Want a simple way to grow your business? You do? Are you sure? You are?

Okay. If you want to grow your business, then grow personally.

I know. You were hoping for a gimmick. A quick fix that would skyrocket your business and put you on top with no pain, little effort, and no thinking required on your part.

Me too. The trouble is, those things don’t really work –sustainably– in the real world. They are great for scams and for ponzi schemes. (And haven’t we had enough of those already?)

This idea of growing personally in order to grow your business is deceptively simple. Like an iceberg, there is a lot more here than meets the eye. In fact, there is so much here, we couldn’t begin to cover it all in one newsletter article. (But, no, that isn’t a threat that we will devote endless issues to it, either. )

One of my mentors (Adam Urbansky) says, “You can only grow your business as fast as you can grow personally.”

And I can attest that this is true. My own business is completely intertwined with my personal growth. I have never grown so much as since I went into business for myself. And it hasn’t stopped. Also, I see it all the time in other people’s businesses. I have watched businesses fail because the owners refused to grow in their personal lives. My own brother’s forays into business are case studies in it.

I suspect that this is a significant component behind the oft-quoted statistics of the high failure rate of small businesses.

Business and the economic climate is changing around us all the time… ever faster and faster. As a result, what used to work in business, isn’t as effective as it once was. In order just to stay in place, we have to change and grow… and then grow some more.

I can state with certainty that your business volume, your customer mix, and your profit margins are not the same as they were only a year or two ago. Maybe they went up. Maybe they went down (the predominant experience for most businesses.) Either way, have you kept doing the same things you did two or three years ago or have you changed them? How’s that working for you?

And what if we want to get ahead… if we want to grow our business? Then we need to grow even more.

For most of us, this is not something we want to hear. We are wired to be comfortable and to stay in that comfort zone. Growth, especially personal growth, is uncomfortable. It is challenging.

The trouble is, change is not optional. Our business is going to grow or decline whether we want it to or not. And both of those directions create challenges. And neither is in our comfort zone.

Sure, there are a few adrenaline junkies who seek out challenge… they are noteworthy because they are the exception. The rest of us are couch potatoes who want to simply watch our favorite shows and not be bothered. And please keep things just the same.

When I was a project manager, I would remind team members and customers of a saying that I borrowed from my fiction-writing days –one of the formulas for plot. That saying? “Every solution carries the seeds of new problems.”

And it is true in life just as it is for good fiction (because fiction is a mirror of life.) I don’t know about you, but whenever I hear that saying I always get a picture of weeds shooting up in the lawn of life. That’s how many of us think of problems… weeds to be dealt with.

How are you going to address those problems? Albert Einstein said, “We can’t solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them.”

Now, you may not have created the problem, but it exists in your business. Further, your business didn’t have a process and thinking in place to handle it. (How did I know? If you had, you wouldn’t have the problem in your business. It would have been dealt with when the problem first sprouted.)

So, how do we solve these problems? By growing.

Since I started the lawn and weed metaphor, allow me to continue it. Did you know that a healthy lawn that is being tended (mowed, proper water, good soil) will overcome weeds on it’s own? That’s right, no need for weedkiller, pulling weeds, or other drastic measures. It does this because the grass grows… and as it grows, it crowds out the weeds.

Just like the grass, as you tend yourself and your own personal growth, you will find that you naturally overcome the weeds (problems). And you know what? Just like we are discovering about organic gardens, this ongoing personal growth is the BEST thing you can do for your business, because it is sustainable… year after year.

The gains you achieve from your personal growth continue to be applied to your business, even as the economy changes. And, unlike the gimmicks, they continue to work, even if you change your business, even if the economy goes up or down, even if your competitor moves in next door to you (either physically or virtually.)

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A couple of weeks ago, I posted 3 Low-cost Keys to Finding More Sales. In the current issue of my newsletter, I talked about a couple of more. Here’s a recap of it.

Key 4 -Find ways to add value to a sale.

The first step is to make sure that what you are offering for sale is worth more than you are charging for it. When you do this, quite

But sometimes, additional value can be added that will help the customer quickly make a decision in your favor. The idea is to make buying from you a “no-brainer” in a way that is good for your business overall. A good way to to do this is to offer a bonus – something that the customer would like but that doesn’t take much extra from you.

Let’s look at a wedding cake business. Her price is competitive to the bakeries. She has better flavor than they do. She is offering custom design and exquisite decoration (and getting paid a reasonable return on it.) As she speaks with the bride, the bride may be impressed but still hesitant. An offer to throw in a dozen decorated cupcakes (for the snacking pleasure of the wedding party before the wedding or as honeymoon treats) can add a strong pull. And for the business owner, to do some cupcakes at the same time as the cake is a snap – very little extra cost and time, but great return.

There are lots of ways to add a bonus that is meaningful to the customer but easily produced by the Creative.

Key 5 – Find a natural, related market.

Every business has its target market. And that target market should be the primary focus of the business. But for every focused target market, there are several related markets that have some overlap with the target market.

The idea is to find a market that is naturally related to your primary business so that you can easily expand your offerings without having to acquire new skills or to start all over in acquiring customers. You leverage the resources, marketing, and customers that you already have.

For instance, a saddle maker has a natural secondary market in the tack that completes the equipment needed to ride a horse. It is so natural, that many times you see them combined – a saddle and tack shop. But that is not the only secondary market. Of course, what often comes to mind is to carry additional items in horse care or horse adornment (mane and tail braids, etc.)

But another natural, related market is custom belts and hatbands that are tooled to match the saddle and tack. When you already have a saddle customer (current or previous), you have an opportunity to be the one who meets his related needs/wants. And you don’t have to make the sales at the same time. Suggest the secondary line to existing customers (perhaps through email or a postcard mailing to them.)

For tack makers, consider that many customers who have horses also have dogs. Here is an opportunity to offer the customer matching leads and collars for the dogs (matching the horse tack.) It uses basically the same materials and techniques and expands the line without having to acquire a whole new customer base. Yet, it can open the door to new customers.

Every target market has some overlap with other markets, what is the overlap in your market that you could sell to with little added effort?

Did you find these helpful? My newsletter subscribers got a lot more information on this in the last issue, with more on its way. It’s another good reason to subscribe.

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