There is no such thing as overnight success – behind every victory is hard work, stress and often tears. But there are ways to accelerate business growth.
Let me tell you the story of Alexander Wang.
When he was 19, he dropped out of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology with no tangible plan. He wasn’t sure what startup he would create.
And then, he had a lightbulb moment.
At the time, companies wanted to integrate machine learning, but most didn’t have the tools or resources that Big Tech did for their in-house AI projects.
That’s when Wang hit upon the idea of ‘Scale’, which makes AI infrastructure for developers to build from.
Within less than six years, he has become the youngest self-made billionaire at 25.
His net worth is estimated to be $1 billion. His San Francisco-based artificial intelligence company, Scale AI, is valued at over $7.3 billion.
Business Lesson on How to Accelerate Growth
Truth be told, there is no such thing as overnight success. Some get there faster than others. Your goal should be accelerating business growth and expediting the process while managing your expectations.
Remember, being rich is not the only form of success. But it sure opens up the doors to many other things we deem successful.
And if there’s anything I’ve learnt in the past couple of years, you have to make it personal to succeed.
Our Seven Steps to Accelerate Business Growth
- Goals
- Routine
- Mentorship
- Boundaries
- Money
- Lessons
- Learning
The First Step to Accelerate Business Growth – Goals
We can’t know where we are going unless we know where we are coming from.
If we want to succeed faster, we need a vision of what that success looks like, and we need to pursue it daily!
I’m a huge fan of SMART goals
Specific
Your goals have to be specific. As a business owner, this is the time for you to discover what exactly you want. Break it down as much as possible such that a lay man looking at it will be able to understand fully without probing further.
This will give you focus and clarity to chase after it. Anyone reading it should understand what will be done and who will do it.
Measurable
Measurable goals are quantifiable. If it’s about increasing your sales, make it tangible. How much do you want to make when the goal is achieved?
Measuring your goals allows you to track them and monitor your progress. It also helps you stay focused on deadlines.
Achievable
There’s no limit to dreaming; you can be as wild as possible. But when it comes to setting goals, they have to be achievable.
This means having realistic goals. You have to be able to envision success within a specific time frame. There’s no point in making big goals if you won’t be able to work towards them.
Relevant
Have you ever found yourself wanting something just because your mate has it? We probably all have. Relevant goals are those that make sense to you.
They have to be in line with your objectives. They have to align with your values and beliefs. Otherwise, you probably won’t have the motivation to go after them.
Time-bound
A goal has to be time-bound. Otherwise, you’ll not see the need to wake up every morning to chase after it.
Break the goal down into smaller chunks. Yes, you want to be a billionaire someday. But what are you doing to achieve that goal today, this week, this month, this quarter, and this year?
Read more about SMART goals in our blog post – Setting SMART Goals.
The Second Step to Accelerate Business Growth – Routine
Have you read the book Atomic Habits? It’s a great book to give you a fresh perspective on forming new habits and building a good routine. This is essential in accelerating your business growth.
One of my favourite quotes from the book is,
“If successful people and unsuccessful people share the same goals, then the goal cannot be what differentiates the winners from the losers.”
There has to be more to it. And I’ll tell you what it is…consistency and hard work.
Outside ideas know that there are many ways to do this:
- Making use of to-do lists
- Have a default diary
- Set small goals
- Track your progress
Make Use of To-Do Lists
To build a routine, you need a schedule.
For small business owners, your routine might look different every day. The solution is to start every new day with a to-do list.
Review your lists daily and see what’s working and what’s not. And by the end of it, you’ll probably be able to tweak and see the best time to perform specific tasks.
Have a Default Diary
A default diary is a calendar for your week that blocks time that is pre-assigned to particular tasks.
It will help you see through tasks to the end and prioritise accordingly.
Download our PDF – How to Create a Default Diary.
Set Small Goals
Setting small goals will help you achieve a routine. For example, your goal could be to send five proposals in a week. That would mean waking up early to start executing your tasks.
Set these small goals to guide you and help you build a routine.
Track your Progress
Building a new habit isn’t the easiest thing to do.
You have to fight with your mind. You must wake up in the morning, against all forces, because ultimately, you know it’ll be good for you.
So, track your progress to see how well/badly you’re doing. Adjust your schedule until it works for everyone.
The Third Step to Accelerate Business Growth – Mentorship
I’ve learnt the hard way that having access to people who have been there and done it is with its weight in gold, and I personally have two coaches.
Life is hard, mainly because most of us have no blueprint for success. We try and fail and try again, which is not a bad thing in itself.
However, I can guarantee that life becomes much easier if you surround yourself with people who have been through similar challenges. Having a mentor is like having a compass when you get lost in the forest. They guide you in the right direction and steer you towards the right actions.
Having a mentor or support group can benefit you in many ways and can absolutely help you find success faster than without guidance.
Check out our Mastermind9 website for a business support group.
The Fourth Step To Accelerate Business Growth – Boundaries
I’m becoming much better at saying no. It’s been another hard lesson, but it’s proving to be a better strategy for me. Herbert Bayard Swope said, “I can’t give you a surefire formula for success, but I can give you a formula for failure: Try to please everybody all the time.”
Setting boundaries is probably one of the hardest things to do, but it becomes a breeze once you learn how to do it.
What’s the link between saying no and succeeding faster?
