“Growing when your competitors aren’t!” Article by Steve Marsten

Right now most business owners and executives tend to blame the performance of their business on the “weakness in the market” or the economic slowdown. Of course there is a reason this explanation for uninspiring performance is so common – it’s simply readily available! On average 50% of all businesses are growing below the level of GDP so it’s a natural occurrence to blame an external source for the problems!

The trouble is a weak market isn’t a valid excuse. Time and again plenty of companies are achieving above average growth. There are always some business’ that find a growth formula and achieve success in industries that aren’t doing anything special. Those business owners or managers tend to ignore the excuses and figure out how to join the ranks of the over achievers.

At a recent business strategy session with our clients at Sothertons and their team, it was pointed out that despite the ups and downs of the economy, their business had outperformed the average GDP in the Industry by 20-40% each year for the past 5 years when the economy came off a Global Economic Crisis to a local economic boom and back to a flat economic growth pattern!

They believe that all businesses should stop, assess and address every aspect of their business and they loved sharing the information with their staff so that everyone had a say in the big picture. It’s a great investment in the future and sets the business up for continual adaption to the industry and retains is relevance to the markets and its customers. Its not change for change sake but change for the better. Also it doesn’t all have to cost money – sometimes the best ideas are the lowest cost with the biggest added value such as stopping to provide an unprofitable service or product and placing more emphasis on a better product or even more surprising – relieving the business of some customers who provide low margins to the business and tend to inhibit or upset your team.

The Sothertons team assists its clients to reach their potential and achieve the best return on their business by facilitating business strategies that review your business and all its aspect to ensure that it provides the maximum return for its owners.  Call 07 4972 1300 and ask for Steve or Tina for more information.