A personal perspective

Before you plan your business future, you need to know where you want to go in a personal context. In other words, you need to consider why you want for your future from a personal perspective, before you can take a business perspective.

If the two perspectives (personal and business) are out of sync, disaster probably lies ahead. For example, if your personal objective is to spend time at home with your new grandchildren, then business growth plans that involve you travelling almost constantly are certain not to work out.

On the other hand, once you identify a clash between the two perspectives, you can take steps to deal with it ? either by scaling down your business growth plans, accepting that your time off will be limited for the foreseeable future, or some compromise between the two (perhaps sharing the travelling with another director).

Why growth?

What do you see as the future of your business? It?s part dream, part vision, part decision ? the equivalent of deciding to sail around the world. It?s a ?first cut?, a draft of your eventual strategy, since any strategy must take into account the real world in which it is to be implemented.

Therefore, your initial thoughts on a growth strategy may be amended several times as you work through the issues. Nonetheless, it is important that you stake an early direction for your business. After all, if you don?t know where you want to go, how will you work out how to get there ? let alone know when you have arrived?

The key issues for attention are:

• Fit with life plan
• Values
• Passion
• Education, experience and skills
• Network
• Financial capacity.

All these contribute ? in a unique mix for each business ? to a sustainable competitive advantage.

A most important decision is what you mean by ?growth?. If asked, ?What is growth?? most people will reply along the lines of ?Bigger, better, more profitable?.

But ?bigger? does not necessarily mean ?more profitable? ? in fact, many businesses sacrifice profitability in the short-term (and, sometimes, forever) in the rush to grow bigger and gain more market-share. ?Better? begs the question ?In what way??. ?More profitable? could mean ?smaller? ? as you shed unprofitable parts of your existing business.

The key to defining growth is your own life plan. Think about what you want out of life. Where does your business fit with your life plan? Take some time to consider the answer.

Picture your own personal situation in 10 years? time and then picture your business in 10 years? time. Do the two fit together?

Because there is so much uncertainty and so many questions at this stage, it is helpful to define four statements for your business that will help clarify your thinking on its future shape and direction:

• A ?values? statement for you and your business: This statement explains the values you and your business aspire to in your dealings with customers, staff, suppliers, public, community and shareholders.
• A ?passion? statement for you and your business: This statement sets out what you and your business are passionate about.
• A ?vision? statement for you and your business: This statement explains what you and your business will look like in the future ? say, in 10 years? time. [
• A ?mission? statement for you and your business: This statement explains the purpose of your business.

These statements will help to decide where you want to be ? your growth strategy.

The next step is to translate them into targets for year 1, year 5 and year 10. At a minimum, try to define your expectations for sales, profit, number of customers and staff. These key parameters will give a good outline of your business as it grows.

Values and passion

Fun, belief and passion cannot be isolated from the direction you want to take with your business. A business without passion, that does not believe it itself, in which there is no fun to be had, will never successfully grow.

Values

Your business should reflect your way of thinking, your way of life and your values. If you are uncomfortable in the way you do business, you will not be successful. Therefore you must make sure that your business is true to yourself, your beliefs, your ethics and your principles.

Your own values are an important element in achieving growth in your business, since they are key determinants of the future shape and future direction of your business. The way to determine your value system is quite simple and is centered around a few simple questions:

• How do you want to be remembered?
• How do you want your business to be remembered?
• If you did not need to earn a living, what would you do with your life?
• What is important to you?
• What is important to your business?
• What do you stand for?
• What does your business stand for?

Passion

What are you passionate about? Drive and passion are the main engines of a business. If you are not passionate about what you do in business, you will not succeed or enjoy it. It makes very good business sense: the more passion, the more drive, the more success.

When you started your business, you were passionate about it. Is that passion still there? What makes you get up out of bed in the morning to go to work? Is it because you must, or because you want to?

Consider the things you are passionate about in life and consider what you are passionate about in business. Look at your life plan again. How much time and energy do you allow for the things you really are passionate about?

Define what you and your business are passionate about.

Education, experience and skills and your network

The question ?Where do you want to be?? is linked to both what you know and who you know.

Your education/experience and skills

Every business phase ? start-up, consolidation, growth ? needs different skills and abilities from its owners and managers. As you consider growth, it is useful to map your education, experiences and skills in the context of your plans.

Start by listing the things you are good at, and the things you are not so good at. Follow this by making a list of things you enjoy doing and the things you do not like doing. Study these lists to identify where there may be gaps between what you can do and what you need to be able to do in order to achieve your growth plans.

From this analysis, decide what you need to do in terms of training or staffing to fill the gaps and to ensure that you get to where you want to be. See also management team [G].

Your network

Networking is very much underestimated as a factor that contributes to growth. Despite all the advances in management theory, success still owes as much to ?who you know? as to ?what you know?.

As a business, and as an individual, you have a substantial network of contacts, colleagues and acquaintances, which can be a strategic resource for (among other things) sales, partnerships, suppliers, ideas and information.

If you have not already done so, you should develop a list (better still, a database)e of all the people you know. Everybody! And, since all those people know other people, who know more people, who know still more people ? your contacts multiply and extend. You will surprise yourself with your reach!

Then compare your database of contacts with other people in your business to create an extensive business database, which is a reflection of the value of your business (goodwill).

Financial capacity

It goes almost without saying that your plans for business growth need to be resourced by staff, time and money.

But, if you are an owner/manager, the issue of money to finance business growth cannot isolated from your own financial capacity.

Your financial capacity has two elements:

• Current
• Capital.

On the current side, you have regular monthly bills ? mortgage, food, clothing etc ? that need to be covered. And then there are occasional expenses like holidays, replacing a TV or car, etc. You may be prepared to sacrifice part of your salary to free up resources for business growth ? but, unless there?s room for you to cut-back on your spending, the sacrifice may be more intention than reality.

On the capital side, perhaps you have a nest egg that can be made available to the business. If not, then you will have no choice but to look to outside investment to finance the growth of your business.

To get a clear picture of your personal financial capacity, calculate the minimum annual or monthly salary that you can (or are willing to) live on and decide how much personal capital you can make available to the business.