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Building While You Fly: Achieving Sustainable Growth for Your Business

Building While You Fly: Achieving Sustainable Growth for Your Business

Written by Lindokuhle Ntombela on . Posted in Asset of Value, Creating time, Insights, Operational systems, Scale & Grow.

Introduction: Building a successful business is akin to our personal development journey. Just as we evolve from infancy to adulthood, our businesses must also adapt and grow to support their expanding needs. Relying on the same foundation that launched your business may hinder its potential for growth. To avoid adverse outcomes such as being trapped in the day-to-day operations, losing customers, team members, and suppliers, and stagnant growth, it is crucial to embrace the concept of building while you fly. In other words, as your business takes off, you must continuously improve and upgrade your infrastructure to soar higher and achieve sustainable growth.

  1. Evolving with the Right Chassis: Similar to our musculoskeletal system adapting to support our growth, your business needs a strong foundation that can accommodate its expanding size and ambitions. The chassis that served you well during the initial stages may not be suitable for long-term growth. By recognizing the need for a more robust infrastructure, you can build it out to operate independently of you and thrive beyond your individual efforts.
  2. Escaping the Life of Firefighting: Failing to build while you fly often leaves you in a never-ending cycle of firefighting. You find yourself constantly addressing urgent issues, unable to focus on strategic growth initiatives. By investing time and resources into building a solid foundation, you can release yourself from the daily operational challenges and gain the freedom to concentrate on driving your business forward.
  3. Safeguarding Customers, Teams, and Suppliers: If you don’t evolve your business, it can have detrimental effects on your relationships with customers, team members, and suppliers. As your competitors adapt to changing market demands, you risk losing customers who seek innovative solutions elsewhere. Additionally, without a scalable infrastructure, your team may become overwhelmed, leading to disengagement or turnover. Suppliers, too, may be hesitant to collaborate if they perceive your business as stagnant. Building while you fly ensures that you retain these crucial stakeholders and foster long-term relationships based on growth and mutual success.
  4. Embracing a Virtuous Cycle of Growth: Stagnant growth can create a negative feedback loop, draining your business of vitality and potential. On the other hand, building while you fly establishes a virtuous cycle of growth and confidence. By consistently investing in your business and upgrading its capabilities, you attract the right opportunities and talent, further fuelling your growth trajectory. This cycle fosters an environment of continuous improvement and optimism, empowering your business to reach new heights.
  5. The 9-5 Operation and 5-9 Investment: To successfully build while you fly, it is essential to strike a balance between day-to-day operations and investing in future growth. The traditional 9-5 work schedule may fulfil immediate responsibilities, but dedicating the 5-9 time slot to strategic planning, skill development, and innovation is equally crucial. By allocating time outside regular working hours to invest in your business, you can unlock numerous benefits.

Benefits of Building While You Fly:

Sustained Passion: By embracing the mindset of building while you fly, you remain enthusiastic about your business, constantly discovering new facets of yourself, your industry, and its potential.

Increased Efficiency: Investing time in growth-oriented activities allows you to optimize processes, improve productivity, and streamline operations, resulting in time saved that can be redirected toward expansion.

Competitive Advantage: Remaining proactive and forward-thinking positions your business on the front foot, ready to seize opportunities and adapt to industry shifts, enabling you to attract the right collaborators and stay ahead of the competition.

Sustainable Growth: Building while you fly propels your business toward sustained growth and success, as you continuously upgrade your infrastructure, attract new customers, nurture your team, and forge stronger partnerships. Building while you fly is a critical concept for achieving sustainable growth in your business. By acknowledging the need for ongoing evolution, you can avoid stagnation and unlock your business’s full potential. Escaping the life of firefighting, safeguarding valuable relationships, and fostering a cycle of growth and confidence are the rewards of investing time and resources into upgrading your infrastructure. Embrace the 9-5 operation and 5-9 investment approach, and you will witness your business soar to new heights, driven by continuous improvement and a passion for progress.

To listen to the full discussion from the show:

You need BOTH a resilient mindset AND a resilient business model to scale.

You need BOTH a resilient mindset AND a resilient business model to scale.

Written by Lindokuhle Ntombela on . Posted in Asset of Value, Creating time, Insights, Operational systems, Scale & Grow.

In today’s uncertain and evolving economy, scaling and dominating your industry require more than just a great product or service. It demands a combination of a resilient mindset and a resilient business model.

Resilience is the ability to persist and stay proactive despite challenging circumstances. By cultivating the right mindset and implementing a robust business model, entrepreneurs can navigate the ever-changing landscape and achieve long-term success.

The Power of a Resilient Mindset: A resilient mindset is the foundation for overcoming obstacles and staying ahead in the game. It is an attitude that governs your behaviour and shapes your response to adversity. Developing the following mindsets is crucial for sustainable growth:

  1. Operator Mindset: Embrace the day-to-day grind and persistence necessary for success. It grants you control over shaping and crafting your business.
  2. Growth Mindset: Continuously seek opportunities for improvement and learning. Be open to innovation and adaptability, always striving for growth.
  3. Winning Mindset: Cultivate a positive outlook and a belief in your ability to succeed. Maintain a determined attitude and approach challenges as opportunities for victory.
  4. Investor Mindset: Think strategically and long-term, weighing risks and rewards. Make decisions that align with your vision and attract investment.

Building a Resilient Business Model: A resilient business model is the blueprint for translating effort into economic success.

Conventional wisdom suggests focusing on product or service excellence, establishing functions, recruiting to enable those, and then growing by adding new products or markets.

