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Navigating the 3 Growth Phases of a Successful Business
99 Plays6 months ago
In this episode, Olivia Jenkins breaks down the nitty-gritty of business growth, talking about the three main phases every business goes through... seed, startup, and growth. Using her own experiences working with over 500 CEOs, Olivia shares helpful tips and tricks for each stage. She covers everything from figuring out your audience and solving problems to rocking your online presence and finding the right people for your team. Tune in to learn how to tackle each phase like a boss!
Ready to level up your business game? Join SUMMER SCHOOL™ with Olivia Jenkins for hands-on coaching and core marketing, strategy, and sales skills. Achieve consistent $10k months and experience a transformation in your business growth. Excited to learn more? Chat with Olivia through her dm @oliviajenkins.co.
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Transcript
Introduction and Host Background
00:00:00
Speaker
You're listening to the CEOs Win Woman podcast. I'm Olivia Jenkins, your host and strategic partner, helping you elevate your brand to cult-like status. Over the past five years, I've helped over 500 visionary CEOs to generate in excess of $70 million in revenue. And now it's time for me to share my tips, tricks and strategies to help you supercharge your growth.
00:00:23
Speaker
I'm here to help you step into your power to develop a bulletproof business and growth mindset to match. Consider me your secret weapon to scale. Let's get started.
Understanding Business Development Phases
00:00:32
Speaker
Welcome to another episode of The CEO's Wing Woman. Today, we're diving deep into a topic that's often quite misunderstood because there is so much information out there for you to read through as you're starting your business and growing your business.
00:00:45
Speaker
This topic today is really important. We're going to be covering the three phases of business development that businesses often go through as they start their journey as a startup business owner in the seeding stage even before they've started their business and then move all the way forward through a growth stage, through a scale stage and then into a mature stage of business. So let's unpack together three simple phases of business development that take place and what to focus on at each stage.
00:01:11
Speaker
So before we get started, just as a little bit of an intro, I've had the honor of working with over 500 CEOs over the past five years through all different stages of business growth anywhere from pre-startup. So in that ideation seed stage all the way through to scale up and mature businesses at $25 to $30 million turnover. So
00:01:30
Speaker
For ambitious CEOs and visionary business leaders, it's really important to understand the different stages of business growth because what got you to the stage that you're at now inevitably will not be the thing that will get you to the next stage, right? So whether you've just launched your business or at a stage now where you're looking to scale your business, each stage presents its own unique challenges and opportunities for you to work through.
00:01:55
Speaker
So my advice is to work with a seasoned business consultant or coach so that you can navigate these phases effectively and make the most out of every stage. So let's dive into the three stages of business growth together and I'll take you through each phase.
00:02:09
Speaker
So today we're going to be focusing on a very simple format. So we'll talk about the seed stage, we'll talk about the startup stage, and we'll also talk about the growth stage. Now, just to pre-frame this, there are definitely other stages as you start to scale up the business and go into a different revenue category. But
Seed Phase Strategies
00:02:25
Speaker
today we're going to be focusing on these three primary phases of business, pre-startup, the startup stage itself, and the growth stage.
00:02:31
Speaker
Sorry, in the seed phase, this is the first date and this is generally when businesses are aiming to determine if they have business viability and whether it's feasible for them to develop the idea that they have into a tangible business. So generally at this stage, the areas of focus are audience analysis and defining who the target audience is.
00:02:53
Speaker
for the product or service that's being launched with this business. So gaining a deeper understanding of the customer avatar, the demographics, the psychographics, the behavior of that customer and being able to articulate who that target audience is.
00:03:08
Speaker
The next stage, dive deep into understanding the core problem that this target audience has. So what product or service do they need to solve the problems that they have? So every customer has pain points that they want to be solved. Everyone has a problem that they're purchasing a product or a service to solve.
