A little reflection on the other processes we take on having a family.
If you have children like me you will likely remember the first years and the need to buy new clothes every few months as they grow.
Watching as they get taller and older, their styles and ideas change and grow up. After a while clothes that don't fit mount up in the back of the wardrobe.
We needed a strategy or we were going to need extra rooms for storage. We started with two plans, find family who with younger kids and hand the things on, and that having more children doubles the value of the purchases use.
This can only work for a while and it was hard to spend and need to discard but it was framing space to grow if we didn't.
After another kid and faster rate of clothes piling up, eBay seemed a good avenue as we could recover some money and we knew someone else gained value. It takes time to go through the process of listing on eBay after a while does stack up as do the boxes of small clothes. Freeing your own time more.
So next level was just to list high-value items on eBay and save the energy by helping the charity shops in the area with the bulk bags. It all becomes part of an Agile workflow you do not have before you have children and only change your wardrobe as and when the mood takes you.
The space to grow is the driver and the value return is maximised the fast the turn around. It is also a business process I learned to identify and appreciate with advice from Jonathan Stark and his hard line on scaling business.
Business growth, is making room
If you want to grow your business and not wind up dependent, on the scale or change of clients, the business needs to be aiming to shed 20% of business a year and raise the price and quality at the top end.
Shedding the least profitable clients with low potential gives the headroom capacity to grow.
The value you can give over time to another single company gets less as it becomes more commodities, and the perceived value lowers. Choose to offer more and different product and service or to suggest you will be changing focus and thank them for their time but you are moving on.
"We will be making a change of direction and focusing more on Y and Z in the new year" "If you would be interested in our new range lets set up a meeting"
Give them the option to move with you or recommend a new offer.
With a few more years we will be happy to see our children move on and find new business opportunities in the big world, without ever wanting to see them leave. So we keep working the clothes factory machine a while longer.
Do you have part of your business to make space for growth?
#agile #sales #capacity
Tristan Bailey
Founder Developer Holdingbay & Podcast Host Full Bio
Runs the Holdingbay web development agency with a love of actionable data for business results. With over 16 years building for ecommerce, engineering and publishing, he has seen the web grow up. Makes time to be a father by taking time with his kids to stay young. Enjoys working in the community as well as mentoring younger colleagues.
Contact tristan at holdingbay.co.uk
Tweet to @tristanbailey