I was fortunate to lead an amazing startup team to build an internet business to A BILLION IN ANNUAL SALES.
I am often asked on podcasts, what are the secrets to growth? What are the top priorities a leader should pay attention to to drive unbelievable performance?
Make these 5 Moves.
They worked for me.
They’ll work for you.
#1. Have a simple plan — Simplicity Rules! It’s critical to have a business plan that can be easily communicated to people if you want them to support your chosen direction.
Critical elements of your plan:
▪️Growth targets for the next 24 months.
▪️Customer groups you intend to target to achieve your growth goals.
▪️Competitive strategy - how you intend to differentiate your organization from your competitors.
#2. Be the ONLY ones who do what you do — Having clarity on why people should do business with you and not your competitors is vital to cut through the clutter of competitive claims out there.
And it’s THE prerequisite to business growth.
If you’re not The ONLY One at something your target customers CARE about, your growth goals will be almost impossible to achieve.
#3. Focus on execution — It’s all very well to have a strategy that sounds awesome on paper, but the true rest of an audacious plan is whether or not it can be flawlessly executed day in and day out.
Roy’s Rule if EXECUTE!: for every hour spent on setting direction, spend two hours on how you’re going to execute it.
#4. Ensure every employee has a direct line of sight to your strategy — One of the main reasons growth objectives aren’t met is because employees aren’t clear on what they specifically need to do to execute the strategy.
Some people will get the role that they now have to play but others won’t. This leads to dysfunction and the inability to achieve the growth goals set for everyone.
The solution is quite simple. Leaders need to declare what each employee needs to do to effectively execute on the strategy. The new things they need to take on and the old things they need to give up must be defined in granular fashion.
Effective plan execution—and achieving planned growth—happens when there is a direct Line of Sight between every employee and the strategy of the organization.
#5. Follow your frontline — Who REALLY knows what’s going on in any organization?
The growth journey requires leaders who ‘stick’ to their frontline, the ‘coal face’ of the organization where customers and competitors intersect with the organization and produce successful transactions or failures.
Spending time with the frontline is often uncomfortable for leaders, because they learn about PROBLEMS! Most leaders would prefer hearing only about what is going well; it makes them feel good. But the reality is that problems—barriers frontline people face in trying to execute the organization’s strategy—that are successfully resolved are extremely powerful in improving performance.
Audacious Leaders dedicate at least 1 day per week to the frontline where their objective is to discover—and REPAIR—what is preventing the strategy of the organization from being pristinely executed.
Fast and furious growth doesn’t happen by doing one thing.
It’s the result of consistently making many small Moves.
These five Moves are critical—and they’ve been proven to work—if you’re searching for a growth formula.
Related: What Is the Single Truth About Meaningful Innovation?