Is your business growing strongly? (Photo by Riyas Hamza)
How does your business grow? If you find it is struggling, then you need to reassess your cultivation techniques. It could be that tactics you employed in the past no longer work or that your competition is eclipsing you. Whatever the cause, you need to do something now.
Where do you start? Begin with the leadership at your firm. As Ray Patterson writes in his article, 7 Traits of Strong Business Leaders, strong leaders inspire their organizations to provide outstanding services while taking care of their employees and other stakeholders.
“Leadership is about the future. It isn’t just tomorrow or next month, but next year, the next decade, and beyond. Leadership is about dealing with uncertainty, ambiguity, and possibilities. Leadership is about creating and inspiring,” Patterson says.
Are you and/or your managers providing that? If you aren’t sure, take a look at the seven traits Patterson outlines in his article.
Next, consider what it means to have a wealthy company. No longer does it involve just money, writes Lisa Nirell in her article, 7 Wealth Builders that Most Professional Services Firms Ignore. It also includes ideals that honor your values, vision, and core strengths.
“This expanded mindset about wealth can simply lead to greater self-awareness, a more clearly defined sense of purpose, and more committed teams moving in the same direction,” Nirell says.
By following the criteria Nirell outlines in her article, “your chances of running a wealthy company worthy of successful exit or longevity will increase dramatically.”
Ineffective Publicity Tactics
You should also take a look at the publicity strategies you’ve been using. The deluge of articles written by and featuring industry experts has created so much white noise that it’s hard to get heard above it, writes Vickie K. Sullivan in her article, White Noise: 3 Changes that Impact Your Publicity Efforts. As a result, once-useful media campaign strategies, including being quoted in articles and writing feature articles, no longer bring in new business like they used to.
Such publicity strategies still play a role in your overall campaign, but you must take a new tack when applying them, Sullivan says.
“The new benchmark for publicity must go beyond getting in front of people,” she says. “That is no longer the challenge. We have to get strategic about what we know, not just get our ideas out there. The attention we get must inspire action: to go to our website, to inquire about our services, or even buy a book or two.”
Effective Growth Tactic
One tactic that has proved to be effective at getting your name and expertise out there and at generating new business is blogging. People want to do business with real, genuine people, says professional blogger Chris Garrett in his podcast interview, Tap Into the Power of Blogs to Grow Business, and blogging allows you to demonstrate that you are one.
But it takes time to get people to notice you, he warns. Don’t make one of the biggest mistakes of blogging and give up too quickly.
“If people aren’t seeing the success many other blogs have seen, it’s probably because they haven’t given it enough time. They have a rush of enthusiasm at the beginning, but they don’t get the traffic and comments they’d like right away. And they give up right when they’re about to hit the tipping point where people are starting to engage them,” he says.
You must also get out and spread the word about your blog, Garrett says. You can’t simply put up a blog and expect people to find you. You need to direct them to it using newsletters, Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, and comments on other blogs.
“It means networking. It means getting outside of your blog, getting outside of your own head and into where people you want to attract hang out,” he says.
Your Turn
What tactics are you using that are helping you to grow your business?
