BUSINESS GROWTH

"the government has no business in business but must make sure businesses have a conducive environment to grow" - Gov Ajimobi
 

The immediate past governor of Oyo State Late Governor Abiola Ajimobi was quoted to have stated that: "the government has no business in business but must make sure businesses have a conducive environment to grow. Their growth will cause nation building conversely". This is such a profound statement not only because it touches on national growth but more so because it acknowledges that business cannot remain small or ungrowing if the nation is to depend on the businesses. Thusly, businesses MUST grow. 
 

Business growth isn't just the passive increase in the number of clients a business caters to or just about profit building, a business must define growth as its ability to function as an independent organism with little or no external stimuli dictating its direction and development. 
 

A child at 2 years won't be allowed to leave the sight of the parents but a child at 20 can decide where he wants to stay irrespective of what the parents agree with. While the same individual is defined as a child, the level of growth is defined by their independence from the parents and how much of a will they are able to build around what is right and wrong. For a child to be granted some form of independence by its parents, the baby needs to grow to understand at least right from wrong; good or bad and also be able to make decisions around these that do not bring him to harm but rather allow him to thrive. 
 

This can be said of a business also. A business will define growth as its ability to grow to be self sustaining and independent rather than just by how long it's been registered for. World renowned speaker Vusi Thembekwayo defined an entrepreneur as someone who has been able to build systems and processes that allow him to be detached from the business he built and the business being able to deliver on its vision and mission. He also mentioned that the test time for this theory is 3 months. If you can not leave your business for 3 months and trust that it will function with minimal glitch, you haven't built a self sustaining business. 
 

How then do we build self sustaining businesses?

• Create Processes: one of the best ways to make the business self sustaining is to create/identify processes within the business that allow the staff know what to do at any given time. 

• Automate Processes: a great way to make processes that are created/identified are best used is to automate them. A fashion business can have an autoresponder that replies to the basic questions a client may have. 

• Enable Your Staff: this is best done by delegating other staff to take the reins with tasks that would rather require you be hands on. This will require training and retraining the staff but it's worth it. 

While this will usually take time, every aspiring business owner or business handler will do well to take it rather seriously the need to build their business to a self sustaining company/organism. 
 

PS: This is an apology to all our readers for the sudden break in the blog post releases. I recently got robbed of my laptop and a lot of material was lost with it. I am rebuilding and I will try my best to deliver timely updates. Thank you for being with me always.