How to Grow Your Small Business summary

A lot of business owners believe that successful marketing is all about how a brand looks. Don’s found this isn’t true. Just as stories can motivate your team, storytelling is the key to capturing your customer’s attention. 

Invite your customer to be the hero of their own story. Your product might be the magic sword that kills the dragon, but it’s only useful when it’s in the hero’s hand. Start by working out what essential problem your customer has, and how your product is the perfect tool they need to solve it. 

A lot of people hate to have sales conversations. Maybe you feel like you’re being pushy or manipulative. But if you want people to buy your product, you’ll need to advocate for it. The sales pitch makes up the left engine of your plane. 

The easiest way to avoid feeling manipulative in a sales pitch is easy: don’t manipulate people. The goal is not to convince someone to buy something they don’t want. In fact, as a small business owner, dissatisfied customers are the last thing you need. When talking to someone in a sales setting, first, check they actually are your target audience. 

Okay. We’ve talked about how to sell our products. Let’s take a step back. When engineers are designing a plane, the wings are tested in wind tunnels before they’re ready to fly. You don’t want to build a whole plane just to see if the wings give you any lift. 

As you grow your business, you’ll need to evaluate and optimize your product offerings. 

Every overhead cost for your business adds weight to the body of your plane. If the plane's too heavy, it’s going to crash. 

For most businesses, the biggest overhead is probably your labor. 

Every part of your small business is powered by the same fuel: cash. There’s a reason we call it the financial bottom line. Still, if you’ve been following the Flight Plan so far, you should begin to make some money. 

The last topic we’re going to cover is how you should manage your cashflow. 

Watching your small business grow and take off can be an incredible experience, but it’s difficult to make decisions that support that growth. You shouldn’t need to compromise on quality or service. Following this Small Business Flight Plan will help you stay in the air whatever the weather.

Don’t feel pressured to do everything that we’ve covered all at once. Working through your Flight Plan can take time, and you should do it in whatever order makes sense to you. Even small improvements can make a huge difference.