What the heck is “growth”?
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When I was younger, my aunt had a spot in her closet where my cousins and I would always measure and mark our heights.
It was exciting each time we got to go over there and see our height inch up, my younger cousins always standing as straight as possible in an attempt to be taller than me.
When you are young, growth is measured in physical attributes. The first time you hit 60 lbs and didn’t have to sit in a car seat anymore, the time you were finally tall enough to ride all the roller coasters, being old enough to watch PG-13 films… without a parent.
As you get older, growth gets to be more complicated. You will find that it gets harder to see how you’ve grown from the outside, but this doesn’t mean you aren’t growing.
progressive development: evolution
Growth is any sort of positive change.
The trick is… you have to decide what is positive.
Deciding what defines positive change for you personally or for your business can be hard. Is it growth if you are getting 100x as many views online if your engagement is half of what it was before?
Setting goals can help you track and measure growth and the beginning of a quarter is the perfect time to set some goals and work to accomplish them over the next three months.
Your goals should be specific and measurable. Trying to “increase brand awareness” isn’t a growth metric you can easily track. Trying to reach 200 average daily website visitors is A LOT easier to track.
(and make your goal attainable, you will quickly burn out and become discouraged when fighting to reach something that just isn’t possible!)
It is incredibly important to define growth for a team in a business setting. One person might be working to grow engagement while the other is trying to increase impressions, in theory both will grow, but realistically no one knows what success looks like and your team is fighting itself.
Work together as a company and as individual departments to set goals and key performance indicators (KPIs). Figure out how you can accomplish them and measure the success tied to your efforts so you can repeat it.
What are some opportunities to grow as a business?
Work to double your online impressions across social media channels, while still maintaining the same engagement rate!
See how you can close 5 new customers from referrals each month!
Grow your partner network to a new location!
You’re probably going to fail a bunch of times. That’s just how it works. The good news is, with a clear goal you’ll know the difference between failing and succeeding and you will be able to make real change.
Go set some second quarter goals!
About Leeward Business Advisors
Leeward Business Advisors is a Wisconsin-based corporation that provides business strategy planning, business improvement implementation, and full IT operational support. They offer world class Cloud Computing services, Cloud brokerage, Managed IT services, and a full US based Support Service Desk (called Quick Answers). Michael Polzin, CEO has 20+ years of enterprise business and technology experience gained while working at Allstate Insurance and Microsoft Corporation. Jason Klein, CTO has 15+ years delivering effective and efficient technology to Midwest companies.
