business growth
22 posts
Nurture Vs. Growth
It’s virtually impossible to think of building a successful business (or life) without having the intention to grow. But sometimes growth for growth’s sake can be a trap. The idea that we have to make a particular metric go up at all costs can lead to unintended compromises. What if instead of think
Everything Starts With Something
When we’re starting a project or working towards a business development goal we typically have a laundry list of everything we want to do. From developing a new product to filing our tax returns, it’s in our nature to want to make immediate and visible progress all at once. That desire to do everyth
A Measure Of Progress
In the animal kingdom ‘more’ is often the best measure of success. Herds and hoarders have a better chance of survival. But ‘more’ isn’t always the best measure of human progress. The longest queue isn’t always a sign of better quality. The most sales don’t always lead to a more sustainable business
What’s On Your Y-Axis?
The strategy for any project or business and even our days, weeks and months could be plotted on a graph using an x-axis and a y-axis. What every endeavour has in common is time. This is plotted on the horizontal x-axis. What we can change or influence is represented on the vertical y-axis. In a…
The First Law Of Good Marketing
We can tie ourselves up in knots wondering and worrying about how to communicate our value to prospective customers. Which marketing tactics should we use? How can we improve our product descriptions? What’s the best strategy for converting leads to sales? How can we ‘get more eyeballs’ on our conte
Depth Over Reach
It’s pouring rain on the morning the free weekly lifestyle magazine is stuck through the railings of every home on every street in our neighbourhood. So the 20% of people who would normally flick through it over morning coffee won’t bother to open the magazine today. The soggy newsprint goes straigh
Bridging The Scarcity Gap
The man riding in the lift with me hit the button for the highest, and arguably the best floor in the hotel. I remarked that he must have great views from there. He shrugged his shoulders, then started to complain about his inability to open the windows to let the fresh air in. The scarcity…
The Power Of The Constant In A Changing World
In a commercial world, we’re always trying to predict and keep pace with the future. A bit like a toddler failing to outrun his shadow. It’s a race none of us will ever quite know enough to win. Because we’re focused on the future, naturally we worry about change and disruption, often overlooking wh
A Simple Truth About Business Growth
We’ve all seen what happens when a business is poorly scaled. The cult restaurant adds more tables and loses its magic. The software is ruined when too many features are added. The bespoke tourist attraction becomes tacky. Growth doesn’t come from looking for more opportunities to expand, it’s a res
Difference By Design
Yesterday I was registering a domain name online when I noticed the company had tweaked the user interface from cart to checkout. Now when you confirm the purchase, the default option is to register for three years, instead of one. The steps to reverse this are not obvious or easy—which I guess mean
The Simple (Not Easy) Strategy For Business Growth
When we think about business development opportunities, we mostly begin by knowing exactly where we are today and what goals we want to reach next. From there we set out to widen our net and acquire more customers or users for our existing products and services. Our growth strategy starts with the n
How To Build A 21st Century Brand
Forty years ago a brand was an identifier. Branding was what we did to the outside of a product or service after it was conceived and created. Brands became tales woven to increase visibility and memorability using design, clever copy, print and TV advertising to make sure the product was known by t
How To Learn From The Customer Journey
Many of the businesses you will frequent today have no idea how you became a customer. What’s worse than not knowing what brought you there is either making an incorrect assumption or not having an interest in your journey at all. It’s easier than ever in an online world to understand where customer
The Path To Business Growth
Sal was already sweating as she blustered into the gym on Monday morning. She sat down heavily on the bench in the changing room. The things she had hastily stuffed into her gym bag tumbled out as soon as she unzipped it. Sal stopped for a second, realising she hadn’t replaced the three-day-old swea
The First Step To Overcoming Any Business Challenge
Six months ago Melissa invested her life savings in establishing an online store. Sales are not going as well as she’d hoped. When Melissa isn’t making or photographing products and uploading them to her store, she’s worrying about generating more sales. The time she spends worrying and reacting to
Patient Growth
My trusty blender died a couple of weeks ago, or rather I killed the thing with overwork and by overloading. The new blender had a lot to live up to. On the advice of the sales assistant I bought the most powerful one on the market, but was still frustrated by its performance. Why wouldn’t…
The Facts Are Overrated
Since the new Model 3 Tesla was unveiled just over two weeks ago 400,000 people (who have never test driven or sat in one) have paid $1000 to place an order. And while the price of this latest model makes it accessible to more people it’s clearly not what’s driving these organic sales. Think about…
Double Your Business
Greg opened his diary and booked the new client in. It was a small electrical job, hardly worth going out of his way for the call out fee of $120—the kind of job that most of his competitors wouldn’t have dreamed of booking this close to Christmas when everyone wanted everything yesterday. He turned
The Business Of Enough
There’s a tiny cafe in Midtown with room for exactly three people to stand up inside. They open from 7 until 5 on weekdays and close at 3 on weekends. The two staff working behind the counter are always smiling and engaged. They clearly love what they do. Lucid doesn’t have a website or another…
Re-imagining Your Business Growth Mindset
How is your business going to grow? When we think about marketing we are usually thinking about tactics we can use to attract new customers. Our stories are often designed to make people who don’t notice or care to buy or switch. The other way to scale is to retain a customer—to gain both his…
