Key Takeaways from SFANLiveChat: Strategies for Successful Business Growth

The third edition of #SFANLiveChat was a blend of inspiration and education. This brilliant session hosted two highly esteemed serial entrepreneurs:

• Romeo Effs, the Business Gladiator, Strategist, and Fixer, and
• Anie Akpe, founder of IBOM LLC, Innov8tiv, Women In Tech Africa, and NetworqApp.

With some thought and reflection since that chat, we've noted vital timeless advice for the young innovator. Below are five key takeaways from the third live chat, launching with vision, managing your finances, becoming accountable, maintaining traction, and consistency.

Let's jump right in!

Before You Launch, Create a Vision for Your Business

Ask any sailor or captain, and they’ll tell you. You can have the best airplane or ship in the world but if you don’t have a compass to navigate your way, the entire crew will keep drifting endlessly. The same is true for your business.

When you think of launching a business, Anie says, you must ask yourself the following questions:

1. What is the purpose?
2. Who is interested in what I am creating and will they buy what I am offering?

This thought process will help you to align your business with a great vision.

But, in defining the vision for your business, you must equally ensure that you include vivid images and signposting.

“I’ll use myself in this instance,” she continues. “My goal is to lose weight. To lose weight, I have to have a vision of what I want to look like. From that image, I now decide what is my projected time frame? So with a business, you have to envision what you want to see in the next 1, 3, 5, or 20 years. The time frame helps in bringing your vision to clarity. No vision or dream is too big.”

On Financing: Think Outside the Box

Celebrated leadership expert, Robin Sharma once said that ideation without execution is a mere delusion. However, turning your idea into a viable product or service backed by a great team often requires a lot of funding. 

How quickly you raise startup funding depends on the part of the world you are in, Romeo explains. “Some markets are more mature than others. In the UK and USA, there are mature Angel Networks and government schemes to help entrepreneurs. In other parts of the world funding often come from family and friends or traditional places such as the bank or credit cards."

"Credit Unions and Crowdfunding are equally other viable options. But, a brilliant way to finance your idea is to get an order and then walk into the bank or to someone with this order and ask them to fund it. You could also try invoice factoring if you get an order; ask customers to pay part up front, but, in the absence of these, you have to look at personal things of value that you can sell to get money to put into the business.” he concluded.

On Creating a Culture of Accountability: Unleash the Power of Goal Setting

According to a McKinsey report, among the biggest challenges faced by businesses trying to build their organizational capacity is the lack of accountability and buy-in.

To get accountability, you need to set goals, Anie stresses. “Your Goals quantify and define what happens next. Now, questions you need to ask yourself as it relates to your team include: 

1. What is the background and reason for establishing this team?
2. Who and how many people will be depending on the output of you and the team?"

"The more team members feel involved in defining the answers to the mentioned questions, the more they will embrace accountability. Overall, ensure you focus on creating a consistent shared-purpose team environment.”

Contributing from Jacksonville, Florida, William Jackson emphasizes the need for your team to be as passionate as you are about the business goals and mission.

If you can motivate your people to buy into the vision --and remain accountable for its execution -- your work will be much more seamless.

On Key Performance Indicators: Start With the Conversion Rate

A lot of businesses fail because they do not use the right metrics in measuring performance. Depending on what your business is, Romeo recommends that the key metrics you should use to evaluate your growth are the:

1. number of leads,
2. number of completed transactions,
3. rate of conversion,
4. average sales value,
5. sales margin over products sold, and
6. cost of goods sold or cost of customer acquisition.

“Let’s state that business metrics should be compared to established goals or business objectives,” Anie says.

“As a wise business owner, you must ensure that you have the right technology that helps you measure these key indices: sales revenue (including marketing cost, price changes, and discounts that you have given) and repeat business (customer loyalty),” she highlighted.

Create benchmarks by looking at what’s happening in the industry. Whether you’re a new or established business, you need to pay attention to your daily completed goals compared to the monthly and yearly goals.

On Maintaining Consistency: Internalize Them

Romeo’s advice for maintaining consistency in your business processes is to make them a habit. Get them entrenched in your business and team.

Creating a consistent message, he says, could require that you “outsource the work to a professional to produce in batches in advance, and then reuse on all platforms. Find the right technology to enable efficiency and automate.”

Ultimately, notes, you need to “know your ideal customer and build that tribe — the market where you will be selling. Build a consistent process to manage cash flow. Trust your gut and trust the process. Never stop; just keep stepping up and getting things done."

"Implementation is constant. It never stops. It is the entire journey not a phase of the journey. It is: execute, evaluate, adjust, execute, evaluate, adjust and the cycle goes on and on," Romeo underscores.

Anie reminded our audience that there are free software tools to lower costs at the initial stages of your business, as it helps your budget. “When a business is smaller, it’s easier,” she says. “The best advantage for consistency is when you use it to measure your results — you can create accountability and consistent message about your company.”

Conclusion

If you want to jump-start your business this year, or any year, this article has the insights and best practices you need. Create a vision for your business, remain consistent with your process, get the tools and platforms that connect you with your target audience, and consistently track your key performance indicators.

“Stay focused! As the phrase goes; 'Just do it.' Do your research and put fear aside,” Anie recommends.

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