So after receiving a barrage of text messages urging me to patronize this eatery I usually go to for launch, I decided to do so, I walked in and there was this long queue, I shrugged it off and decided to wait my turn, but sadly the queue was not moving, I could see that the sales attendants were struggling to deal with the high influx of customers, they were botching several orders and therefore had a lot of angry customers to deal with. I was one of those angry customers, I had to wait for over an hour for an order that should have taken me just 10 mins. I doubt I will likely go back in the nearest future to patronize this eatery whenever I see a large queue.
Having patronized this eatery before I could testify to the fact that they were doing very well when they had fewer customers, but sadly it was evident that they were struggling to cope with the high influx of customers they got after their latest marketing campaign.

Of what use was their marketing campaign? given that not only have they lost my trust and that of hundreds of their old customers, their inability to meet up with the demand from their new customers meant that the new customers they’ve just acquired may not likely return, as result of their first interaction with the brand. So what this meant was that the marketing effort that was designed to help them grow is slowly destroying their business.

This narrative sounds familiar, yes? Unfortunately, there are too many businesses that go down this road, If you asked 10 entrepreneurs what they wanted most importantly as business owners, it’s highly likely that 6-7 out of 10 would state that they want more clients  but the question that many of them fail to ask is – ‘’Is my business positioned for the growth?’’

THE COST OF GROWTH

 

When most people think about growth what comes mind is growth in revenue, number of customers or sales but here’s what growth also means – It means if you are a team of 20, you may need to increase to a team of 100. If you were running inefficiently you might need to improve.
To begin the journey of seeking growth by thinking that growth comes with profit alone is a false premise because growth comes with more responsibilities. The profit comes only when you have effectively been able to handle the demand for your services. If you can only handle 100 clients, it might come off as a hard pill if you are told: “do not seek for more clients till you have figured a way to handle a large influx of clients”. In essence, to be qualified for growth, you must first be prepared to put in place the necessary structure that will enable you efficiently manage the projected increase in demand that will come with your new growth target.

GETTING READY FOR GROWTH.

 

So what do I mean? It means that before embarking on that marketing campaign and trying to increase your customer base, you must ask very critical questions.
Is my business ready for growth? Do I have the necessary structure I need to deal with the new influx in demand for my services? Core elements like the strength of your human capital both in quantity and quality and the presence of processes and systems in place that ensure operational efficiency cannot be underestimated.

  •  On a scale of 1-10, how well do you manage the clients you currently have?
  • Do your clients complain about your services and at what frequency?
  •  Is your business efficiently serving the demands of your current clients?
  • What can you do better?

It’s is important that you are brutally honest in answering the questions above.

At Endgame – The Strategy Company one of the things we do before deploying our growth service package is to ensure that we measure our client’s growth readiness through;

  • A rigorous review of the businesses capabilities.
  • A dispassionate assessment of where they stand against these capabilities on two fronts- their level of operational efficiency and customer satisfaction.
  • An action plan to scale back in the less-critical areas, and a corresponding plan to redirect resources from these areas to more critical ones.
  • A series of targeted organizational interventions to increase speed and quality of decision making and delivery in the enterprise.
  • In the event, however, that the business is not ready for growth, a strategic plan is devised to position the venture for growth.