What's the point in business growth?

We seem to be slightly obsessive about growth in business. 

It's a measure of success. Sales growth, profit growth, share price growth, market share growth. It's all about growth.

Or is it? Well it depends on the business and more specifically the business owners. What is important to them?

Many 'lifestyle' businesses are happy to reach a certain scale and then stop growing when they reach the optimum size to support their lifestyle. They might tweak aspects of the business and replace lost customers but growth in itself is not an objective.

I've always liked the 'buzz' around growth. Many moons ago, in my role as a management accountant for for a large food retailer I was responsible for a while for reporting weekly sales. It was exciting and immediate to analyse and present the sales figures for the previous week. Management were passionate about looking for trends in regions, departments, 'like for like' sales,  new stores etc. It helped that this was a period of high growth and dominance for the company but the culture was very much about having aggressive growth targets and tracking and measuring against these.

Since moving onto my own business I've kept that excitement about growth. I've always set targets and worked hard to achieve these. There's something rewarding and motivating about beating last week's or last month's or last year's results.

It works for me anyway

Leaving the score-keeping aside, there are serious reasons why growth is a good thing.

Some which spring to mind are:

• It keeps the business fresh and interesting for employees
• It creates new opportunities for the team and allows them to develop
• Employee retention is probably better (provided people don't feel overloaded or unsupported)
• If well managed it can lead to more profits
• More satisfying and rewarding for the owner. The potential to create a business of scale which may endure after they move on

So growth still motivates me and keeps me excited about being in business. It's not an end in itself but in my view it makes the journey much more interesting and satisfying

A test of whether you have a growth mindset is if you know your sales target for this month and how close you are to achieving it.

Do you?

If you don't know either your target or how close you are to achieving it, I would argue that there is a gap in your reporting systems.

It's a bit like the John Lennon quote, 'If you don't know where you're going, any road will take you there'.

Setting sales and profit targets and tracking against them is not a terribly radical or difficult thing to do.

In my view it is essential however if you are serious about growing your business over the longer term.

www.base52.co.uk