Five Ways to Grow Your Business in 2009

I know, we are a few days in to the new year and I am finally getting back to posting. I have been thinking a bit about how I am going to grow my business this year amidst the “recession.”

I believe that the economic downturn right now is due to a series of bad business decisions and not much more. There are certainly outside influences that can cause challenges in business but businesses can weather the storm if their leaders start making good decisions. If Wal-Mart can grow, then why can’t you?

We are on target for triple digit growth and I thought I would share the top five things you can do to experience the same type of success in your business this year.

I’ve talked about growing in a down market before, but what can you do that will specifically help you right now see success?

Here are my top five recommendations:

Be Flexible

I know that this can be hard in some businesses, but you need to be willing to change your go-to-market strategy and the products you offer based on the economic and competitive landscape. If you are running your business today like you did two years ago, you are likely feeling the pinch of the economy. People today do not buy the same way they did two years ago. You need to be proactive and sell to people the way they want to buy. You have to sell the products they want to buy. You can’t expect your customers to bend to the way you want to do business (unless you have a must have product… which you probably don’t).

Trim the fat

I don’t know why people are so afraid to fire people. If you have non-performing people in your workforce, get rid of them. Right now is the perfect time to find the best labor available… and probably at a discount to normal market values. If you have someone that is not working out (maybe cost too much for the work they are doing or just can’t get their job done right) get rid of them. Don’t waste your time, your money, your effort and your opportunity by keeping people on staff that just aren’t working out. Chances are, if you get rid of people that aren’t productive and focus your energy on those that are, you will not have to lay anyone off.

Extend your work day

I am tired of people thinking that work starts at 8am and is magically complete at 5pm. Employers emphasize this attitude by not expecting more from their employees. A 40 hour workweek is an arbitrary number. Expect more from yourself and expect more from your employees. If business is down right now, you and your salaried employees should be willing to put in 60 – 70 hours or more per week until things pickup. If you have hourly employees, you have to weigh the cost of overtime. You can even move your employees to subcontractor status (make sure you check with HR first) and then expect more hours from them. Minimize chit-chat on business time (which is all the time they should be working not just from 8-5). Work hard to provide more for your customers.

Enhance Processes

I am amazed at how many businesses I work with that redo the same things over and over again. Proposals that aren’t standardized. Tasks that aren’t well defined. People that aren’t properly trained. You need to have a clear process for everything. While you are working hard, take the time to understand where the inefficiencies are in your business and build a process that strips those problems out. Enforce the following of those processes. Make sure that your employees and subcontractors understand that you do things a certain way for certain reasons. If they find a better way, encourage them to test them out and prove it. If you don’t have good processes in place, you will be bleeding money left and right.

Sell, Sell, Sell

I can’t underscore this enough. New sales are critical. The salesman who is satisfied with just meeting quota is not what you are looking for. You don’t want someone that is willing to just get by. The reason is that when times are slow, he won’t get by. The only thing more important than selling is the ability to fulfill on the sales. Everyone in your business is responsible for sales. Get on FaceBook and Twitter. Start a blog. Have conversations and build relationships. No one in your organization should be exempt from this responsibility. Anyone who sells should get some commission or lead fee that makes their effort worth the time spent. If a salesman makes $5K on a deal, the lead fee better be more than $100. We give a hefty percentage of revenue so there is no doubt how important it is to us.