00:03:27
Speaker
And so your job at this stage is to really understand what your customer problems are and what product or what service would be able to solve those problems for your customer. So diving deep into the problem solving. Inevitably, you will also want to chart out every step of the customer's journey with your brand. So from problem awareness,
00:03:48
Speaker
right the way through to post-purchase experiences, what can you map out in terms of the customer journey? So when you think about the customer having no idea who you are at face value when you first launch your business and going all the way through to after they've made a purchase from you and they start to build up some loyalty with your brand through consecutive purchases, what does that process look like? What does
Startup Phase Insights
00:04:09
Speaker
that journey look like from start to finish? And think about at this stage as well is whether you have a product or a service
00:04:16
Speaker
that can be bought multiple times. Now, this is really important when it comes to the seed phase because one of the best things that you can do to determine business viability long-term is ensure that you have a product or a service that can be a repeat purchase. The reason is there's only two ways to grow your business. Either you sell more things to the existing customers that you already have
00:04:40
Speaker
or you aim to win new customers. So again, that's selling more to the customers that you already have or it's finding new customers to sell things to. So if you have a product that is only being purchased once or a service being purchased once, a lot of the time this can be a lot harder than having a product or service that can be purchased multiple times. So something to think about as you're going through this customer journey mapping is
00:05:05
Speaker
What does the experience look like for the customer after they've purchased from you the first time? Is it a journey that they can purchase from you numerous times? The platform investigation is also important. So if you're an online business, then having a look at the main platform you're going to utilize as your attraction strategy. So that could be Facebook, it could be Instagram, it could be LinkedIn, could be TikTok. Where are your target audience?
00:05:31
Speaker
frequenting the most. So where are they spending the most amount of time? What platform are they on? So really looking into the platform and making sure that you have a clear focus on where to direct your energy as you go into the startup phase and begin creating content and getting your brand out there.
00:05:48
Speaker
Of course, the business plan development is very important at this stage too. So putting your efforts into a detailed business plan. Majority of businesses don't actually have a plan that they're executing from. So this is a really low hanging fruit for you to capture and it's a really good process for you to go through step by step as well to determine what your roadmap will be in terms of launching your business. And this is really important because it allows you to stretch your brain
00:06:14
Speaker
and think about things that you may not think about until they come up, right? So if you don't have a business plan, then inevitably you are winging it. And so when you have certain situations come up in business, you don't actually have any plan to go by because you've never thought about that before. So mapping out a business plan, yes, will help you establish if the business has viability, but also you have a number of things that you've already considered as part of that planning process so that if and when those things do pop up, once you've launched the business,
00:06:44
Speaker
you already have a game plan on how you're going to go about solving those problems. So seed phase is number one when you're in that pre-startup phase and the goal here is to establish business viability and determine if it's feasible to develop the idea that you have into a tangible business. So that is the goal of the first stage, the seed phase.
00:07:07
Speaker
The
Challenges and Mindset in Startup Phase
00:07:08
Speaker
second phase is the startup phase. Now, this is where most business owners will be, often when they make their initial business go live and they'll stay in the startup phase for as long as it takes for them to learn all the lessons that they need to learn and apply all of the strategies they've put together in order to get to the next stage. Now, this is a very interesting stage of business because A, it looks a little bit different for everyone, but B, the goal here is to make the business operational, sustainable,
00:07:37
Speaker
and profitable. And for a lot of business owners, it's quite a big job. When you think about that, it sounds very simple, make the business operational, make it sustainable, make it profitable, but there's a lot that goes into that. And there's the tip of the iceberg that you can see, but what you don't see at the startup phase is everything underneath the surface. And a lot of the time, unless you've had a startup business before, or unless you know someone who's been through this process that's close to you, it is quite easy to assume that it's easy.
00:08:05
Speaker
And you know, it's just something that you can wing it and get going and everything will happen for you. And while that can happen sometimes, a lot of the time that's not the reality for everyone. So there's certain things to focus on at this stage that are really, really important. So beyond that,
00:08:20
Speaker
the initial foundations of business. So I'd hope at this stage, if you've come from the seed or pre-startup phase, you have a business plan already, but there are some basic things that you would need to do. So you might be incorporating an entity, you might be registering domain names, you might be parking your social media handles to make sure you've snapped those up.
00:08:37
Speaker
you might be applying for a trademark to safeguard your intellectual assets, et cetera. So there's a bunch of boring legal accounting things that need to be done, but are very important in terms of that startup phase to make sure that you're starting on the right foot and you have the correct foundation in place. So make sure you've aligned with a really good lawyer and a really good accountant that can take you through this process to save you a lot of heartache and a lot of extra money tidying things up down the track. So that's step one.
