Getting your mojo back: Consider these 5 questions to boost business
When growth slows, agency owners should reflect on their business’s needs and set a vision for the future.
Every business, including insurance agencies, hits natural points in its growth trajectory where things change, become more difficult and growth slows. Dan Sullivan, the founder of the Strategic Coach program, calls this hitting the “ceiling of complexity.”
As a business increases in size, it becomes more complicated to run. What may have worked well in the past, is no longer yielding the same results. When your growth begins to slow, I suggest asking yourself five key questions. The answers to these questions will help you regain your mojo.
1. Are you feeding the business first?
On the racetrack when the driver lifts his foot from the throttle, less gas goes to the engine and the car slows down. As a business grows, its need for working capital increases. Without working capital, it begins to slow just as the car does. One of the challenges for successful businesspeople is to continue feeding the business the money it needs. Too many siphon dollars out of the company for owner lifestyle or other reasons. Every business owner wants to enjoy the material fruits of their hard work. After all, why would any of us work as hard as we do or take the risks that we do if not for the rewards?
The important thing to remember is the business’s needs must be taken care of first. This will ensure it has the fuel to regain the speed that it once had and more.
2. Are you planning and setting goals regularly and do you have a system for measuring your progress against those goals?
Businesses that grow consistently usually have 10-year goals set by leadership. Yes, the economy and the business are dynamic, but long-term goals can not only help to put the current situation into perspective, but they can also help you make better decisions in real time, pivoting when necessary. Additionally, having three-year goals and one-year goals can help you to prioritize and organize the changes that need to be made as the business grows larger and more complex.
Goal setting works. I’ve spoken to hundreds of entrepreneurs and it’s interesting to me that the vast majority say that they regularly hit the goals they set. If you have the goal to grow consistently every year, you can make that happen merely by setting goals.
3. Are you providing the resources your business needs to enable its growth before you need them?
This is closely related to goal setting and the retention of working capital, but it’s more than that.
Many years ago, I had the opportunity to drive on a racetrack with professional race car drivers. I learned that to drive faster than the others, I needed to be looking far into the distance and ignoring the cars that were immediately in front of me. I learned that my hands would take the car where my focus was.
If you develop the habit of looking one to three years in front of you, you will find it much easier to hire the people, create the systems, rent the space, change the marketing and do all of the other things required to sustain your growth trajectory.
4. Are you using the data you already have to determine when and where you may be getting off track?
We’ve all heard it said that the shortest route between two points is a direct line. And yet, most businesses don’t operate that way. Instead, they wander.
One way to prevent wandering is to analyze your operational, sales and financial results every 90 days and compare your performance to the performance of other agencies in the same period of time. Doing this is easy with excellent, widely available, industry benchmarking studies. Looking at your agency’s data and results in comparison to others will give your insight into where you may need to make course corrections in order to sustain consistent growth.
5. Are you evolving your management skills so you can continue growing the business? Or alternatively, are you bringing in professional management so that the business is not limited by your skill limitations?
The first four questions drive this last question. Most of us who are agency owners are excellent salespeople. We love that role and we invest significant amounts of time and money honing our sales skills. Do you have a similar commitment to improving your management skills? If you want your business to continue to grow year after year, this is just as important as developing your sales skills. An alternative approach is to continue to focus on driving revenue while outsourcing your business’s management to someone who has management as their primary skill set.
A race car goes fast because the driver gives it plenty of gas in an engine that optimizes its power with the right mixture of air. The driver starts the race with a plan and goals for each stage of the contest to achieve the ultimate goal of winning. He constantly analyzes the track, other cars, weather and a myriad of other resources and data points to determine the fastest route and adapt in real time. Businesses that grow consistently do that too. As your business progress slows, as it inevitably will, asking and answering these five questions will give you the necessary insights to maximize your power, speed and success.
Tony Caldwell is an author, speaker and mentor who has helped independent agents create over 250 independent insurance agencies. Learn more by visiting www.tonycaldwell.net or contacting him at tonyc@oneagentsalliance.net.
Opinions expressed here are the author’s own.
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