So after receiving a barrage of text messages urging me to patronize an eatery I usually go to for launch, I decided to do so, I walked in and there was a long queue, I shrugged it off and decided to wait my turn, but sadly the queue was not moving, I could see that the sales attendants were struggling to deal with the high influx of customers, they were botching several orders and therefore had a lot of angry customers to deal with.

I was one of those angry customers, I had to wait for around an hour for an order that should have taken 10 mins. Having patronized this eatery before I could testify to the fact that they were doing very well when they had fewer customers, but sadly it was evident that they were struggling to cope with the high influx of customers they got after their latest marketing campaign.

Of what use was their marketing campaign? given that not only have they lost my trust and that of hundreds of old customers, their inability to meet up with the demand from new customers meant that the customers they’ve just acquired may not likely return, as a result of their first interaction with the business. So what this meant was that the marketing effort that was designed to enable them to grow is slowly destroying their business.

This narrative sounds familiar. Unfortunately, there are too many businesses that go down this road, If you asked 10 entrepreneurs what they wanted, it’s highly likely that 6-7 out of 10 would state that they want more clients but the question that many of them fail to ask is – ‘’Is my business positioned for growth?’’

THE COST OF GROWTH

When most entrepreneurs think about growth what comes to mind is growth in revenue, number of customers or sales but here’s what growth also means – It means that if you are a team of 20, you may need to increase to a team of 100. If you were running inefficiently you might need to improve.

 

To begin the journey of seeking growth by thinking that growth comes with profit alone is a false premise because growth comes with more responsibilities. The profit comes when you have effectively been able to handle the demand for your services. In essence, to be qualified for growth, you must first put in place the necessary structure that will enable you to efficiently manage the projected increase in demand that will come with your new growth target.

GETTING READY FOR GROWTH.

 

So what do I mean? It means that before embarking on that marketing campaign in a bid to increase your customer base, you must ask very critical questions such as:
Is my business ready for growth? Do I have the necessary structure I need to deal with the new influx in demand for my services? Core elements like the strength of human capital both in quantity and quality and the presence of processes and systems that can ensure operational efficiency cannot be underestimated.

  •  On a scale of 1-10, how well do you manage the clients you currently have?
  • Do your clients complain about your services and at what frequency?
  •  Is your business efficiently serving the demands of your current clients?
  • What can you do better?

It’s is important that you are brutally honest in answering the questions above.

At Endgame – The Strategy Company before deploying our growth service package we measure our client’s growth readiness through;

  • A rigorous review of the businesses capabilities.
  • A dispassionate assessment of where they stand against these capabilities on two fronts- their level of operational efficiency and customer satisfaction.
  • An action plan to scale back in the less-critical areas, and a corresponding plan to redirect resources from these areas to more critical ones.
  • A series of targeted organizational interventions to increase speed and quality of decision making and delivery in the enterprise.
  • In the event, however, that the business is not ready for growth, a strategic plan is devised to position the venture for growth.