00:09:04
Speaker
Step two is to think about your mindset. Now, this is something that is majorly overlooked at startup phase because we often just want to rush ahead and get to the executing, which, yes, is really important.
00:09:17
Speaker
But even in a startup business, you still need to be focusing on a growth mindset and prioritizing velocity over perfection, focusing on rapid implementation because that's always going to trump meticulous planning to the point where you have perfectionism paralysis, especially when you're in a crowded market and a fast-paced business environment. So it's really important to
00:09:42
Speaker
be able to move past blocks, be able to practice discernment with your mindset as well of, okay, this is something that I need to spend extra time on to get right. Or no, actually, this is good enough and I can just move on to the next thing and come back and refine that later. So that growth mindset piece is really important because if we are robots,
00:10:01
Speaker
Yes, following a business plan and doing all the things might seem very straightforward, but the reality is often startup business owners have imposter syndrome or they have doubts or they have confidence issues when it comes to where they're at in their business and their confidence as a business owner. So this is
Marketing Strategies for Growth
00:10:18
Speaker
really important at the startup stage to adopt a growth mindset, be really focused on having fun,
00:10:24
Speaker
and learning lots, not putting too much pressure on yourself for everything to be perfect and just enjoy the journey. So that daily consistency piece is actually the thing that's going to take you from being a startup and going into the next stage. It's the consistency every day, not doing large amounts of work and then not working on your business for weeks at a time. So that daily progress, as the book Atomic Habit James Clear says, focus on getting 1% better every day. So that's really what it's about at this stage.
00:10:53
Speaker
The third step is the digital presence. So obviously as a startup business, most startup businesses don't have, you know, the marketing budget of L'Oreal or of a big business. So it's really important at this stage of business to be very focused on doing as much as you possibly can for free or for as cheap as you can. And one of the things that you can utilize for free is of course, social media. So developing a strategy for your social media from the get go. Like I said, in the seed phase,
00:11:21
Speaker
choosing a platform where your customers, your target audience that you've identified are spending the most amount of time and going all in on that platform to build a really strong digital presence there so that you have a presence on the main platform and you're really learning to master the art of content creation and mastering messaging that speaks directly to pain points of your customer.
00:11:44
Speaker
From there, I would absolutely recommend putting together a marketing plan to be able to determine what your focuses are as a brand in terms of your marketing campaigns. So those of you who are familiar with the podcast and familiar with me will know that.
00:12:00
Speaker
My bread and butter is integrated marketing communications and strategy and I'm all about the sum of all the parts as opposed to just focusing on one thing. Now, while that is a bit of a contradiction because in the context of social media, I do think it's a much better idea in startup phase to focus on one platform and really now that. What I mean is in the context of a marketing strategy, a lot of people think that a marketing strategy is social media.
00:12:26
Speaker
And it's not. Social media is a very important part of the marketing strategy, but it is a part. It is not the entire marketing strategy. So what we're looking at here when it comes to a holistic marketing strategy is the combination of all the different parts of the ecosystem. Sorry.
00:12:43
Speaker
It could be social media, it could be email marketing, it could be your content marketing strategy through blog, it could be a number of different things. But putting together a marketing strategy that is very specific to your target audience, where they're spending time.
00:12:59
Speaker
the types of messaging that you're creating to speak to the pain points of those customers and making sure that you have a clear and consistent game plan on how you are going to be pushing out your marketing campaigns each and every month so you can be really, really consistent with your campaigns.
00:13:16
Speaker
Are you tired
Sales and Community Building Importance
00:13:17
Speaker
of complicated strategies and endless guesswork? It's time for a change. Join me at Summer School for straightforward, effective business education. I'm Olivia Jenkins and I've designed this program to help you achieve consistent 10K months with clarity and confidence. No fancy ads, no overwhelming tech, just pure business acumen. Ready to grow? Let's make it happen.
00:13:40
Speaker
The other focus, of course, at this stage is sales. So in order to have a bulletproof business, you need to learn to love sales and love selling. It's definitely an area of focus. And I think that there is a lot of misunderstanding between marketing and sales and what the difference is here. But sales is really about taking the leads that you have and converting them into customers. So having conversations that turn into conversions. So your primary focus
00:14:10
Speaker
as a startup business should be 80% sales and marketing driven. So marketing to build your pipeline, to build leads, to build awareness and get your brand out there and sales to be the focus where you're actually grabbing those leads and turning them into customers.
