Five business growth lessons for expanding companies
Alison Taylor | 5 minute read
Key points:
- Be intentional about growing your business.
- Build a strong team and peer network.
- Learn to delegate.
- Have those tough conversations.
Business growth is a deliberate choice
If there is one thing I wish I had realised earlier in my career, it’s that business growth doesn’t just happen organically, it’s a deliberate choice. This lead me to learn several growth lessons along the way.
In the year 2000, I was co-founder and Chief Financial Officer of PUMPNSEAL, a new company providing pumps and fluid sealing products to the rapidly growing mining services industry in Western Australia. For years, PUMPNSEAL happily grew at around 10 percent year on year, driven by the boom in WA’s resources sector. We were successful, the business was doing well, and we thought that was enough.
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Our company hit stormy weather when the iron ore price suddenly dropped in 2013. This negatively affecting our clients and the wider resources sector. We soon realised that our organic growth in line with industry trends was not sustainable. We needed to review our operations and be more intentional in our planning. It was clear the downturn wouldn’t last for ever. But we needed to position our business for a stronger future.
We reviewed our systems and processes. Invested in equipment. Assessed our team to make sure we had the right people in the right roles. Our sales team needed focus. A difficult decision was made for our Managing Director, my husband, to change role and lead our sales team. In turn, I became General Manager of the company.
While we were better positioned for growth the circuit breaker came in 2017. As participants of the ANZ Business Growth Program, our executive team created a three-year business growth plan. As a team, we were aligned, clear on what we wanted to achieve and committed to the implementation of our business growth deliverables from the plan.
Our plan led to rapid growth and winning local business awards, and in 2020, we sold PUMPNSEAL to a UK listed company and exited in due course.
Here are 5 business growth lessons that I learnt along the way.
Growth Lesson 1: Practice a growth mindset
Our original approach to growth was what more could we do with what we had at our disposal – we wanted to see the success before we invested any further. The business growth program shifted our mindset to instead ask: what are the possibilities, what is our vision for the company, and how do we achieve this vision? What if rather than being content with 10% we aimed higher for 20% or even 30% annual growth?
That growth mindset shifted how we looked at business investment, leadership and growth itself. I learnt that growth needs to be intentional and planned. We built an organisation chart for the future state of PUMPNSEAL that provided the employee talent and structures needed to reach our milestones. We proactively prepared for growth, instead of merely reacting to it.
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Growth Lesson 2: Learn the art of delegation
One of the hardest lessons for leaders in growing companies to learn is they can’t do everything. Instead, they need to hire experts and delegate responsibilities to them. Build an executive team and delegate to them. Rather than being caught up in its everyday operations, delegation frees you up to focus on growing your company,
Leaders often play it safe by keeping their hands on the controls. But to avoid becoming a barrier to growth they must transition away from working in the business to working on the business.
Growth Lesson 3: Upskill your team
Attending the ANZ Business Growth Program as an executive team was vital. We designed our business growth plan together, so when the time came to deliver, we were ready to hit the ground running.
We kept our staff in the loop with regular communications, taking our entire team along for the ride on our business growth journey. Our employees gave us their best. They understood the bigger picture and their high engagement snowballed our success.
We applied a three-pillar strategy: profitable revenue growth, empowering our leaders, and celebrating successes. Our net sales doubled in just three years. Our trading gross profit increased by 40% with overheads on sales decreasing by 30%.
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Growth lesson 4: Have those difficult conversations
Unsurprisingly, we worked hard behind the scenes putting the systems and processes into place. We had trials and errors, and difficult conversations along the way. As Australians, it is natural to avoid have the hard discussions; we prefer to sit around the table and be friends.
But I learnt that, without honest conversations, you can’t build trust in the team. Beyond systems, being honest and open with the team, even when it was hard, was critical to growing our capability.
Growth lesson 5: Find peers you can trust
Lastly, avoid being an island. Most growing SMEs experience similar issues, so seeking conversations and new perspectives from peers can help you step up. The business growth program provided access to owners, MDs and CEOs from various industries. Sharing our business growth journeys along the way collectively made us better leaders.
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Proactively pursue growth
Ultimately, the most impactful growth lesson was changing our mindset to proactively seek growth. This meant we saw our investment in PUMPNSEAL differently; more as a driver of growth, rather than dollars running out of the door. When you have a strongly defined purpose, understanding the value of your investment and growing your company becomes easier.
Looking back now, I do wonder what would have been possible if we’d realised earlier that company growth doesn’t just happen. It’s a deliberate choice.