Build A Business Growth Strategy In 7 Steps

Develop a strategy guaranteed to grow your business

Just as a plant needs sunlight, water, and care to thrive, a business requires growth strategies to reach its full potential. 

These strategies require immense research, implementation, and optimisation. However, if done right, a business can thrive and reach the highest of highs.  

And what’s one of the very first steps to business growth? Understanding it. 

What is Business Growth? 

Business growth refers to an increase in a company’s KPIs, for instance, revenue, market share, size, or profitability, over a set period of time. 

To achieve this, a business growth strategy is developed, which may mean developing new products/services or expanding into new markets. 

Types of Business Growth 

The main types of business growth are organic and inorganic growth. Whichever business growth tactic a company chooses will determine how it approaches its business growth strategy. 

What is Organic Growth? 

Organic business growth occurs from within the company. For instance, when it increases its product ranges, business units, etc.

When using an organic growth strategy, most companies will optimise a process, invest in new technologies, or develop a new product.

What is inorganic Growth? 

Inorganic business growth, otherwise known as external growth, happens through mergers and acquisitions. 

The whole goal of this type of growth is to boost a company’s earnings and market share. It’s important to know, however, that opening new branches and shops is also considered inorganic growth.

7 Steps to a Business Growth Strategy

A business growth strategy is a lengthy process. However, the more effort you put into your strategy, the higher your chance of success. 

Below is a very brief 7-step guide on creating a business growth plan. Please note, though, that there’s much more to creating a growth strategy than what’s mentioned below. This is just a brief overview. 

Step 1: Define Goals 

First, you need to define a goal or set of goals. For instance, “converting 20% more prospects into customers”, “increasing market share in the Netherlands by 20%”, or “boosting revenue by 50% in London”.

These goals will act as the foundation of your entire growth strategy. Therefore, make them specific and, most importantly, realistic. 

Step 2: Decide a Timeline 

After defining your goals, you can set a timeline. Like with the goals, the timeline should be realistic. 

A lot of the time, it’s a good idea to make a 10-year plan and then work backwards. For instance, create a 10-year plan, then another plan to reach your goals in 5 years, 3 years, 2 years, etc.

Of course, you don’t need to work backwards, but it allows you to think from more than one perspective, allowing you to optimise and tweak your strategy. You should also only work backwards until you reach a realistic timeline. 

Step 3: Plan Actions 

Going back to your goals, for instance, “boosting revenue in London”, you then define actions you need to do to achieve this. In this case, it could mean opening another 5 shops or increasing advertising spend in London. 

Step 4: Add Metrics 

You then need metrics to measure your success. When doing this, keep them simple and quantifiable. For instance, revenue is a good metric to track if your goal is to increase revenue. In contrast, time is a good metric to track if you’re optimising an operational process. 

Step 5: Research and Adjust 

With the information above, you must research and decide whether the plan is realistic and practical. For example, if you want to open more shops in London, find out prices, footfall, etc., to determine whether establishing shops in London is the best way to increase revenue in London. 

Step 6: Set Funding 

You should have a pretty good idea of funding based on your research. With this information, you can set a realistic budget and can then go ahead and secure investments, loans, etc. 

Step 7: Execute 

The last thing to do is to realise your business development growth strategy. Follow your strategy and make small changes along the way as long as they benefit the overall strategy. 

Free Gift for Business Growth 

At Action Coach, we want to give you a free gift to accelerate business growth. Book our free webinar today and get advice on business growth strategies from professionals who have grown businesses time and time again.