Have you ever been so far off the grid – on a wilderness expedition, maybe – that your smartphone doesn’t know where you are? If you click on your “maps” app, your phone just shows you a blue dot, figuratively shrugs its shoulders and says, “You’re on the blue dot. But I have no clue what’s around you, where you’ve been or where you’re going.”
That uncomfortable “lost” feeling applies to more than just wilderness trekking.
Planning for growth is something every business owner will say they do, but not all business owners will do this effectively and with a focus that will generate profitable growth.
Many businesses plan for growth, but not profitable growth. Some businesses focus on growing sales without a focus on margins while others build infrastructures to support sales and growth that never materialize.
Michael Porter said, “If your goal is anything but profitability – if it’s to be big,
Well, with 2018 in our rear-view mirror and as we move forward along the 2019 highway, it is a great time to reflect on the past year’s journey. For us at The CFO Centre Canada, the last 12 months have been rich in opportunities to help SMEs thrive as well as our overall growth. Our road was paved with outstanding relationships, both new and growing, from clients to collaborators.
We are pleased to have welcomed several talented individuals to our team.
Developing a strong relationship with your bank provides tremendous benefits including offering necessary funding, preferential rates, and better terms. Your bank can provide expert financial advice and help you to find solutions to financial challenges. It can also help you to grow your business and reach your financial objectives.
Since your bank works with a wide variety of businesses, it can also be an excellent source of prospective vendors, partners, and customers for your business.
If you’ve ever looked through a storage box holding clothes you wore as a child, you may have wondered, “How did I ever fit into something that small?”
Your company may be in the same situation. The equipment, personnel, and premises that fitted well when the company was starting out, may be constraining its growth as it matures.
One of the most pressing areas for change may not be your production system,
In building your business, do you ever:
Feel out of control – you’re getting by, dealing with one crisis after another, but just barely hanging on?
Find that your longstanding products and services just aren’t selling like they used to, but you can’t find time to develop new offerings?
Think about retiring after selling out to a group of your employees, but you know that they (and you) are nowhere near to making that possible?
Entrepreneurship means taking risks, such as launching new products, entering new markets, or using new processes. Because this involves uncertainty, there are always chances that things will go wrong.
Our experience at the CFO Centre has been that the most successful companies take the time to understand the downside of the risks they take, and then find a way to compensate for those downsides.
As the CFO Cente’s book “Scale Up” says,
Any business owner will eventually be faced with the need to sell their business.
It could happen when a medical change or injury makes it impossible to continue, and you need to sell to secure your family’s future. Or maybe an offer comes along that’s just too good to refuse.
Regardless of the reason, it’s always a good idea to take steps to make your business ready for sale at any time.
Maybe you see ride-hailing services like Uber and Lyft as arrogant bullies. Or, to you, they’re a breath of fresh air in a world held victim by over-regulated dinosaurs.
But whatever your view, you can’t deny that ride-hailing upended an entire industry. Some taxi companies have tried to compete with the upstarts through rideshare-like mobile apps allowing customers to choose vehicle options, pre-book rides, and pay by smartphone.
Why have ride-sharing services succeeded against well-entrenched opposition?
Venture Capitalists, angel investors, bankers and private-equity managers may not agree on much, but there is one idea they share. They’d rather put their money behind a stellar management team even if it has a just-okay idea than put it into a brilliant idea implemented by a ho-hum management team.
If your company is seeking to break out of startup mode and into a period of aggressive growth, how do you go about building that stellar management team?
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