So many entrepreneurs find themselves reacting to the growth of their businesses — so much so that some even regret growing in the first place. I am passionate about helping entrepreneurs grow with intention through business-building frameworks to avoid that unwanted future. What do I mean by business building? It’s a process of designing a sustainable operating model at each stage of growth, anticipating required upgrades to systems, processes and technology before the growth occurs. It’s been my experience that most entrepreneurs don’t know where to start. They may turn to business-help books to find best practices to adopt, but I have yet to see a book that covers what I have seen work. Perhaps I’ll write that book one day, but for now, I’ll share my top recommendations for business building at these four growth stages: startup, hiring your first business manager, surpassing 15 employees and scaling your workforce 30% or more. A different operating system for each growth stage A completely different operating system is required for each one of these growth stages. You can grow your business with intention by upgrading your operating system in anticipation of each stage. Why is a different operating system required at each stage? Because your top focus changes at each: your business goals. At startup, your focus is product development, funding and sales. At the time you’re ready to hire your first business manager, the focus starts to shift to delegation: How can I do more with what I have? By 15 employees, you’re choosing between a lifestyle business or making a larger impact. And lastly, at scale, it’s all about investment and your revenue return on that investment. At each stage of growth, it’s typical for the business to start accruing what I like to call organizational debt. Similar to tech debt, it accrues with time and will require investment to fix. In the early days, you prioritize other things over paying off this debt, but there will be a point in time where you can no longer ignore it as it will lead to growth decline. Startups Okay, so onto the good stuff: What business-building steps can you follow in order to grow with intention at each stage? At startup, surround yourself with people that address your gaps. If you are considering full-time hires, they need to maximize your reach. Fractional executives are a great way to achieve this without the risks that come with full-time hires. Lastly, outsource as much of your operating needs as possible until you surpass 15 employees: finance, HR, IT and legal. Hiring your first business manager When you’re ready to hire your first business manager, probably once you have 5-15 employees, don’t overcomplicate the role. Stick to the day-to-day operational needs that you can delegate and leave strategy out of the job description. Create a toolkit to lower your risk of turnover: job description, candidate profile, work assignment and interview questions. Lastly, start off with intention by creating a 90-day onboarding plan. At Expansion Group, we have some free resources you can use for this. Surpassing 15 employees Surpassing 15 employees requires a huge payoff in organizational debt. Now is when you need to consider bringing those outsourced operations in-house. This requires hiring, and that’s where you could poison your culture if you’re not careful. Create a blueprint for yourself to follow, in partnership with that new business manager. The blueprint needs to cover three critical areas at a minimum. You need to get all core processes out of your head, implement a long and short-term goal-setting system and ensure your culture is defined by a well-thought-out vision, mission and core values. If you don’t have these, be sure it’s an inclusive process with staff or it could backfire. Scaling your workforce 30% or more Scaling your workforce 30% or more requires a complete upgrade of that blueprint you created during the last growth stage. Essentially, you need more infrastructure to sustain your growth. Strategy becomes critical, and you can even create roadmaps for things like the design of your organization, product development and the technology you need to put in place while you grow. These roadmaps should drive your business goals. And if you’re opening your doors to 30% or more additional staff, then you better make sure you have a great idea of whom you close your doors to. This requires an idiot-proof playbook your recruitment team and hiring managers can follow. There you have it: how you can build your business in anticipation of growth. Stick to these recommendations at a minimum, and you will be a head above the rest. Happy growing! Source: https://www.entrepreneur.com/
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Small business grants are one of the best ways to increase working capital and grow a business. Small business grant programs can be a great way for small business owners looking for opportunities to build their business and develop it further. We’ll explore what a small business grant is, what it can be used for, and how to apply to different types of small business grants. What is a Small Business Grant? A small business grant is a sum of money awarded to eligible businesses through a grant program run by an organization. A key differentiator between business grants and business loans is there is no requirement to pay the grant money back. There are many resources on how to get free grants for small business, so make sure to look around. What Can Small Business Grants be Used For? For small business owners applying for grant funding, it can provide a lot of advantages. Grant money is essentially free money for qualifying small businesses to develop and grow without the pressure of paying back a loan. Some of the categories that small business grants can be used for include:
Types of Small Business Grants Depending on the type of business, there are many types of grants available for eligible small businesses. might qualify for. We’ll go through some of the most common types of corporate small business grants available:
How to Get a Small Business Grant that Suits Your Business Well Finding a small business grant for which your business is eligible requires some initial work, but it can have immense benefits for business growth. Here are some tips on how to find the right grant for your business: 1. Research the Best Grants from Our List Research is key when it comes to finding the right type of grant from your business. You can look at our list as a starting point to find the right ones to apply for. Depending on the nature of your business, you can also try looking for grants that your state offers and companies around you that may provide grants. 2. Make Sure You Meet the Grant Requirements Every grant has different requirements, so it’s extremely important to first identify whether your business qualifies. Otherwise, your application might be automatically rejected. So take time out to go through the criteria in detail before spending time on the submission. 3. Submit Your Application on Time Your grant application will follow a strict timeline, so submitting it on time for consideration is crucial. Businesses can be disqualified for not submitting on time, so it’s vital to mark important dates and ensure you get it in on time. 4. Follow Up on Your Application Many places offer small business grants and lots of applicants to sift through. Following up on your application helps ensure that it gets considered and that you are a serious applicant, which can help with the process. Tips on Applying for Small Business Grants To have the best chance at winning a grant and receiving grant money, there are some things you can do to really help make your application stand out. Here are some of our top tips for applying for small business grants:
What are the easiest small business grant programs to apply for? There are many small business grant programs available that are easy to apply for. Here are some of the easiest small business grant programs you can apply to:
Source: https://smallbiztrends.com/ Image: Depositphotos
Thanks to the Three Digital Accelerators I identified in the early ’80s, which include computing power/processing power, storage, and bandwidth, we as a global society are at a time of extreme connectivity. Exponential digital technology is transforming every business process, and massive disruptions are at every turn. The reality is those Three Digital Accelerators are only going to continue to increase, and as a result, digital disruptions will become even more widespread than they already are. So, with that being said, what are you doing as a business leader or what is your organization doing as a whole to embrace transformative digital technology rather than resist it? More importantly, are you as an organization embracing it, or do you feel your organization is merely pivoting to get by? Digital Technology Simplifies Our Lives The fact of the matter is that digital disruptions are what I refer to as a Hard Trend, or a future certainty that will happen, and try as you might, a digital disruption of any kind will inevitably find its way into your industry, organization, or specific department. While that might sound intrusive, trust me when I say that digital disruptions are a positive thing! Let’s use an example that is not solely limited to business, but something that is present in our everyday lives: smartphones and tablets. If we turn the clocks back well over a century ago, Alexander Graham Bell invented the telephone as a device to more quickly and efficiently communicate with one another at a moment’s notice. Many years later, around the ’90s, we finally started to see the dawn of the mobile phone, which made it possible for us to call one another while out and about, simplifying our lives. You wouldn’t buy milk and eggs at the grocery store if you could call your spouse at home and discover that you already had some, saving you time and money. Fast-forward a little bit more, and we now have smartphones; personal computers in our front pockets and purses. This has simplified our lives even further by connecting us to both the internet and one another via texting, video calls, and more. Disruptions Breed Business Diversity and Longevity In our personal lives, technology improves and simplifies our lives. But when so many jobs transform and potentially even go away thanks to exponential digital transformation, how could this possibly be a good thing? The answer is simple: Consider a Hard Trend that change is the only constant. Customer wants and needs are always evolving with the times, and this means that your business always has unlimited opportunity to grow. Think back to our telephone example for a moment. Imagine a world where the first telephone was good enough. Think of all the careers that have stemmed from the connectivity of the internet, from smartphones and tablets, or even older iterations of mobile phones; none of that would exist! Without disruptive technology that simplifies and revolutionizes processes, your organization might never have reached the heights it is at now. The ripple effect that disruption in general creates can be linked heavily to the diversity and longevity of an organization, as change in the world gives it a chance to grow indefinitely. Are some disruptions detrimental? Yes. Using Hard Trends to Be the Disruptor Disruption is like physics: An object at rest tends to stay at rest… until something or someone thrusts it into motion, that is. My Anticipatory Organization Model teaches an individual to use the tools available to them to put them in the driver’s seat of that disruption. A large part of my Anticipatory Organization Model is rooted in my Hard Trend Methodology. Identifying Hard Trends that will shape your industry both inside and out and separate them from Soft Trends that are open to influence set you ahead of the disruptive curve. Again referencing our telephone example, but from a business perspective: If you were a company that installed landline telephones, mobile phones certainly disrupted your status quo in an unfavorable way. However, if you viewed the onset of cordless landlines emerging in the early ’90s as the Hard Trend that it was, you likely leveraged that information to start getting involved in the cordless mobile phone and, eventually, smartphone industries. A disruption might not always be on a silver platter in your lunchroom, but when you utilize my Hard Trend Methodology to identify the future certainties