Growing Your Business

When you start a business, you are planting a seed. The type of business will determine how long it would take for you to see any indication of growth.

image: lockedowndesign.com

Growing your business requires a lot of sacrifice and investment. You will have to sacrifice income in the first year(s) of the business. And not only that, you will also have to pump in a lot of investment into the business -- financial and non-financial. 

When I started mine last year, I had to live on my life savings and still spend a huge chunk of it to keep the business running. Marketing kept gulping more than I expected. I had to get myself in front of the people who would need my services. By October last year, I was at rock bottom, financially. Luckily, I was then beginning to get a steady stream of jobs. Yet what came in barely kept me afloat. I couldn't make any saving and I was living from one income to the next. 

It was during those periods I generated most of the content I now use for my training. I recorded video training and began writing the Microsoft Excel book I recently published. Now my efforts of last year are beginning to pay off. I keep getting more job offers than I can handle. I am now turning down some to make room for others. Every week, I work Mondays to Sundays and still don't get all my jobs done.

I am now in the growth phase of my business. It's time I expand resource-wise and form a team. I have been lucky that the business has been validated. People and companies need the service I offer, and enough of them already know about me. Supply met demand. Now demand is outstripping supply.

And it's the same path for all businesses. The beginning is a lot of work trying to get yourself in front of your potential customers while also building your product/service. You'll work hard and see little results. Then one day, all the results come pouring in. 

Gradually, my business is building its brand image. Google is treating us nice in their search results. People keep calling. We have done projects for many big companies. The new challenge is to keep building the core and manage job requests.

Again, growing your business is like planting a seed. It takes a lot of time to see the results of your efforts but if you don't give up, someday they'll pour in and overwhelm you. And if you are not sure if building a business is something you can do, there is one test I want you to take. I have terrible social skills, almost no practical business skills, hard to reach successfully and genetically configured for a life in a laboratory. Are you worse than that? If no, then trust me, you can build a successful business.