Building A Sustainable Business In 2020!

Building a successful, long-lasting business doesn’t happen overnight. It takes commitment, time, dedication and vision to achieve longevity in business. Entrepreneurs start or lead companies with a dream of passing it onto the next generation of family or trusted colleagues. However, few business owners are successful in passing the baton to the next generation of leaders. Each year, countless organisations fail, close or sell out to competitors because they fail to transfer the founders’ vision to successors.

Long-term success requires hard work and albeit a bit of luck in between! However, leaders and entrepreneurs who achieve longevity in business share universal principles and strategies that help achieve sustainability.

Here are a few strategies to help you build a long-lasting business:

The Big Idea

The first step to a successful business is having a big idea that is closely related to your competences. An idea that will solve problems that exist in the market and most importantly, in your target market.

Have A Vision

Having a clear vision is vital for direction and where you want your company to be in the long-run.

If you can’t see where you want your business to be in the next 5 years, 10 years and beyond, you cannot expect to build an organisation that will take you to those milestones.

Know Your Target Market

Long-lasting success is also dependant on the relationship you have with your customers, but before you can start nurturing good customer relationships, you need to know who they really are? What do they want? How will you help them? And how will you approach them? These are just a few questions that you need to have the answers to.

Know Your X-Factor!

Operating in a crowded market place has benefits and downfalls. On the positive side, if many businesses are able to survive and thrive by selling similar products and services, this demonstrates that there is high consumer demand. On the negative side, it is vital that your business grabs a share of the market that may soon reach saturation. The key factor is to shine the spotlight on your x-factor in business, what sets you apart from your competitors, your unique selling points. This could be a superior product, competitive pricing, a longer warranty, excellent customer service, whatever your unique selling points are, they need to be grabbing and appeal to your target market.

Replicate Success

Creating valuable systems that will work with or without you, the entrepreneur is a key factor for long-lasting business success. It is also essential to develop systems that will replicate, again and again, the successes of your business journey.

Solve Problems As They Arise

Problems will arise from time to time, and you need to develop a discipline for solving them as they occur. Waiting too long to solve a problem can cause the problem to resurface or lead to a bigger problem.

Embrace Continuous Improvement

As a business owner, you will set the tone of productivity in the work environment. You will need to plant seeds of productivity inside your staff members.

If you and your team members are organized, it will help complete the important tasks for your business and stay on top of the workload.

Create a to-do list each day and incorporate proper list prioritization.

Aim For Consistency

You need to be aware that success is not something that will come speedily after you start your business. You will pivot many times before you find the right connections between all the elements of your business. So, it is important to be consistent and resilient in doing the most important things that will bring long-lasting business success for you.

Stay Up To date With Current Talent

As your business grows, you will need to develop your leadership team capacity. The founding executives who are loyal to you and the company might not have the ability to grow with the company.

You will face the challenge of loyalty versus competence. There will be turn-over. There will be replacement. Consider what your dream team looks like? What are the gaps in comparison to your current team? Develop and carry out your plan in stages in order to maximize leadership talent while minimising business and culture disruptions.

Appreciate Good Employees

Lasting businesses put in the effort of hiring and retaining good talent. The people you employ could result in your long-term success or short-lived dream. Finding the right employees who can focus on the day to day tasks will give you the ability to focus on business growth and expansion.

Talented employees are not going to work for free or at a discounted rate. When you find the right employees, pay them fairly and show your appreciation.