Identifying and overcoming what’s holding your business back
Owning and running a small business can be exciting.
There are near endless possibilities for growth along the way.
But there are also challenges to be faced during that journey.
Addressing these can help you achieve the consistent growth you’re looking for.
The first step is identifying exactly what is standing in the way of your business.
This article will look at the process of spotting barriers to growth, learning about them, and eventually overcoming them.
Actively look for obstacles
This may sound a little like asking for trouble. But these barriers will be there whether you notice them or not. And so it is better to make decisions based on as complete a picture of your business as possible.
Obstacles can be internal or external, and it’s important to understand the nature of each challenge you face. Internal obstacles, ones within your business, can take many forms.
Talk to your people
Typically, one of the best ways to find obstacles is to ask people on the inside.
That means talking to your employees and managers about what’s stopping them from performing at their best, as well as what is limiting the business from achieving more.
It could be that day-to-day inconsistencies make it hard to scale up production. Or that they’re receiving more orders than they can handle because they’re understaffed.
Conversely, if issues are external, like a general downturn in the industry over a certain period, there isn’t as much that you will be able to do to address this.
That’s still important to know though! You might not be able to single-handedly increase demand across the market, but you could use that information to make decisions on new products or avenues to explore.
Run the numbers
Key performance indicators and metrics can tell a story as well. Are your advertising channels performing as expected? Are costs in certain areas limiting your budget to expand? Have you seen trends in the sales of particular products or services?
Take the time to establish a broad view of what your baseline looks like, then highlight anything that seems out of the ordinary by comparison. Examining the reasons for that change can reveal important insights about your processes or industry.
There’s plenty of data you can gather on your competitors as well. If they’re experiencing similar highs and lows, there’s a good chance that’s symptomatic of a broader trend. If you’re doing something they’re not, then there’s an internal factor you need to identify.
Keep external factors in mind and adjust accordingly
There’s often not a lot you can do directly about things like the economy, taxes, government red tape, or a saturated market. But that doesn’t mean you are powerless and must simply accept whatever the consequences will be.
Instead, awareness of these factors can help you to make informed decisions about the day-to-day and long term direction of your business. If changes to taxes make it harder to offer a certain service, you can plan to reduce your reliance on that part of your business.
Wage increases can be factored into future cost projections and budgets. Time can be allocated to making changes to conform to new regulations. Whatever is changing in the wider world, you can forecast its effect on your business.
Analyse and overcome internal barriers
If you instead find difficulties that originate within your business, you have far more control over your response to these. Common examples many businesses face include a lack of skills in a particular area, limited production capacity, or low productivity.
These can all be addressed with the right course of action, but recognising which ones to prioritise is just as important. It would be nice to solve every possible problem your business faces, and have a huge team of delighted employees churning out endless products at great margins.
But getting to that point requires the investment of time and money into many different areas. It’s not realistic to try to break down every barrier at once. Instead, you need to focus on the ones that are going to make the biggest difference.
A simple classification system might be to rank each barrier by its difficulty and its impact. It will be most cost effective, in terms of addressing it and benefitting from its resolution, to address the easy, high impact barriers first.
You might be struggling because your staffing isn’t set up to handle large fluctuations in demand throughout the week. A smart and inexpensive scheduling solution like Findmyshift could be the answer.
Start addressing the quick wins in terms of breaking down barriers and you’ll soon build up the momentum to tackle the larger obstacles. Good luck!