Every business or organization wants to see their business grow. Who doesn’t? It is as good a symbol of success as any. While it is easy to boost sales or meet a quota, how do you ensure you can sustain that growth?

Driving up business growth doesn’t have to be costly or completely overwhelming. In fact, you may be surprised at how most of it involves streamlining or utilizing structures and strategies you already have! But it all needs to start from somewhere and a captain is as good as his team. So, prepare to take this leap with them and head towards growth with these leadership strategies.

1. Envision Your Goal Clearly

So your business is booming, this is all well and good but it would also help if your organization has a clear goal of what you want to achieve for your business. This includes establishing short and long-term goals as well the necessary steps needed to achieve them.

Wanting to grow your business is nice but aside from motivation, you also need direction. Let’s say for short-term goals you want to go for a 5% increase in sales for the next quarter. How are you going to go about it? How will you encourage more people to buy from you? In terms of long-term goals, where do you see the company after 5 years?

Growth in itself has a rather broad concept. That is why it is important to ponder on these things so there is a clear trajectory instead of just aiming for “growth”.

2. Be Prepared

Being prepared simply means anticipating the different threats and challenges to your business as well as how to face them. This means knowing what to do when you encounter a setback or delay in operations. A good leader should always be prepared for anything. Of course, it also helps if you possess a can-do attitude.

You’re not going to accomplish anything if you always assume the worst. Think of challenges, not as problems to be avoided but opportunities to improve yourself. To prevent yourself from getting overwhelmed, why not break up one big challenge into small, manageable little tasks. This way, you can easily cross one off your list and before you know it, you’ve finished them all!

3. Never Stop Learning

It is just like what the saying goes, “you learn something new everyday”. You’re not exempt from learning just because you are a rank above others. It also helps inspire unity within your employees. Remember, you’re all in the same boat here!

Be a lifelong learner! This also means you get to acquire new skills or improve your existing ones. You could try to establish an in-house peer mentoring or coaching. If you need help, you could always look to training and consulting specialists to better equip you and your team with the necessary means to develop your employees’ skills. Think of it as a fun team-building exercise!

4. Open Your Doors to Communication

The importance of good communication is often overlooked. More often than not, it is due to the management’s intimidating nature. See, most companies communicate on a single channel basis where the employees are only able to receive the news. This leaves no room for feedback on the employees’ part.

Don’t make the same mistake! Encourage two-way communication and don’t hesitate to ask your employees for feedback. This applies particularly to frontliners who are in direct contact with your clients. After all, they are the ones on the ground and have the most idea of what the client wants.

5. Empower Your People

It means allowing your team members to take risks and make decisions by themselves. Don’t hog all the authority! Being a leader doesn’t equate to being a dictator but committing yourself to bringing out the best in others.

This could take the form of allowing them to handle a situation by themselves or dealing with a client’s requests. In doing so, they are able to improve their skills and confidence. They become better versions of themselves in the process. You get to have more competent people in your team and customers are satisfied with your services. It’s a win-win situation for everyone!

6. See Customers as People Rather Than Numbers

Ultimately, the end goal of your business should be to help your clients. Whenever you have a strategy meeting, it should be along the lines of how what you’re doing will benefit them. Which means seeing them as actual people instead of mere data or statistics on your spreadsheet.

It means building a personal relationship with them and making them feel valued as a client. Studies also show it is easier to retain existing customers rather than make new ones. In saying that, don’t forget to show your clients some love, especially long-standing ones.

7. Learn to Embrace Change

In order to keep your business on top of things, it is important to embrace change. Innovate – whether it be improving business workflow by streamlining your processes or being more digital-friendly.

You must not be afraid to welcome change especially if it is for the improvement of your business. Think of it this way, you get to be more productive without tiring yourself as much. Your clients will also thank you for your efficiency and continue to patronize you!

8. Don’t Be Afraid to Fail

Perhaps it was a failed venture or maybe you did not meet the quota for this quarter, whatever it is, we’ve all been there. We have all had setbacks both major and minor from time to time. The important thing is not to let it put you down.

Failure is not the end-all and be-all of a business. Failing doesn’t necessarily mean you can’t aim for business growth but rather a chance to re-evaluate what you could do better and what you could avoid next time. When that happens, it’s okay, take a deep breath. What’s important is you try again.

Written by Bash Sarmiento for CoachRye.com