Organisational Development

Managing A Mature Business – How To Keep Innovating

Dec 14 2021

This is the second in our series of articles on managing a mature business.

If you missed the first article, about managing the cash flow of a mature business, you can click on this link.

We have also completed our series of articles on Starting A Small Business and on Growing Your Business, and the links provided will take you to the first articles of those series if you missed them.

In this week’s article, we are (hopefully) going to recognise that your business has reached the mature stage in its life cycle, and look to renew the cycle before it drips into the next stage, which is the stage of decline!

But first, let’s refresh our memories to talk about the four stages of the business life cycle: –

Comment 13

Growing Your Business By Setting It Up To Scale

Nov 23 2021

When you start your business, and as it grows, you will have a picture in your mind about where it will end up as your successful business.

The chances are that you see a business that grows and is prosperous, efficient, duplicating what it does for your clients now, but on a much larger scale, and repeating your success in bigger contexts.

This doesn’t happen by chance. You need to plan it, you need to set it up correctly so that it will scale efficiently rather than in fits and starts and discover all sorts of inefficiencies and roadblocks to growth along the way.

We will look at the steps you need to take, right now, before the growth spurts start, to set up your business to scale.

Comment 13

Growing Your Business By Employing With Intent

Nov 09 2021

Last fortnight, we dealt with how to grow your business by making sure that your employees grow with you – by providing them with a clear Position Description that detailed their goals, objectives and responsibilities, and performance measures, and by ensuring that you implement a consistent feedback system to review their performance.

This fortnight, we are going to look at how to employ people with intent. That is, knowing exactly who you need to employ, what their roles are and how these people will populate your complete business structure.

This means designing what your business will look like, from the beginning, and in doing this, knowing what your organisational structure will look like when your business structure is complete.

To do this, we are going to look at designing your Organisation Chart.

Comment 13

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

Put All Your Employees In Their Places!

Feb 16 2021

You need to put your staff in their place!

No, I don’t mean be a strict disciplinarian and shout at everyone!

That’s not the way to build stability and loyalty – and let’s face it – not the way to build a long-term business!

No, what I mean is that like any group of people, like any team, each person needs to have a role to play.

In order for your team to be productive and effective, everyone knows where they fit into the system, how they work with others, and how they are to be measured in their work.

Small businesses grow organically, so it is not unheard of to find that in small businesses, some of your employees are jack of all trades.

There’s nothing wrong in that, but trust me, in order to grow and scale, you need to identify where everyone sits in the team and what their primary purpose is.

Here’s the disaster that could happen, so read on:

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...

Category - Organisational Development

Get FREE weekly ideas to grow your business

Managing A Mature Business – How To Keep Innovating

Growing Your Business By Setting It Up To Scale

Growing Your Business By Employing With Intent

Growing Your Business By Growing Your Employees

Put All Your Employees In Their Places!