00:14:28
Speaker
Exploring any strategies here to boost your sales and of course support your cash flow is going to be really important as a startup to ensure that you have a business that stands the test of time. So have a look at your sales process and determine if you have a firm game plan around your sales strategy.
00:14:46
Speaker
Community building is really important at this stage too for startups. And I think that this is an area that has been a little bit overlooked, especially in recent years. And throughout the pandemic, I think there was a really big focus on paid ads and there was a lot of scaling that was taking place as consumers were starting to turn to online shopping more. But one thing that I've noticed across the board is that the brands that focused heavily or relied heavily upon paid ad strategy
00:15:12
Speaker
and maybe neglected or forgot a little bit about their community building aspects, they are definitely having a harder time when it comes to growth and maintaining growth now than the brands that, yes, incorporated paid ads as part of their strategy, but they didn't rely upon paid ads as their only strategy.
00:15:31
Speaker
So really community building at this stage is super important and it can become your strongest asset because when you build a community, you're engaging with people. That's how you build a community. You engage with people, you have conversations, you're building trust with them. And ultimately, that's what makes them be loyal. That's what makes them build trust with you and choose you over purchasing from your competitor.
00:15:55
Speaker
So this really leans into creating a brand that has that cult-like status. You need three things. You need a bulletproof business. You need an iconic brand. But you also need a visionary leader that's able to build a community with their audience and be able to foster that sense of brand loyalty. So really important at this stage to be focused on creating friendships. And this is something that one of my long-term consulting clients has done very, very well. And I always remind her of how amazing she is.
00:16:23
Speaker
She has done such a good job of building a loyal community over the years and having conversations with people that are real, just everyday conversations, not even necessarily anything specific to do with the brand at times, but just being a good human and interacting with people on a human level. So that's really important as well to focus on that community building piece.
00:16:43
Speaker
And of course, optimization. So look at your website and be having conversations with your customers all the time as a feedback loop to be able to go back and refine the things that you're doing so that you're able to increase your conversions. So look at your website regularly, seek feedback from your customers, ask them questions, check in with them and make continual improvements.
00:17:05
Speaker
to your marketing stack, so to your website, to your email marketing, to your social media, to even your customer service protocols as well to make sure that you're always moving forward.
00:17:16
Speaker
And last but not least, skill upgrades. So whether it's leadership, marketing, sales, mindset, finance, whatever it may be, continuously investing in you as the leader, your education, your knowledge, fine-tuning your skills is going to be absolutely essential for you at this stage because let's face it, the startup phase,
00:17:38
Speaker
You're doing majority, if not all of the things yourself, right? You are the customer service person. You're the sales person. You're the marketing person. You're everything all in one. So the faster that you can build your skills and your confidence in these areas, the better so that you're able to get the business to a stage where you can bring a team on board or you can look to outsource some of the things that you're currently handling so that you're able to continue your business growth.
00:18:04
Speaker
Now on the topic of
Growth Phase Goals and Talent Attraction
00:18:05
Speaker
growth, the third phase is the growth phase. So the goal here of the growth phase is attracting and retaining top tier talent, refining your systems and processes to support scalability and building leadership skills as a CEO. Now, I will pre-frame this by saying that there will be different information out there in terms of what
00:18:25
Speaker
You know, definition would be around a growth phase business versus a startup business versus a mature business, et cetera. So there's different takes on this, but I've created a very simple model to take you through in the episode today and we'll consider the growth phase as part of the next two phases, essentially. But the goal of the growth phase, like I said, is about building a team, refining your systems and processes so that you have scalability.
