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Business Growth 2
Think Big to
Grow Big
Part 3:
Strategies for Mature Companies
By Paul R.
Lloyd
In this series,
we are looking at the way real growth results from a strategy
executed well. In this article, we look at the strategies for growth
for a mature company.
Mature
Company Phase
During the
mature phase, your business is successful but you are no longer
experiencing the high growth you enjoyed earlier. A typical example
is the company founder who began an at home business on a shoestring
and built it up to become a full-fledged corporation with annual
sales of $3 million or more. Somehow that $3 million has become a
plateau or glass ceiling that you never seem able to grow beyond.
Strategy:
Depends on what you want to do. Here are some options:
1. Keep up
the good work. If you are
happy running your $3 million dollar company as is, do so. You’ve
got a great business and there’s no compelling reason to change.
2. Invest in
growth. You have to spend
money to make money as the cliché goes. This is a two-step process.
The first step is to bring in an outside expert to go over your
operations to squeeze every nickel you can out of your overhead
without sacrificing quality or service. The second step is to
re-invest the savings into a more aggressive marketing and sales
effort. I recommend involving outside help for both the operations
work and the marketing because an outsider will look at your
business with new eyes. One of the reasons you may be stuck at the
$3 million level is you are too close to your own business to see a
clear path to higher revenues.
3. Leverage
your position. If you’re
an entrepreneur stuck in a manager’s role, it may be time to
leverage your company ownership for something you really want to do.
This strategy may involve buy, sell or recapitalization strategies.
Next time we’ll
talk about strategies for companies in the mature phase of the
business cycle.
Join Paul
Lloyd for a business casual conversation at a coffee shop near
you. Call 630-393-6516 or send an
email.
Where do you
want to go next?
Read Part 1 of this series
Read Part 2 of this series
Visit
Archive
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