Without setting essential boundaries, we get into a pattern of over-extending ourselves and getting nothing in return.
Warren Buffet said, “The difference between successful people and successful people is that successful people say no to almost everything.”
The two ways to set boundaries are:
- Visualise and know your limits
- Communicate your boundaries
Visualise and Know Your Limits
You can’t set boundaries without first knowing them. You need to visualise them and, if possible, write them down.
It could be that you don’t pick your phone during certain hours of the day. Or, it could be a boundary specifically with your clients – maybe that if they cancel at the last minute, you have to charge them fully.
Whatever the case, the first step is to know and understand your boundaries clearly.
Communicate Your Boundaries
Once you know your limits, the next step is communicating those boundaries to others.
Don’t be scared to turn down clients whose needs aren’t aligned with yours. Don’t be scared to communicate your boundaries and expectations, even with your employees. By doing so, your chances of success automatically increase.
The Fifth Step to Accelerate Business Growth – Money
Have you heard the saying, “Money goes where money flows?”
You’ve probably realised that people handle money differently depending on your upbringing.
But if you are going to be successful, you have to manage your money well and be smart about it.
It’s tough to become rich, but what’s even more challenging is maintaining that status.
If you want to accelerate your business growth, you need to do two things:
To Educate Yourself About Money
How much knowledge do you have of how money works?
Being a small business owner means handling money, sometimes entirely by yourself.
Such knowledge doesn’t come automatically. You need to acquaint yourself with the knowledge.
Take courses that will teach you how to handle money as a business owner and in your personal life. You can also read books and articles on the same. In doing so, you’ll be much more likely to succeed.
To Execute What You’ve Learnt
It’s no use having all this information at your fingertips if you won’t put it to practice.
Executing what you’ve learnt about money will need discipline and consistency. You might need to try and fail a few times before you finally get the gist.
This brings me to the next step: accelerating business growth – success.
The Sixth Step to Accelerate Business Growth – Mistakes
It doesn’t matter how much you fail; you only need to succeed once! And mistakes are part of life.
Every failure is a lesson.
I think we’re often scared of making mistakes because they feel like a reflection of who we are, when, in essence, it’s impossible not to make mistakes.
Mistakes are simply opportunities for improvement. So, what can you learn from that client who you didn’t manage to sign up? What can you learn from all the money you lost due to unclear payment policies?
If you can list failures and corresponding lessons from them, it’ll be much easier to succeed.
These are the two ways of dealing with mistakes:
- Fix them
- Change your Perspective
Fix the Mistakes
“If you sit in 5HIT for too long, you start smelling like it.”
It’s a harsh reality, but it’s true.
Instead of dwelling on the issue, find solutions. And if you look closely enough, you can almost always find a solution to your problems. Focus your energy on that instead of the mistakes you made.
Change Your Perspective
All mistakes are simply lessons.
Because the chances are you won’t repeat them. You’ll probably be more attentive. You’ll probably counter-check your work before publishing it.
So, shifting your perspective from seeing every mistake as a failure to a lesson will help accelerate your business growth.
Change your perspective, pick up the pieces and move on.
The Seventh Step to Accelerate Business Growth – Learning
Isn’t it funny how we all, at one point, imagined that learning would stop when we finished school? How wrong we were.
Learning NEVER stops. At least, it shouldn’t.
No human being has infinite knowledge, meaning you can never exhaust all there is to know.
How beautiful is that?
In the world we live in, you barely need any money to learn. There are so many free online courses and books with a vast amount of knowledge.
We have no excuse, and succeeding faster has never been easier.
Here are three ways to keep learning:
- Find relevant courses
- Read the right books
- Attend webinars and workshops
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Find Relevant Courses
The best thing about our world today is that you can learn almost everything from the comfort of your home.
You only need good internet, a comfortable seat, and some discipline.
Whatever field you are in, there are free online courses that you can take up.
You can acquaint yourself with these sites for some of these courses
- Coursera – Business Finance Courses
- The Open University – Money and Business
- Alison – Freek Online Money and Business Courses
2. Read the Right Books
If you are a small business owner, you most likely have some gaps in your knowledge.
It could be in sales, marketing, accounting, law, or even administration.
“When you stop learning, you start dying.”
Make sure that you’re, at any point in time, learning something new.
And before you know it, you’ll be highly skilled and marketable in everything you do.
3. Attend Webinars and Workshops
Depending on where you live and what field you are in, there are probably webinars and workshops that could be highly useful for you.
You may find this by acquainting yourself with like-minded individuals on social media.
You can even join relevant groups in your field and likely come across a webinar where you can learn.
Lastly, find out who the gurus are in your industry and ‘stalk’ their websites. They will likely have previously saved webinars that are useful for you.
Steps to Accelerate Business Growth – Our Summary
We want to speed up success and get it all in a heartbeat, but that’s not how life works. It’s a process.
The beauty is that there is so much to learn and experience in the journey to success.
Still, if you want to speed up your success, the seven things you need to look into are:
- Goals
- Routine
- Mentorship
- Boundaries
- Money
- Mistakes
- Learning
At Outside ideas, we know success is not a linear upward curve, but there are ways to get there faster. We’ve worked with business owners who started very small and grew into big, thriving businesses.
We’re always up for a chat. If you would like to discuss success further, get in touch. Outside ideas is on a mission to help people and businesses grow. We offer a range of support.
