2021 | Teik Oh

Growing Your Business By Growing Your Employees

Oct 26 2021

Typically, small businesses employ a small number of people before they expand and grow.

As small businesses grow, the way they develop and grow their people will help them grow their business as well. So, the performance of those people in the early years is fundamental to the performance of the business as it grows.

Therefore your small business should attempt to ensure the best performance from your employees, and systems to help them grow and develop along with your business.

The best way of developing your employees is to implement an effective review system where they are shown what their key performance indicators are, where they can be given clear targets to achieve, and where positive but honest feedback can be given both ways so that they are helped to develop and that they provide feedback to you on how you can best use them in your business.

In order to implement an effective staff performance review system, you first need to have something against which to measure. Read More

Comment 13

Growing Your Business With A Marketing Plan

Oct 12 2021

Many small business owners, even after the excitement of startup and in their growth phase, don’t realise the value of having a marketing plan.

I think deep down inside they think that marketing is something that “happens” when they start their business. They have something good to sell. They believe in the vision and values of their business. Build it and they will come – and if they don’t come as quickly, ok, then we might advertise.

But advertising is not marketing.

Marketing is a whole system of supportive components around your business that should be designed to attract customers who are the lowest hanging fruit. Advertising is only one component and is part of the message that you broadcast. A marketing plan designs that system to work together and the reason you need a marketing plan is to make sure that you design the system right. You need to aim with a precise focus on your target customer, not fire off a scatter-gun and hope you hit somebody!

Comment 13

Growing Your Business With Your Annual Business Plan

Oct 05 2021

This is the third part of our series on growing your small business after establishing it from a startup. If you missed our first two articles on Growing Your Business By Measuring Everything and Growing Your Business With A Strategic Plan, you can catch up by clicking on the links.

This series of “Growing Your Business” follows our earlier series of blog posts on “Starting A Small Business“. If you want to catch up on how to start your own small business I will put the links to those articles at the end of this post.

In this post I will discuss how, having set a long-term strategic direction for your business to grow, through your Strategic Plan, you can cascade shorter-term goals and actions from the long term strategies year by year. This allows you to establish more detailed annual targets and actions, while at the same time ensuring that you stay true to course on the way to building the business of your vision.

Comment 13

Growing Your Business With A Strategic Plan

Sep 28 2021

This is the second part of our series on growing your small business once your startup is established.

If you missed our series on how to start your own small business, you can go here to read the first article in that series.

The first part of this series on growing your small business can be found here.

This week, we are going to look at how preparing a long-term Strategic Plan as an overview of your strategic direction (where you want to end up and how you want to get there) can help you keep on track as you grow.

In your growth phase, you will meet many challenges and just as many decisions. Where will you open a store next? Who should you hire? Your supplier is going out of business – how do you choose a replacement? Should you rent your new premises or buy? Should you take on a partner?

Comment 13

Growing Your Business – Measure Everything

Sep 21 2021

We have completed our series of blog posts on starting your small business, but if you have missed any of those articles and you want to teach yourself about the steps to take when you are starting a small business, I’ll put the links to those articles at the end of this post.

Today we are starting our series on growing your small business. Having started successfully, you are not turning your attention to growing your business.

One of your most important tasks of this stage is to set yourself milestones in the growth of your business so that you can recognise when you have reached various points of success. When should I hire more staff? When will reach a point in my profits when I can invest in more equipment? When do I start paying off my startup loan? When should I look to open a new store?

These are the types of questions you should identify answers to at the start of your growth so that you can recognise them and know what to do next.

This is why one of your most important tasks, other than writing your Strategic and Business Plans, is to measure everything.

Comment 13

Increase your sales through a highly focused marketing plan!

SMART Marketing: In this book, the owners of a small business are led through the SMART Marketing 7 Step Process to produce a marketing plan targeted at their most desirable customers. Any business can use these principles and in 4 to 6 weeks implement a plan to get them through the door! Find out how...

The SMART Marketing Workbook: Companion to “SMART Marketing”, this workbook sets out the SMART Marketing process in 7 workshops for you and your staff to complete questionnaires and templates that at the end, form the marketing plan you need to sell your REAL product to your REAL customer! View now...

Archive - 2021

Get FREE weekly ideas to grow your business

Growing Your Business By Growing Your Employees

Growing Your Business With A Marketing Plan

Growing Your Business With Your Annual Business Plan

Growing Your Business With A Strategic Plan

Growing Your Business – Measure Everything