How to Find Growth: Business Planning Mentoring

 

The Key Role of Leader: Growth

The key role of every leader in any organisation is to determine the direction of where they are leading their organisation. A leaders success or failure is determined by what growth they achieve. You are leading yourself, your people, your shareholders, and your customers to where you want to go. All successful growth strategies set and work towards goals.

Leaders can often make sound and good decisions about things they can see and clearly understand. Often leaders, directors and owners have advice and support systems built into their day to day decision making, but when planning tomorrow's growth it is not always so easy. Many leaders struggle with looking and making decisions beyond the known horizon. It is hard to see beyond the tangible, beyond the concrete, beyond the known.

This is why I have created my Business planning Toolkit, built upon my 20 years of experience, to help you to learn how to successfully look and find growth opportunities and turn them into growth. My business planning toolkit will enable you to Take the guess work out of your business success.      

Leaders Need To Plan For Growth.

Leadership success is always about delivering tangible growth, where have you taken your business and why. Knowing that you need to find growth is one thing, but knowing how to find the right direction to take, where to look and find real growth or answer the hidden real challenge of being able to assess which growth options to follow and which to disregard is quite another. 

Here's a great example of getting it wrong. The CEO of LA Gear grew his company from $11 million to $820 million in sales in just four years by focusing on unique, fashionable shoes that were expertly marketed.

Then chasing three huge opportunities they killed the company stone dead. To keep growth coming LA Gear sold excess product at deep discounts which devalued the brand, invested heavily into basketball shoes, not their core market and offered low-end shoes at Wal-Mart.

How To Find Growth 

There can therefore be good growth and bad growth, how do you know which one to nail your colours to as a leader. Growth opportunities need to be assessed and verified. They need to be understood as part of a long term strategy, not a quick tactical grab which helped to end LA Gear.

So leaders need to develop clear strategies which support and drive long-term brand value, and not grab at passing opportunities just because they have some big short-term numbers attached to them.  Assessing where you are going against long-term key performance measures is one key way which all successful major companies use, the balanced scorecard.

Putting All The Steps Together      

These are just some of the key steps which take your business from a cold start to a roaring firebrand, going where you want to take your business. I've put together my Business Planning Mentoring to Take the guess work out of your business success that takes you step-by-step through the simple steps of how successful business leaders plan their business.  

How to take the guess work out of your success

This step-by-step process that takes you through each step that builds logically and effectively to your effective growth plan. Short videos take you effectively through each step, with plain English explanations supported by a thorough workbook with all the templates you need to take the guess work out of your business success. From finding growth to setting goals and monitoring your progress towards them.

Here's 5 benefits from following my Business Planning Mentoring Programme to find your growth:- 

1. Weekly and monthly support programmes - planned around your precise needs. 
2. Simple steps - which move you forward one step at a time, see the results happening
3. Robust processes used by successful leaders 
4. Workbooks and support action plan - fully explained with all templates to support your development  
5. My guidance to show you each step with key tips to avoid the pitfalls.

See the video which explains more, click: How to take the guess work out of your business success.

Why GREAT LEADERSHIP is all about VISION

Why GREAT LEADERSHIP is all about VISION: Do you have a vision for your business here are some ideas worth considering.

 

Vision, is as we all know is the most important leadership trait for a successful leader to have and present. That means they have to have a clear strategic vision for their business. Great leaders may be charismatic, they maybe forceful they may even be likeable, but for them to be successful they must have and be able to communicate and inspire others through their vision.

According to Right Management consultancy‟s survey of 1,439 chief executives and senior HR people from 707 organisations across the globe found that the outstanding trait of successful leadership is the ability to create and communicate a VISION was the most important characteristic for success. The score of 92% demonstrates just how important a characteristic this is across such a large number of very senior people in business.

Business VISION

The Right Management consultancy http://www.right.com, which is owned by the Manpower group: http://www.manpower.com survey provides clear confirmation to everyone in leadership positions that the single most important factor for success is that of creating and communicating a clear vision to their people.

“Without a clear vision no leader can succeed today in business”

Leader v Manager

The key difference between a leader and a manager is often simply summarised in that a leader sets direction while a manager ensures the delivery of the plan, or elements of it. This simplified statement is a good starting point in explaining how these two differing roles can be clearly defined.

The research, which is heavily influenced by companies from North America, revealed that leaders evolve from a wide variety of backgrounds, experience and job functions within companies across a wide range of industries. Western corporate CEOs are most likely to come from Operations and Finance, with more specialised areas providing a less likely route to becoming a chief executive. This suggests that leaders are people who understand the internal systems of the business and the underlying numbers which drive its success.

Failing Chief Executives

Conversely, the top factors that contribute to the failure of chief executives include a wide-range of factors, which include both soft skills factors as well as the obvious failure to achieve acceptable results. The leading reason cited for failing chief executives is the failure to build relationships or team culture, reflects today‟s‟ importance of talent management.

Leadership Culture

Leadership Culture

The reflection that science is now more important than the science is evident: “Leadership development today is more science than art,” said Sue Roffey-Jones, practice leader at Right Management. “In today‟s business environment leadership development needs to be grounded in real work and focused on the critical competencies required for success in Chief executive level roles.” Key Skills

The importance of being financial and operationally literate to the CEO role is also becoming more evident: “We would assume that people are promoted to CEO from operations and finance because they are perceived to have developed competencies that are important for the CEO role,” said Roffey-Jones. “However, given what research has revealed to be the critical competencies for a CEO, how would a company develop leaders who have demonstrated a track record of creating a strategic vision‟ and "inspiring others and maintaining leadership responsibility‟ when these roles are more likely to be the fairly exclusive domain of the CEO?”

Succession Planning

The importance of succession and smooth transition is becoming more important. With the exception of the sudden changes, such as BP‟s sudden need to be seen to change direction in response to events, companies today are investing time and effort in succession planning. Good well planned succession planning ensures long-term shareholder value and the ability of avoiding the football management culture of change.

Executives, board members and business leaders all recognise that talent management plans, including succession management have become essential for sustained performance in today‟s organisations. Creating, finding and developing talent is now not only about identifying tomorrow's people but also ensuring they are contributing to developing tomorrow's business, buying in and helping create the vision of tomorrow. 


If you want to develop your company's position then there needs to be a vision for it, where it is going and why. If your look for some advice on developing your company, its marketing, its sustainable competitive advantage then contact us at Cowden Consulting to see how we can assist you, or read more about us in this blog or at Cowden Consulting.

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Cowden is a strategic planning and implementation business which works in partnership with customers to grow and develop their business, based in #Dumfries and #Galloway, Scotland covering the UK. contact us to learn more.