8 ways to create a High Growth Future for your business

John Leach, chairman of Winning Pitch, explores some more ways businesses can create opportunities for high growth.

High Growth companies spend more time than their competitors with customers, living in the future. They invest time in developing new insights and strategically positioning themselves for that next big opportunity. Studies show there is nothing more prolific than change to create new fresh uncontested market opportunities. Are you spending enough time in your High Growth Future or are you just constantly reacting to today’s crisis?

What do high growth companies do to outstrip their nearest competitors?

• Be an avid “trend spotter”. Always have your radar up scanning the horizon for changes in regulations, technology, economics, demographics and society.
• Have more face-to-face meetings with key customers and opinion leaders. Through these conversations develop your own unique insights as to where the next wave of growth is coming from.
• Think of yourself as a problem-seeker/problem-solver. When speaking with potential customers, position yourself more like a provocateur and less like a sales person. Quietly and confidently, probe how your prospect will deal with the most burning future issues. In this way you develop fresh insights and simultaneously help solve their potential problems before they happen.
• Don’t rely solely on backward or lagging performance measures like historical financial results plus the majority of market research reports. Focus instead on creating different future scenarios into which you play out your strategies. Use online platforms like blogs, Twitter and LinkedIn to share and test out ideas with your peers.
• Be aware that future forecasts rarely come in ‘on the money’, so supplement these long-term views with shorter term data collection techniques.
• Proactively shape your customers’ thinking by targeting them with thought leadership and other conversation starters that present your opinion of the future and what it will mean for them.
• Deliberately position yourself to get a seat at the top table on your industry’s most prominent forums, taskforces and policy groups to help influence and scope the big decisions.
• Be sure to execute these new ideas by having a robust way of converting these future strategic goals (what must be achieved) into an operational reality (how these can be executed).

Boost Business Lancashire has a wide range of support programmes available for businesses looking to achieve high growth. To discuss any of these programmes further, contact us on 0800 488 0057.