Small Business Growth Strategy - "Keep it simple"

"Business Strategy" is being discussed everywhere - conferences, social media, professional networks, business management books, blogs, networking and coaching sessions. Everyone, everywhere is talking about business strategy.

Do you need to be a cost leader? Do you need to add more value? How to identify a niche segment?

There are questions and then there are answers. However, quite often, especially small and medium businesses lose their focus as they spend a lot of time planning a strategy. The complete plan often does not see the light of the day.

At an early growth stage, at times the mantra is to "Keep it Simple". Keeping it simple could be the best small business growth strategy.

Speed and flexibility are the major advantages every small business has when they enter a new market or compete with larger players. A lot of time, effort and resources spent in strategic planning tends to slow them down. This neutralises their advantage.

At an early growth stage, spend most of your time, energy and resources in execution. Talking to clients, visiting them, ensuring follow-ups and deadlines are not missed add more value and fuel a company's growth.
This is not to suggest that strategic planning is not relevant. You need to look forward and plan for the next few years. However, schedule strategic planning meetings once a month. Focus more on short term goals. A few examples:

• New leads generated every day or every week
• Monthly conversion %
• Weekly and monthly target vs. actual sales
• Average days outstanding
• Enquiry to order cycle time
• On time delivery performance

Set monthly, weekly, daily goals and track performance. Goals are quite often missed due to lack of focus, monitoring and follow-ups.

Ensure to maximize the available opportunities instead of working on a strategy to create more opportunities. Every missed opportunity is a cost.