In this episode, I discuss one of the most popular questions people ask me – how to grow your business. I’ll give you a rundown of 5 of my best tried and tested tips to focus on growing your business exponentially.
I also speak about my new business retreat happening on November 1 – 4, 2018. Six amazing speakers from around Australia will come together to share valuable presentations and ingenious activities have been prepared to help inspire and motivate you to improve and enjoy both your business and family life.
Important links mentioned in the Show:
Finding Balance in Business – Women’s Retreat
Prefer to read 5 Ways to Grow to Your Business? Here’s the transcript:
You’re listening to the ‘Business and Life Conversations’ podcast, episode number one.
Hey there, you’re listening to the ‘Business and Life Conversations’ podcast. My name is Angela Henderson and on this show we talk about improving your business, life or both by having amazing and rich conversations with brilliant guests. Who will inspire you and who will give you tips and tricks to help you grow both in life and in business.
Hey there and welcome back to ‘Business and Life Conversations’ podcast and I’m your host, Angela Henderson from Angela Henderson Consulting. Today, well, I’m going to want to talk to you about five ways to grow your business. This is a question that I get asked all the time, either in the Australian Business Collaborative, my Facebook group, my one to one coaching clients ask me, my peers ask me. So I’ve been thinking a lot about lately, what do I actually do on a regular basis that helps to grow my business?
I thought I’d share these topics with you today because I think it’s important that even if you only do one or two of these things, that eventually will help you to grow your own small business. Now, you might be thinking, “Ange, well what have you done?” Well, over the last eight years, I’ve test and tried a variety of different things that work and didn’t work. Some of them even cost me thousands and thousands of dollars, others have cost me nothing for free. So, through trial and error, what I’ve come up with as I’ve said, is five ways that you can grow your business.
Now, one of the things that I do, on a daily basis is my daily power hour. This is a tool or a technique that I’ve learnt from Kerry Wilkinson over in the United States and what she talks about is closing down all of your social media, all of your other tabs that are open, shut your phone off, shut your door if you’re at home. Do whatever you need to do to basically be able to focus on particular things that you want to do to grow your business. So working on your business for that particular hour versus working in your business. And I can tell you, the reason why I am where I am today, is because of this. I get so much done in that hour, it’s amazing. So if you aren’t or you go, “Oh, I don’t have time to do that.” Start with 30 minutes, start with 15 minutes but set a daily time aside, so your daily power hour and I’m telling you, if you can implement that and you get into the habit of that. You’re going to want that, every single day because it sets the tone for everything else.
For those who have followed me for a long time, over from my first business, Finley and Me and now at Angela Henderson Consulting, you will know that as much as I love structure, I also fly by the seat of my pants. So, doing something on a regular daily basis is not an easy thing for me but I can tell you what, this is the one thing that I follow through. As I said, I might not get to it every single day but I do get to it at least 30 minutes a day and it exponentially had grown my business. My tip number one for how you can grow your business, is to set aside time every day which I like to call the daily power hour.
The second way to grow your business and I already can see eyes rolling potentially when I talk about this, is engaging your existing clients. You might be thinking, “Why would Ange say engage in your existing clients versus looking for new clients?” And the reason why I talk about engaging in your existing clients is you already have a relationship with them. They love you to bits, you make them feel warm, you make them feel fuzzy and they’re more likely to keep saying yes to your products or your services, whatever you do. And it’s not going to be as hard as work than having to go and reengage in clients that knowing nothing about you. So, think about, what are you currently doing to engage your existing customers? What bits and pieces are you loving on them?
Are you sending postcards, like I did when I was in San Diego to let them know I was thinking about them, that I’m proud of them, that I care about them? Do you send them a welcome gift when they first start with you? Do you respond to their emails at a timely manner? If they send you a message on Facebook, have you thought about just, what I like to do is I just literally take my phone and I’ll do a video and I’ll cut that right back to them. Again, I’m going a little bit of extra mile to let them know that I’m actually taking time to like them, that I love them, that I’m there for them. So again, my tip for growing my business is that I work an enormous amount of time in engaging on my existing clients and making sure that they know that I’m there for them.
Now again, some of you might not understand this concept and that’s okay but it’s my responsibility to let you know what’s working for me and what I think will also work for your business, hand in hand. So again, think about a strategy about what you’re doing to continue to engage with your existing clients.
Tip number three, what I like to do on a regular basis and review all the time, is what can I do to outsource my least favourite tasks? Now we all have those tasks that we get tired of every single day, the ones that suck us down, the ones we dread, the ones that those tasks that keep getting carried over for the next two, three, four, five days until we just got to do it. Because it’s not going to end. I like to look at constantly, what can I outsource for these tasks that I constantly dread? So, what I’d like you to do, and I do this too all the time, is I just take a piece of paper and I write down everything that I’m currently doing. All the time, I was just talking to this with clients last night and over the next week you’re going to start to accumulate things that you’re doing and you’re going to be amazed at so many things that you actually do that you just didn’t actually put pen to paper.
Then I want you to take a blue pen and your blue pen, I want you to go and circle everything that you love doing, absolutely love. Then with a black pen, I want you to circle everything that you kind of like, “Yeah, I’ll do it but it’s not something I love but I’ll keep doing it.” And then with a red pen, I want you to circle everything that you hate doing. Because everything that you hate doing, I agree, at some stage in your business you’re just going to have to suck it up and do but there comes a point, in order to grow your business you’ve got to outsource these tasks.