00:18:48
Speaker
and building your leadership skills as a CEO, because let's face it, at startup, you may not actually have a team at that stage. So you're building your own leadership skills internally, your ability to self-lead, but as soon as you start bringing team members on board, it's a total different frequency. And so being able to increase your skillset and your confidence as a leader is really, really important because we know that business is often only as good as its team. So the ability to both attract
00:19:17
Speaker
and retain a team of really skilled people is very, very important. And it's vital to ensure that you can continue to execute the vision that you have and spearhead growth. So when you think about talent acquisition and retention, it's really about creating an amazing workplace where people are attracted to working with you and working in your business because they're excited by your vision. They're excited about the way that you do things and they want to be a part of a winning team or a winning environment that's
00:19:47
Speaker
purpose driven. And the retention piece is being able to be congruent about what you've promised and what you're actually delivering. And for a lot of people, there are many, many examples out there where most people actually aren't really motivated necessarily, primarily by money.
00:20:03
Speaker
they might actually be motivated by being part of an amazing business with incredible values where they can show up every day and be able to exercise all of the skill sets that they have and be recognised for it. So there's a whole heap of information and things that I could speak to in the context of leadership. And we might say that for another episode, but essentially one of the main focuses at this stage is the talent acquisition and retention. So it's really about the who.
00:20:29
Speaker
not the how, and being able to find talent, being able to find professionals that can help you without you necessarily having to teach them how to do their job. So time and a place for both, but that's one thing to consider is who not how. The other thing here is to think about exploring
00:20:46
Speaker
different growth avenues, say being on the lookout for growth opportunities. So this could be expanding your products or your services, forging new strategic partnerships, collaborating with complementary businesses, or potentially even looking at acquisitions as well. So at this stage, the growth stage, you're more than likely past the seven-figure mark by this point and
00:21:06
Speaker
You're in a position now where you can start expanding the products and the services that you have, and you don't need to have your blinkers on quite as much as what you did during the startup phase. So really looking at different growth avenues that you can go after as well. Also deepening your customer relationship. So again, we spoke a moment ago about the community aspect, but it might be time at the growth stage to start looking at personalized marketing, looking at loyalty programs,
00:21:30
Speaker
community building and ways that you can increase your customer lifetime value. So the amount that customers spend with your business or brand over the lifetime of their customer journey. So have a look at your customer loyalty metrics and really get to know your numbers on a deeper level so that you're able to make data driven decisions and be able to adjust the way that you're doing things based on what the data is telling you.
00:21:56
Speaker
Now, at this stage of business as well, refining your systems and processes is important because as you start to add team members into your business and the team grows and your revenues growing and your customers are growing, things are starting to become really busy. And from one perspective, being in a startup phase where you're doing everything on your own,
00:22:16
Speaker
that can be easier in some ways and harder in others. And what I mean by that is it's easier in some ways because you are doing everything yourself and you know where everything is at at any given stage, right? But when you go into the growth phase of business and you have team, suddenly you might not necessarily be fully across every facet and maybe you've handed over some of the things that you used to do before or even all of the things that you used to do before so that you can focus primarily on your highest and best purpose as a CEO
00:22:44
Speaker
But with that, that comes delegation. And in order to delegate successfully, there needs to be a system around that. Otherwise, it's abdication. It's, okay, I'm going to handball this to you and you're going to take care of that because that's your job and that's that. But inevitably we know that when you abdicate and don't delegate,
00:23:03
Speaker
It can really turn disastrous quite quickly. So this is why systems and processes are really important because you need to have the scaffolding or the infrastructure in your business to be able to support scaling. So scaling is often something that happens quite quickly.
00:23:20
Speaker
And this is when you hear the term around growth pains and businesses, getting those systems and processes in nice and early is a really good idea. So that as you start to hand over anything that you're responsible for, you have a system and process. There's a standard operating procedure. There's a playbook. There is something that somebody can look at, can watch, can review.
00:23:42
Speaker
in order to know exactly how step-by-step they do that task or whatever it may be that you're handing over. But equally, they know what the definition of done is as well. So this is really important to think about with your current systems and processes and your standard operating procedures. Have you made
Financial Discipline and Reviews
00:23:59
Speaker
it crystal clear what the quality standard should be and what the definition of done actually looks like?
