Business Growth Development Consultancy

Where Growth Comes From

Growth occurs where you have a very simple equation that describes the coming together of demand and supply.  The greater the demand and the weaker the supply the faster the business growth develops, similar to the simple equation to calculate force which Newton describes in his second law, Force = Mass x Acceleration or F=ma.

There are however other factors that will impact the trajectory of growth in your business which come from shifts in the market that alter what is now deemed in demand and ultimately where supply comes from.

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No matter how good your sales and marketing is, it will become ineffective in the long run if your products and services are a pile of tut.

Even Sir Alan Sugar, who’s been labelled himself for producing some questionable products said (and rather well) during one of the apprentice shows:

“I sent you out on a mission to France, to sell quality British products. I gave you a list of organic farmers, people who use tender love and care to create something special, that they take a pride in. And I wanted you to take that product and say “This is what us British produce, this is not mass-produced tut…” and what you do, is you go and buy a breeze block-load of bloody cheddar cheese!”

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When faced with difficult or seemingly impossible situations most think about giving up, but its often those that are prepared to face their fears and to keep on, keeping on, that go on to reap the rewards from their efforts.

Fear cripples us all in some shape or form.  I remember fearing public speaking, so I joined Toastmaster International which helped a great deal.

What did you fear and how did you overcome it ?

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Will Smith on developing a successful attitude in your business.

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One of my customers finally gave up….doing what they had always done and decided they had no choice but to find an alternative way of doing things.

I had discussed this with them many times before, and they had resisted the change because they didn’t have to….it was (tough) business as usual.

Well things finally came to ahead when the “business as usual” approach drove them into the ground and almost wiped the business out. As a last ditch attempt they said go on then see what you can do.

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The Business landscape is changing fast which for sometime now I have been predicting and talking about with individuals and businesses directly, and on this site, many of whom are just not ready but are aware that things are changing and the pain it brings.

The CBI have produced a report which confirms that change is indeed taking placing and that a new business model is evolving.

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The business world is changing and especially so with selling and marketing.  What worked 20 years ago won’t work as effectively today…. why ? technology has advanced beyond recognition, selling and marketing is getting tougher, trust is being slowly eroded and choice and competition has exploded.

All businesses now have a whole series of hurdles and hoops to jump through to win new customers and we just don’t have the time for irrelevant, time wasting, unproductive and non measurable sales and marketing activity.

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1. Narrow Your Message – Talk directly to the desires of specific group(s) of people and in their language.
2. Customer Centric – Don’t talk about your business, talk about what you can do for your customer, it’s all about them.
3. Remain Ethical - Deliver on you promises and offer the kind of quality service or product that your customers expect.
4. Problem Solve – Stop trying to push and cajole customers.  Instead educate, entertain, inform and solve problems.
5. Measurable & Emotional – Create emotional marketing messages that trigger a response which can be measured.

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Making use of hidden assets is one of the core strategies we use to accelerate growth. One of the toughest parts of this strategy is being able to detach yourself from traditional constraints, and if done correctly can generate some amazing results.

While working in your own business certain mindsets, defences and walls are created based on experiences or incumbent knowledge (or lack of) which determine a way of doing things and working. Breaking out of that is very tough so a fresh set of eyes, ears and minds can have a dramatic affect, enabling you to see and approach the situation in a different way altogether.

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Finding a customer (trail blaze) or having a customer find you (bread trail) has a dramatic impact on how a commercial relationship develops.

Trail blazing beats a path to the front door of your customers and prospects whether its over the phone, in the mail, TV or radio it basically interrupts somebody’s routine to engage in a potentially mutual outcome. However, the problem with this method is that its been abused so much over time by scam artists and low to no service orientated businesses that people are sceptical and uneasy about such methods and most of the time you are “interrupting” and the people being contacted have no immediate need or desire for what you are offering. You end up becoming the unwelcome pest if not done correctly and without quickly evaluating your prospects position or their timing you may end up with the door slammed in your face.

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Seth Godin (a marketing favourite of mine) is giving away a free ebook, What Matters Now, and he asked me to share it with you.

There are seventy big thinkers, who will be sharing an idea for you to think about as we head into the new year. From best selling author Elizabeth Gilbert to brilliant tech thinker Kevin Kelly, from publisher Tim O’Reilly to radio host Dave Ramsey, there are some important people riffing about important ideas.

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photo credit: Ministère: Travail, Solidarité, Ville

A business growth plan is not just about creating a tool to raise money or recruit members of your leadership team or event to set your marketing strategy. Its there to help you define or describe a “picture” of your business and where it is going which you can tweak as it grows. Get it wrong and your going nowhere fast. Here are 10 common mistakes made by entrepreneurs when building their business plans.

Being All Things to All People

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Today’s sales and marketing technologies offer many opportunities to businesses to help them grow.

It was not so long ago though that these technologies were out of the reach of many due to their high costs, but technology has increasingly got cheaper and with the advancements of open source technologies can even be obtained for free with some technology know how.

The biggest impacts though have come from the areas of wide area networking in the form of the internet along with remotely hosted applications and services such as web servers, VoIP and CRM.

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With the rising complexities and choice in marketing, sales and generally achieving growth in businesses, especially in the on-line world, there is a growing demand for impartial consulting advice that provides knowledgeable, practical and focused growth driven strategies without the technology babel and bias that the UK market is currently drowned in.

But don’t just take our word for it

econsultancy

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Aardvark Engineering is one of only two companies shortlisted in two categories for the British Engineering Excellence Awards (BEEA) after successfully demonstrating the companies engineering and business skills.

The Awards aim to demonstrate and promote the quality of engineering design within the UK; to emphasise innovation and effectiveness in order to allow smaller companies to compete on an equal footing with larger ones; to act as an incentive to the design engineering industry to create world-class businesses; to provide a benchmark of excellence from which the industry can learn and from which it can build; and to demonstrate the power of engineering design innovation within the UK to the world.

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