And what I would suggest that you do, is look at those tasks, go on to Upwork, go on to Fiver, if you’re looking at outsourcing overseas or look for an Australian VA, American VA, wherever you are located and start to outsource those tasks in an appropriate way. One of the biggest down falls is when you start to outsource, people always blame the VA that they don’t know what they’re doing and the reality of the majority of time a VA doesn’t work is it comes back to us. We don’t spend the time it takes to train them appropriately, put systems in place etcetera. So once you identify in the red little circles eventually what tasks you hate doing, put your processes in place before you hire someone. Alright, super important. So my tip number three for growing your business is outsource your least favourite tasks because it’s going to allow you time to do the things you’re really good at, be creative, do new products, find new products etcetera.
Now number four, again, a little bit of a self-plug but I think it is super important and again the research shows that my own clients would say is that, once you get to that growth level. When you’ve got a little bit of cash flow starting to come in, even if the cash flow is not quite there yet but you know that you need to do something different, hire a business consultant or coach. Again, if you’re at the stage where you need to see substantial growth, whether you’re just starting out or you need some advice, or you’re starting to feel overwhelmed. A business consultant is ideal because so many times I work with my clients, and they actually know what they need to do, it’s the how-to but equally it’s the accountability. So, if you’ve been sitting on things for the last few months and you need basically a kick up the butt, I strongly encourage you to think about working with someone who has the expertise, who can keep you accountable, and will help grow that momentum. So again, think about that.
And my last tip, tip number five for growing your business and it’s one of the biggest things that I’ve done in my business, is invest in yourself through networking and events. I’ve said it multiple times in my Facebook group, I’ll say it again to my clients and those that take my advice grow exponentially. Those who choose not to, their business keeps growing but not at the pace that it is when you invest in yourself through networking, events, conferences and retreats. Business events, like I said, are one of the primary reasons why I am where I am today. Events have allowed me to improve on my subject matter, on a variety of business topics that I knew nothing about, like sales funnels, what else, SEO, copy, you name it.
It’s through this knowledge that I understand my clients, I understand my processes better and because of that I’ve been able to capitalise and grow accordingly. In addition, it’s the connections. I cannot emphasise enough the amount of connections I have made through networking and events. Seriously! It’s these connections that I can brain dump when I need to, run ideas past people but in addition to that, they introduce me and connect me to people that I need in my business to help me to grow. However, the biggest thing I hear with people is, “Oh, I don’t have the money.” I can’t invest in this and I can’t invest in that and I’m not saying go and invest in everything but again, invest in things, little by little, stage by stage, do it as a strategic approach to make your business grow.
One example is, with my business’s retreat that’s coming up at the Gold Coast in November is I’m offering $60.00 a week payment plans. That’s literally $60.00 a week, you divide that by seven days, that is super cheap. That’s like a cup of coffee, two cups of coffee a day. But what are you going to get from it? You’re going to get the most enormous amount of growth, connections, self-confidence, you’re going to build your self-esteem. And I can promise you, you will grow.
So, what are you doing to allow your business to grow? Have you thought about it? Again, I basically think in a nut shell, that it is necessarily, you need to be able to invest and if you don’t start to invest in some of that profit that you’re building or even some of the tools and resources you’re utilising to start up. What’s going to happen is you’re going to become stagnant, yes you can go to YouTube, that’s not a problem. Yes and find out a lot of resources for help and I too have been there in initial start-up phases. But once you get through that initial stage, you do have to look at how can you exponentially start to grow? Because it’s about failing fast and learning quicker.
So five ways, just to recap on how you can grow your business. One – daily power hour, rock that like your Mumma gave it to you. Two – engage in your existing customers, it’s easier for them to say yes to new products etcetera than it is for you to have to go and work your butt off for new clients. Three – outsource your least favourite tasks. Four – hire a business consultant and five – invest in yourself through networking and events. They don’t have to be expensive events, just get out there, start meeting people, start getting your brand out there because it will convert eventually.
All right everyone, this is Ange from Angela Henderson Consulting and if you are looking for ways that you can work with me directly, don’t forget that you can head to www.angelahenderson.com.au, click on the work with me button for a 30 minute strategy session where we will talk about your struggles, your goals and how you can work with me. And also, I’ve just released my business retreat down on the Gold Coast from the first of November through to the fourth of November where we have six amazing speakers from around Australia that will be accompanying us on this particular event of this four days.
In addition to that, we are having things like sip and wine where we’re going to be going to an art gallery and we’re going to be listening to ‘80s music and sipping wine and rocking out our artistic flair. We’ve got our farewell dinner which is also going to be pretty amazing, might I add, it is a dress up affair, I’ll keep that under wraps until a little bit later but is going to be one hundred percent ingenious. And it might involve a little bit of karaoke, wink wink.
Alright, and you can learn more about the women’s business retreat that I’m having November first to the fourth by just sending me an email at info@angelahenderson.com.au or I will also plug the link below in the comments section. Alright everyone, I hope you have an awesome day no matter where you are in the world. This is Ange from Angela Henderson Consulting. Bye.
Thanks for listening to the ‘Business and Life Conversations’ podcast with Angela Henderson 5 Ways to Grow Your Business, www.angelahenderson.com.au