shaping the world both inside and outside of your industry, it can be. Being able to anticipate what is to come by understanding future certainties effectively lets you send the disruption into motion first to your and your industry’s benefit. A United Futureview Because this methodology gives you the chance to disrupt, it is equally as easy to foster a shared Futureview at your organization, which is a healthy environment for both innovation and a positive outlook on transformative digital technology. No longer will your employees or organization as a whole look at digital disruptions as a bad thing that must be merely “dealt with,” or try to protect and defend legacy systems in place of new developments for fear that those new developments will discredit their entire career. When an organization demonstrates knowledge and confidence in how change leads to more opportunities for both the organization and the employees, those workers feel as though they can trust the organization with the future of their career and trust that there is a future in front of them. Ultimately, when you are in charge of how digital technology disrupts, those disruptions will always be a positive thing. Source: https://www.business2community.com/
The most common misperception of entrepreneurship is that what makes a business successful is the idea of a unique product: that if you have that great idea that no one else has had before, a type of product that no one has created, then you can win . lots of money and the world is at your feet. Entrepreneurship as a great idea is a good story, but it is only as good as a story, because the story is fantasy. And if you trust fantasy rather than reality, chances are you will fail. The truth is that what makes a product great is not the idea of it or what it can do, but the way it is positioned . Business positioning is not about the competitive pursuit of a niche, like Michael Porter's Five Forces or the VRIO framework . It's about finding the right business model. business model describes the rationale for the way the company creates, delivers, and captures value. Simply put, it is the way a business makes money. This includes figuring out what the product is, who your end customer is, and what the business value proposition is. You have to create an engaging story, but you also need the numbers to support that this story makes financial sense. I have found it very helpful to think of the business model in terms of the product, the customer, and the value. It is an iterative thought process that should lead you to decipher the product you can offer, what is the best customer base for this product and how much they will value it (which implies that you have to figure out what they value about the product). All this is interrelated, if not one depends on the other, so it is practically impossible to decipher these three points without returning to the first, and then to the second, and then deciphering the third again. But is it worth it. Having a great business model means that these three points are well aligned. You know the product you are going to offer, which fits almost perfectly with the market segment you identified because these are the people who value the product. And your product offers exactly what they want, nothing more and nothing less. This means that you have a good chance of being successful. But this is almost certain to fail if you don't have a good business model, or a well thought out one. The choice should be obvious, because in reality there is no choice: You need to have a good business model. Here are four questions you need to solve to improve yours. 1. Who can I serve? This doesn't seem like an easy question for someone who wants to be their own boss, but it should be. The real boss in your startup is your client, because they are the ones who decide if they buy from you or not. The first question after considering the option of starting a business should be: Who can I best serve? Regardless of what your product is, where you are, or if you can offer 24/7 service, what kind of person (market segment) benefits from what you can do? 2. How can I serve you? You may have a product, or even an entire business, in mind, but erase that idea from your head because it is not going to work unless you put your customer first and figure out how you can serve them. This means designing and developing a product that corresponds exactly to what they would value having. And or overdo it, offering more features or tools doesn't mean having more value. Focus on the feature or tool that is most valued. 3. What is the value? Value is not a monetary amount, but the satisfaction someone feels using your product. Yes, this implies that the value is merely subjective. It is as it is. The fact that we like a product has nothing to do with the way it is produced or the materials with which it is made, but with the experience of using it. It all has to do with what we experience when using it, and we buy something hoping to live that experience. Most importantly, we are willing to pay a price based on that experience . The better the experience, the higher the price can be. 4. Are you doing it for them? This is probably the most difficult question because it requires you to seriously analyze what is not but could be while imagining yourself in someone else's shoes. Unless you already know who your customer is and the type of product they might value, there is no way to answer this question. Sometimes seemingly small adjustments can deliver great customer value, like when Netflix went from sending DVD to streaming online, or when Volvo thought customers would rather subscribe to a car than buy it . A business model has to do with understanding that your business is your customers, and that you must personalize it for them. To do so, you have to be who they are and what they might want. What are your dreams? What problems do they have? What can you do to make their lives easier? It is not about finding them halfway there, but about giving them an experience that they truly value, one that they cannot resist. And it is the entrepreneur's job to figure out what that experience would be. Source: https://www.entrepreneur.com/
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