The Asset of Value approach offers a more customer-centric perspective:

  1. Define Your Target Market: Understand the specific customers you serve and their needs. Tailor your offerings to solve their problems effectively.
  2. Customer Experience Focus: Prioritize creating an exceptional customer experience throughout the client journey. Differentiate yourself by delivering that experience consistently in a way that differentiates you from your competitors.
  3. Design in Collaboration with Your Team: Engineer your business model together with your team. Delegate leadership roles and foster a culture of collective responsibility and growth.
  4. Lead Growth: As the business owner you have to lead your business’s growth and ensure that growth doesn’t dismantle your system of delivery. Maintain a consistent level of service quality as you expand and enter new markets or add new products.

Combining personal resilience with a robust business model maximizes your efforts and drives economic success. By staying adaptable, continuously improving, and keeping your customers at the centre of your operations, you position yourself for exponential returns and long-term sustainability.

To listen to the full discussion from the show:

turn talk into walk

TURNING THE TALK OF YOUR BUSINESS STRATEGY INTO THE WALK OF EXECUTION AND RESULTS

Written by pippa@aurik.com on . Posted in Aurik Business, Leadership, Mindset.

While the big ideas and the talk of business strategy seems easier to do, the walk of action and executing on those ideas is a struggle. On The Money Show with Bruce Whitfield, Pavlo outlines the obstacles that could be holding you back as a business owner, and how to overcome them:

PROCRASTINATION

You may have the big business strategy, the great idea, the gigantic goals, and the inspiration to attain them, but procrastination holds you back. Set too big a goal, and you may be overwhelmed by them, effectively preventing yourself from achieving any! Instead, break your big goals and idea into many small steps and then begin climbing that ladder – one step at a time. This will enable you to build momentum.

Don’t let your obsession with perfection hold you back from attaining your objectives – start with smaller goals and work your way through them, to achieve a sense of progress. With just 3 economic months left before the end of the year, you need to act and the best way to do it is to begin.

Also, holding back on action because you are waiting for a big project to land, environmental circumstances to change, or you’re concerned you will fail, won’t get you anywhere. Truth is found in action, so start acting, now.

IF YOU WANT SOMETHING DONE PROPERLY, DO IT YOURSELF

Letting go of control over the small tasks that make your business work, is imperative when you’re working on executing your business strategy. Building your business through effective delegation is important for growth, and where that has failed, look more towards hiring people as operators, and not just to fill a job vacancy. Moreover, if staff performance seems to be dwindling, look at your performance measurement systems, and re-assess how well they are working.

SILVER BULLETS

There are no silver bullets in business. Yes, you could hire new people, acquire new premises, find a new funder, or buy new equipment, but those aren’t going to generate action all on their own. Put aside the idea of a silver bullet saving your business, and set your mind towards action, rather than looking for a silver bullet.

EGO AND PRIDE

If you’re frustrated by a lack of progress in your business, and battling to implement your business strategy, it’s time to put your pride in your pocket and pack your ego away. Asking for support, help, or guidance, is not a sign of weakness; it’s a sign of strength and willingness to move beyond your current circumstances. More and more big businesses across the globe are re-assessing their business strategy and moving towards focusing on their core objectives – you should too. Outsource things that aren’t your primary business objective or area of specialization and look long and hard at the goals you want to achieve.

TIMING

The phrase “it’s not the right time” is an all-too-common excuse for delaying your execution of business strategy. Just get started! Of course, it can be difficult to measure and assess your leadership and direction in your business, especially at first, but remain cognizant of your business journey. Look for and find your business’ pattern of growth, while you focus on the objectives for that phase of your business journey.

At start-up stage, you should be focused on learning and understanding what business you’re in, defined only by the problems your business intends to solve for its customers. Moving on from that, building the business beyond yourself means you’ll need to change your leadership strategy, and lean more on implementing systems that will support your business strategy, while hiring the right people to work with those systems.

EXHAUSTION

We live and work in unsettled times, beleaguered by uncertain economic circumstances and a seemingly overwhelming barrage of bad news. This level of uncertainty is the new normal. Rather than allowing yourself to become despondent because of it, focus only on the things you can act on, control, and make happen. Focusing your energy on what is useful to you will help you to find the energy to keep moving, stay on track, and build your business. Developing a fitness for this new normal of uncertainty will mean you’ll be able to build your business, no matter what the external circumstances look like.

lock and load your business now

ACT NOW TO REGAIN CONTROL OF YOUR BUSINESS, AND GET AHEAD IN 2021

Written by pippa@aurik.com on . Posted in Aurik Business, Creating time, Exits, Leadership, Mindset, Pavlo Phitidis, Positioning.

For many businesses, the Covid-19 lockdown undermined all the plans we had made for 2020. While we don’t know what lies ahead in 2021 or beyond, this is all the more reason to build our  businesses to thrive in uncertainty. Join business growth specialist Pavlo Phitidis for a 60-minute discussion where he will outline a proven methodology to build a business to deliver more revenue, profit and time, irrespective of the external circumstances.

Leave with practical insights into how you can:

  • Position your business for relevance to existing and new markets
  • Build dependable marketing, sales and operational systems
  • Focus and empower your teams to ensure performance
  • Spend more time leading rather than doing
  • Accelerate growth of revenue and profitability
  • Build the 3 levers of value to maximise exit when you get there

Date: Wednesday 18th November 2020

Time: 08h00 to 09h00 

Register HERE