.
