Growing Business

Growing Businesses

There are many ways to grow businesses. That said, there are fewer ways to grow small businesses. Most businesses employing twenty or so people are not going to grow by acquisition, merger or franchising; although not impossible it’s not likely. Even with these ways of growth, the key requirement is that the overall company increases, hopefully, its turnover and its profit.

So let’s just put my spin on this via the insight of Ernesto Sirolli (Ripples on The Zambezi). He breaks business down into three parts: operations, sales and finance. He also says no one can do all three, maybe two but not three. Indeed, maybe most of us should stick to one.
Operations are the bit your business delivers – sandwiches, software, sales support. Sales include marketing and all that good stuff, whilst finance is just finance.

So where is this ramble going – simple, when I see that certain professions are going to grow a business, I begin to worry. To me it’s like the scorer running on the pitch to open the batting, or keeping wicket.

The point is, Sales is sales, and it’s the only way a company will grow. Yes the operational and the finance have to be right and must stay right as the sales increase. But other so-called professionals should leave increasing sales to people like me, who actually know what they’re doing.