Looking for growth? Align these 9 aspects of your business

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When a small business shows unsatisfactory growth, an owner may be tempted to employ any number of loudly touted marketing tactics, social media often being at the top of the list. I encourage business owners to focus on the fundamentals rather than to jump on the latest band-wagon: review your business strategy (if you don’t actually have one, there’s your starting point) and ensure there is alignment.

Alignment refers to having the various aspects of a company (eg – R&D, sales, marketing, HR, production) working in unison towards the same well-defined goals; these goals should include offering the best products and/or services to a clearly-defined market segment. In the case of a small company, each department may be comprised of only one person, or possibly even the same individual wearing multiple hats. Consequently, it might be better to say that all efforts of a company should be aligned: sales efforts, marketing efforts, R&D efforts etc.

This should be common sense but in practice a company’s efforts are often misaligned. Even when there is an abundance of seemingly great ideas, it’s important to recognize that not all great ideas complement each other. A business may have shifted direction somewhat since the business plan was written. Employee turnover or recent company growth could also result in misalignment. Things can be hectic and it’s easy to be overstretched. Like the universe itself, businesses are subject to entropy (a natural tendency towards disorder) so “going with the flow” tends to lead to misalignment. One must manage disorder constantly and align his or her business on a regular basis, revisiting the issue year after year.

Here are some questions that will start you on the right path towards getting your company aligned for sustainable growth:

1. Do you have a comprehensive, written, strategic plan? Does it cover a one year time frame as well as a longer time frame, perhaps three or five years? (It may be wise to take into account your potential exit strategies too). Do you review the plan annually? Is this done with the participation of your business partner(s) or key managers? Does your plan have buy-in from managers and employees? In other words, are you and your team aligned in your goals and on the same page?
2. Do you really know who your best customers are (not as individuals of course, but as types)? Do you have any data on this and have you done some analyses? Where do your revenues and profits come from? Which products or services are best? What customer type is buying what product type?
3. Do you prepare a written marketing plan each year? Is it based on market research and on analysis such as in point 2 above? Does the plan promote optimal matching of your products or services with your customers? Would a successful implementation of your marketing plan allow for achievement of the goals set out in your strategic plan? Obviously, your marketing goals cannot have a lower bar than the goals in the strategic plan; if that is the case, one or both plans must be adjusted.
4. Have you developed your brand? Does it reflect the type of company that you are, and, that you want to be? Does it appeal to the customer types identified in 2 above? Will it be in line with any directional tweaks noted in your marketing plan? If so, your brand may facilitate your success. If not, your brand may provide no benefit, or even worse, it might hinder your marketing efforts. Alternatively, are your products or services branded but your company itself somewhat anonymous? Does that scenario work well in terms of the big picture we are beginning to paint?
5. Does your website accurately reflect both your brand and your products or services ? Is it organized such that, right from the home page, each major customer type will have a clear navigation path with appropriate content and thus a great visitor experience? Have you done “search engine optimization” on your website, taking into account what you know about your customer types? We sometimes think about SEO in terms of Google and its secret algorithms but don’t forget that it’s our potential customers who are providing the critical search terms!
6. Do your other promotional materials accurately reflect both your brand and your products or services? Are such marketing communications appealing to the targeted customer types? Are the messages reaching your customers? Are you advertising in the right places for each customer type?
7. How do you sell? Where do the transactions occur? On-line or in a store? Directly or via a distributor? How is the product or service delivered? To give one simplistic illustration, a branded company might do well selling its products or services directly, whereas a company whose products or services are well branded may do better via distributors. Are your sales channels optimized to suit your business?
8. Does your business have the operational capacity to deliver on your marketing and strategic goals?
9. Do you have the personnel to successfully implement your plans? Do you have the right number of the right people? Are they sufficiently trained?

Many will recognize that the above list stems from strategic planning and goal setting, combined with three of the "four P’s of marketing”, and a hint of brand management. I omitted a fourth “P” - pricing - because it’s important to have all your other ducks in a row before you start adjusting pricing, if necessary. I prefer to focus on selling value first. Entire books and university courses have been dedicated to each of the nine business aspects above. I hope that this brief list will trigger reflection on these issues, and in particular upon their interdependencies, thus helping you recognize which areas of your business aren’t quite pulling in the same direction as the others.