Building a sustainable business is the major focus of most business owners now. The market terrain is presently super challenging these days. So it’s not really about how fast you can start a business, anybody can do that. The question is do you have the capacity needed to grow the business beyond ordinary survival mode to a thriving and sustainable business?
Major areas to consider in keeping your business relevant in these challenging times. Without them, your business would enter a survival mode. Number one is your quest to fix your knowledge about new ways and trends of managing a business. The market terrain is changing and evolving rapidly. So if you do not increase your level of knowledge in business management, your brand would struggle and be left behind. Thriving businesses are not just surviving, they set smart business goals. They have sales targets, growth targets, and expansion plans. This is one major reason some businesses have gone into extinction. It’s been business as usual for them. They have no clear-cut goals to meet and targets to achieve.
The next area to focus on is how your business model is able to leverage technology to increase visibility and capture new markets and new customers. The world is now a global village because technology has made this possible. How are you working on using technology to drive your business growth both internally and externally? Leverage technology for your internal business structure. Use it to structure your financial plans and structure, capture sales, marketing, customer relationship, service, and feedback. Use it to structure your staff well being, objectives, goals, and assigned tasks.
Another area to focus on is the ability to access new markets and dominate the existing ones. If your business cannot find enough sales channels to sell, it’s going to be difficult to sustain the business. Sales are the life of your business. If your business is not making money, it would soon crash. Cash flow is a major entity in the life of a business. Find access to the market relevant to your products and services both off and online. Find strategic revenue streams and sales channels both locally and internationally. You have to make continuous sales to stay in business.
The last area to focus on is access to capital. I intentionally left that as the last area to focus on because most entrepreneurs believe their major problem is access to capital. This might be true in some cases and not true in some cases. Access to the market might not always be your major challenge. Most times when we fix other areas like our business structure, leverage technology, and find access to the market you might discover the money you need would come effortlessly. Let the major reason you need money is to service the market you have accessed and for purchasing machines and equipment to meet the demands of the market you have captured. Don’t access capital for production without finding the market. It’s a disaster waiting to happen.
Building sustainable businesses can be achieved if we can fix all the areas of our business structure. Let’s not follow the routine of just running a business. Don’t enter into the routine of just opening and closing your business daily. Set smart goals and targets for your business, so you have a markup on your progress. Set sales and task targets for your business and staff. It’s very difficult to manage what you cannot measure. Measure your business growth on a weekly, monthly, quarterly, and yearly basis. Set targets for your business growth.
Trust me! You can build a sustainable and thriving business if you give it all it needs to thrive.
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