00:24:05
Speaker
And with your team at the moment, do you have a process that you can go by where you can check in to make sure that the things that you've delegated are actually being done and are being checked on to make sure that they're being done in the way that you intended for them to be. So really important at this stage to zoom in on your systems and processes to ensure that you can scale comfortably. Now, one tip I have for you that's worked an absolute treat for both myself in the business and also for clients is utilizing Loom. So if you haven't utilized Loom, not Zoom,
00:24:35
Speaker
Loom, Elle, Philema. This is an amazing tool that you can use as a Chrome plugin and essentially it allows you to record your screen and record walkthrough videos as you're going through a process. So it's an absolute game changer if you have standard operating procedures that you're recording on a computer. Highly, highly recommend looking at Loom. It's an amazing, amazing tool.
00:24:56
Speaker
Now, finally, on this topic, the one thing that I will say to finish off this growth stage is to make sure that you know your numbers. Sorry, if you do not have a good handle on your financial statements, on your numbers, and maybe even this scares you, that's okay. And I think acknowledging that numbers may not necessarily be an area that you're comfortable in or maybe that you know a lot about, that's absolutely okay.
00:25:22
Speaker
What I would recommend at this stage is that you partner with a good accountant or someone that you can trust in the context of your business finances and be able to have a monthly discipline in place where you're looking at your financial statements. So financial statements being your profit and loss, your balance sheet, your cash flow if you have one, payables, receivables. So there are about five or six reports that you might like to look at
00:25:46
Speaker
on a monthly basis to have the discipline in place that you're sitting down with your accountant or with the bookkeeper, whoever it is in your business that manages those things with you or for you, so that you're able to continually build up your skill set and your confidence around looking at numbers, interpreting them and being able to make decisions from them. Because if this is an area that you shy away from for a long period of time,
00:26:11
Speaker
It can be a very dangerous area where things start to slide and you may think that everything is under control and it may not be. And this is also an area that I think if you can build up your confidence levels in, it can really serve you long term because you're able to have the confidence and the clarity to be able to look at your own numbers and make your own decisions from those numbers. So really focusing on your financial and have that discipline in place.
00:26:37
Speaker
Set the year's meetings up front at the start of the year. Go and do it now. Go and ring your accountant and your bookkeeper right now and book in a monthly meeting and say, I would like to look at my financial statements with you every month and be able to increase my skillset and my confidence.
00:26:52
Speaker
every month
Courage and Identity Shifts in Business
00:26:53
Speaker
as we go through this process together sorry an hour a month that's all you need one hour per month to be at a review your financials and make sure that everything is in order but also because we know that the more that we practice something the better will be right so if you're doing that every month inevitably it's only a matter of time before you're a lot more confident when it comes to managing your numbers.
00:27:12
Speaker
So in conclusion, every stage of business requires a different focus. It requires different things that you are working on. And often it requires a bit of an identity change as well, because as we know, what got us to this stage is not going to be the thing that gets us to the next stage. So by really understanding and implementing strategies according to the phase that you're in, you're going to set yourself up for success. And
Episode Recap and Audience Engagement
00:27:35
Speaker
also by leaning into your mindset and understanding that this is really about a powerful identity shift that needs to happen in you.
00:27:41
Speaker
and being conscious about when it is time for you to up level and making the decision to continually be courageous in your business. Not get too comfortable, not just accept the status quo, but actually stepping forward and really being courageous with your decision making constantly in business to push yourself out of your comfort zone.
00:28:00
Speaker
So I hope you've enjoyed this episode today covering off three very basic phases of business. So we went through the seed phase, the startup phase and the growth phase. If you have any questions at all, I'd love to hear from you. I always love having conversations with you guys in Instagram, DM. So go and visit me there at OliviaJenkins.co. And as always, I hope you have a super productive week and you have lots of value that you can take away from this episode. And I'm looking forward to chatting with you again soon.
00:28:28
Speaker
Are you ready to transform your business approach? Join summer school where I, Olivia Jenkins, will lead you to your breakthrough. We focus on what truly matters, strategy, marketing and sales to get you to those consistent 10K months. With live coaching, actionable insights and an engaged community, success is just around the corner. Step into the School of Success and watch your business rise.
00:28:51
Speaker
Thank you so much for tuning into the show today. If you loved today's episode, be sure to let me know by leaving a five-star review at OliviaJenkins.co. You can also connect with me via Instagram DMs at OliviaJenkins.co or learn more on how we can work together at www.OliviaJenkins.co. Have an amazing week and I can't wait to connect with you in the next episode.