Ready. Set. Grow! How the Right Mindset and 5 Key Steps Can Propel Your Business into Growth.

Back in 1980-ties, researchers became interested in students’ attitudes about failure. A group led by Dr. Carol Dweck noticed that some students rebounded while other students seemed devastated by even the smallest setbacks. Throughout her studies, she coined the terms fixed mindset and growth mindset to describe the underlying beliefs people have about learning and intelligence.

In short, people who believe their talents can be developed have a growth mindset. They tend to achieve more than those with a more fixed mindset, which are those who believe their skills are innate gifts. It is so because they worry less about being perfect, understand that mistakes are part of the growth journey, and they put more energy into learning.

Moreover, recent advances in neuroscience have confirmed that the brain is far more malleable than we have ever thought. Indeed we can make our brain learn anything we want with enough effort and persistence. 

Research on brain plasticity has also shown how connectivity between neurons can change with experience. With practice, neural networks grow new connections, strengthen existing ones, and build insulation that speeds transmission of impulses. These discoveries have shown that we can deliberately increase our neural growth by the actions we take, how we interact with others as well as following proper nutrition and sleep habits.

Having the above in mind, do you think you are more of a fixed mindset or growth-oriented person? What I can tell you is that the growth mindset is indispensable when you are a businessowner. 

Why? Because the belief that you can learn anything, you need to grow your business as well as the ability to rebound from obstacles and keep going is one of the critical attributes of any successful entrepreneur. With such a mindset, you’ll also understand that your business needs to grow along with you not only to survive but also to flourish in today’s competitive world. 

Only half the start-up-s survive more than five years, and only the third make it to the 10-year mark. The economic market waters can be dangerous as an ocean to any ship sailing on it. However, as a captain of your business ship, you have ways and tricks to continue sailing it in your chosen direction, no matter how much it gets tossed around by the waves. 

What are those tricks? 

The answer is a growth strategy for your business. To win in the market, your business needs to grow, and you, as its leader, need always to be proactive about it. 

And that’s why to help you get started, I’m sharing with you five key steps that you can take now to set your business on the growth trajectory immediately. 

1. Know Your Unique Selling Proposition

In other words, be clear on what sets you apart from the competition. What are unique advantages your products services, and business as a whole deliver to your clients?

Once you have the answer, use it in your marketing to explain and educate your audience on why they should be doing business with you.

2. Define Your Niche

A niche represents your ideal client. To put it in another way, your business is solving a problem for a particular audience. Do you know who they are? Are they your ideal customer? No one can appeal to everybody. As Seth Godin mentioned in his book, This is Marketing, even Harry Potter, one of the most popular book series of all times, has “bad” reviews to Amazon. And that’s OK. Don’t waste your time trying to appeal to those people who won’t see the benefit of your products or services you provide. You want to market to and work with customers who’ll be raving about you. 

3. Understand How You Make Money

In business jargon: know your revenue-generating steams. If you’re selling products, know which ones bring you most profits and which generate the loss. It’s not different if you’re offering services. Once you understand how you make money, maybe it’s time to refocus your marketing efforts? And this brings me to the fourth point.

4. Have an Action Plan.

The plan of action that aligns with your long-term strategy and has key SMART goals i.e., Specific, Measurable, Achievable Realistic, and Timely. Maybe this year, it’s time for you to grow and invest in some great talent that will help you take your business to the next level. Or it’s time to start the market research for a new service you want to launch. Panning is crucial to sustainable business growth. You can’t just wing long-term success. And if you need help with strategic planning now that 2020 is round the corner, I’m only one message away 😊.

5. Focus on Your Strengths.

It’s essential to understand your competition and leaders in your market. If you can learn from them on what works and what doesn’t, you’ll get invaluable insights on how to steer your own business. And when you start sailing, focus on your strengths. Don’t try to do the same things as your competitors, especially when it’s your weaker point. Establish growth strategies that reinforce what your business excels at as. That’s how you’ll gain the highest return on your investment of time, effort, and money. 

All in all, developing a growth strategy isn’t a one-size-fits-all process. In fact, because the modern market changes so fast, making strategic decisions based on someone else’s successes isn’t the smartest thing to do anymore. It doesn’t mean you can’t learn from others, but blindly implementing a plan that worked for them isn’t going to put you on a sustainable growth trajectory. 

Creating a plan that is specific to your business with measurable indicators will be a successful plan. 

A successful actionable plan will help you keep your customers happy, fulfill their wants and needs, and all this will keep them coming back. 

Lastly, I have a few questions for you. Having read all of the above, are you ready to put your business on the next growth path? Have you thought of spending time on an important thing such as planning strategically 2020 for your business? Do you need help developing a specific plan that will help you achieve your goals? If you answered “yes,” then don’t wait and PM me here so we can get on it right away! Time is flying by, and there’s no point wasting it when you can start now!