There are a lot of myths and lies that have somehow found their way into our heads about what exactly brings on business growth. They can be confusing and can steer us down the wrong path, so to help you navigate the haze we’ve come here to debunk 20 myths about business growth.
1. Business Growth – Successes Happens Overnight
This is a common illusion for business growth. Though it may seem like explosive growth happens all at once, just remember that to get to that point someone had to work 18 hour days for a year. From the outside, all we see is the success.
2. Content Management is the Holy Grail to Growth
It’s a common delusion, but though content management is certainly a key to building a brand it is definitely not the key to the castle. What’s the key to the castle, you’re asking? Progress, in everything.
3. Content Management is a Gimmick
While it isn’t the Holy Grail, it definitely isn’t a court jester, either. Content management is a cheap, new way to advertise yourself on a deeper level and put a face to your company. The value of having that kind of connection with your customers can’t be overstated.
4. You can Buy Your Success
Hiring a talented employee, ordering some new web tools, signing up for that seminar. Add them all together and what do you get? A new employee, a set of web tools and a seat at whatever seminar you signed up for. You cannot buy a shortcut to success, otherwise everyone would do it. It’s not about what you get—it’s about what you do with the things you’ve gotten.
5. Money Equals Growth
Having money doesn’t mean you’re growing, it just means you had a good sales year. Don’t think that the size of your company account means you’re ready to open a new wing or hire an additional sales team; if you don’t have a proven, consistent measure of growth over a long period of time then you’re not growing. One financial miscalculation can ruin you, so don’t confuse growth with short-term success.
6. Growth Can Only Be Measured through Money
There are other factors to growing, like reputation, client base, ranking, and product and service lines, which can speak much louder than the money in your wallet.
7. More Employees Means Large Growth
Likewise, don’t think that having more people working under you means you’re growing. Think quantity over quality, and grow smarter rather than larger.
8. Growth is a Short-term Goal
Growth is never something you can or want to accomplish for tomorrow—it’s a pursuit that should span the entire lifetime of your business. Growth is not a tool, it’s a way of doing business.
9. Explosive Growth is Not for Normal People
Think explosive growth is only reserved for the gifted? Guess again. The gifted are only gifted because they worked on their gifts. Mark Zuckerberg didn’t accidentally make Facebook, he simply took a passion of his and used it to make money. Explosive growth is not exclusive to normal people or the gifted: it’s for the driven.
10. You Have to Look Inwards to Find Growth
While you do need to invest in yourself from time to time, you also need to focus on market trends and public opinion. If your buyer personas aren’t up to date, your company will grow in the wrong direction.
11. Growing is a Step-By-Step Journey
Growth isn’t a flight of stairs—it’s a climbing wall. Nothing is mapped out and you don’t do A to get to B. Sometimes, you have to jump to D to get to B so that G can happen somewhere down the line. It’s about working all the angles so you have a better chance at finding the one that works best.
12. Talent Brings Growth
No, hard work brings growth. Talent can help, but if you don’t put in the work you won’t get anywhere.
13. Growth is Steady
Growth is unpredictable. It may seem like you’re plateauing one day, but the next you might wake up to find yourself living a whole new life. Just look at the creator of Flappy Bird. Bet you didn’t know that game has been in the App Store for close to a year.
14. Growth Can Displace Me
Growth will never leave you behind because you’re what determines the rate of growth. The only thing you stand to lose by fearing growth is driving your company into the ground.
15. I Know What Direction We Need to Go Better Than Anyone Else
A quick market analysis will prove you wrong nine times out of ten. It turns out your customers know what direction you need to go in better than anyone else, so listen to them.
16. The Lack of a Service/Product Means There is a Demand for It
There are always multiple reasons for any one thing being what it is. If there is something missing in your community (say you move from New York to Rolla, Missouri and notice a shortage of Starbucks) it doesn’t necessarily mean that the people are missing it. Do your research before you jump to any conclusions.
17. Bigger Is Always Better
Nope, smarter is always better. If you set your company up to be able to provide for customers faster and more efficiently than any other bracket of the competition, you stand on the precipice of an explosive burst of growth.
18. Grow or Die
Not true. If you don’t want to grow then you don’t have to. There are tons of mom and pop shops that live comfortably just living comfortably, and if you’re okay with that then there’s nothing wrong with keeping your company on a plateau.
19. Growth is Always Outwards
If you can afford to train your staff in the skills that you simply could not afford to train them in five years ago, that is a huge measure of growth.
20. There is No Such Thing as Too Much Growth
Let’s end this with a word of caution: you need business growth. If you put all your effort into setting up growth opportunities for your company without teaching yourself how to manage them, you’ll be left with a company that’s too complex for you to handle and it’ll crash. Your company can only grow as much as you yourself have grown.
The unfortunate thing is that twenty wasn’t enough to cover them all. We’ve got many misconceptions about the world rattling around our brain cages that we don’t even know are doing us harm, but at least you have a few less now to worry about now. If you’ve got some myths you’d like debunked, let us know and we’ll do our best to tell you what we think about them.
What can you share that from your experience that is simply not true in regards to business growth?
