Is achieving business growth on your agenda? Are you ready to take your business to the next level? Growing a business is no easy feat, but with hard work and dedication, you can make it happen. Here are some tips to help you succeed:

Hard work and application

There's no shortcut to success. If you want your business to grow, you need to put in the work. That means being dedicated to your business and putting in long hours. But don't forget to take breaks and recharge, too.

Focus on cash and profit

Cash is king when it comes to growing your business. You need to focus on generating revenue and keeping your costs under control. Profit is the ultimate goal, so make sure you're tracking your expenses and finding ways to increase your bottom line.

Take your business seriously

If you want others to take your business seriously, you need to take it seriously yourself. This means having a clear vision for your business, setting goals, and developing a plan to achieve them. Treat your business like a job, and you'll see the rewards.

Good systems

Efficiency is key to growing your business. Good systems and processes can help you streamline your operations and increase productivity. Look for ways to automate tasks, outsource non-essential work, and simplify your workflow.

Invest in your business

Investing in your business can pay off in big ways. Whether it's upgrading your equipment, hiring new staff, or expanding your marketing efforts, don't be afraid to spend money to make money. Just make sure you're making smart investments that will pay off in the long run.

Staff and team

Your team can make or break your business. Achieving business growth means hiring the right people and providing them with the support they need to succeed. Treat your staff well, and they'll be more motivated to help you grow your business.

Be resilient and patient

Achieving business growth takes time and effort. You'll face obstacles and setbacks along the way, but don't give up. Stay resilient and keep pushing forward. Remember, Rome wasn't built in a day.

Conclusion and good to know

Growing a business takes hard work, dedication, and a willingness to invest in yourself and your team. Focus on cash and profit, streamline your operations, and be patient. With these tips, you'll be well on your way to success.

The I Hate Numbers podcast isn’t just about target setting, financial storytelling, and financial performance though.  Other topics are covered, for example, cash flow management, budgeting, forecasting, tax, accounts, and more! Every episode provides actionable advice from me, Business Finance coach, accountant and educator who explains that stuff in an easy and no-nonsense way.

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Millions of business owners dream about growing their business. Are you one of those millions of businesses that has aspirations, has ambition, and has dreams to grow your business beyond where you are at the moment? If so, join the club. You are in good company. The important thing is though, how do we go about growing our business the way we wish it to be?

Well, in this week's I Hate Numbers Podcast, I'm gonna share tips with you as to how you go about growing your business. This is based on over 28 years of experience as a business finance coach and accountant and tax advisor. That's helped thousands of businesses grow their businesses as they wish to.

You are listening to the I Hate Numbers Podcast with Mahmood Reza. The I Hate Numbers Podcast mission is to help your business survive and thrive by you better understanding and connecting with your numbers. Number love and care is what it's about. Tune in every week. Now, here's your host, Mahmood Reza.

The first thing we need to do, folks, when we think about growing our business is making sure that we can match application with our talent and with our skills. The two together is the combination that we're after. Talent in its own right will get you nowhere, however brilliant you are, as an accountant, as a consultant, as a manufacturer, as a retailer, as an arts organization, that means absolutely nothing,

unless you're prepared to back that up with application and hard work. You think about any discipline that you associate with that you admire, whether it's in the field of sport, you think basketball, you think Michael Jordan, you think the Lebron, you think music, you can think, Kanye West? You can think in terms of Marvin Gaye,

you can link the Supremes. You can link whatever talent you have in the musical world. Any actor that you admire, they would not have got to where they did unless they were prepared to put in that hard work. Even in the world of business from the the likes, as Amazon and Google, whatever one thinks about them, hard work went behind the scenes consistently to grow from an idea,

backing that skillset, backing that talent to make it to something. If you're not prepared to put in the yard, if you're not prepared to put in the sweat to get that equity, then you will not achieve the growth that you aspire to. Number two. You need to keep an eye on two really big important financial metrics.

The most important one of all of those is cash. Brilliant businesses can fail dramatically if they do not have access to cash resources, so you need to make sure as a bare minimum, folks, if you do nothing else at all, make sure you have got a financial plan that's translated into the cash equivalent over the, at least the next 12 months and keep an eye on it and update it regularly.

Access to cash will help you pay suppliers, invest in infrastructure, engage staff, pay yourself, pay your suppliers on time, all those things that need to happen if you are to continue. The moment you run out of cash, you quickly go and burn through that cash power that you've got. End of the road, close the lights as you leave the building, and I don't want that for you.

Third tip, in this mix of tips I'm giving you as to how to grow your business, make sure that you are not running a hobby, that you are serious about running a business. And what that means is that you have to take it really seriously when you are looking to invest money. Don't always look at it as spend and don't always think to yourself, I can't afford to do this right now, but I'll do it much later on down the road.

If you are going to do your business seriously, if you're gonna take it seriously, you need to think about investing money and spending money as going towards achieving your end objectives. So 2 million things that come to mind. All businesses need a good digital accounting system in place to actually tell you what's going on,

keep on top of your compliances, tell you what level of profitability you're making on products, on projects, and everything else. To communicate, you need good CRM systems. You need good systems to communicate with your clients, your suppliers, and everybody else. So those two things is a bare minimum.

That's just two examples. You need to make sure you've got good, adequate resources in freelancers, in staff. Do not try and do everything by yourself. You can get in the way of your own growth. You need to make sure you've surrounded yourself by good people. You need to invest that money in that capacity now, not later on when things are too late.

So make sure you've got the infrastructure, make sure you've got the capacity, make sure you invest that money, and don't always look at it as a negative. That is a good way to advance to your end goal, to your end objective. Any more tips to share? There are some more to share with you. Make sure you have a plan.

Now for me, you could have a goal and you've gotta have some idea what that future looks like for you. Articulate what that looks like. But unless you have a plan that says, how am I gonna get there, then it is not going to happen. All that's gonna happen. Is you're gonna be going round and round in circles, spending a lot of time doing things that may not be as productive as you would like them to be, because you don't actually know what you should be doing to advance yourself to your ultra end objective and prosperity.

So make sure you have a plan in place. Make sure you have something there that's executable and that you're monitoring and keeping an eye on. Other tips to share. Rewarding yourself monetarily, financially is obviously a key thing you have to do in business. You need to make sure that money or making profits is seen as a primary, not the only one, but a primary financial goal.

Now what that means is, quite justifiably, you might feel that you want to compensate yourself, reward yourself. If the business makes money, you have to enjoy all of that for yourself. That's the wrong way of looking at it. The monies that you generate in the early stages of your business are there to invest in staff, freelancers,

in terms of processes, CRM systems, your professional team around you, like your accountants, a little bit of a plug there as well. By all means, compensate yourself, but you should not be at the top of the queue. Your reward will come later. In the early stages of my business life, I survived by working part-time jobs.

I survived by using my own funds. Cause I knew that moment of prosperity would eventually arrive. So by all means, compensate yourself. Reward yourself, but don't over egg the pudding. That money is there to help build the foundations to help you move your business forward. The last couple of tips I will share with you folks is, is make sure that you are doing things to keep that

of what goes on between your ears solid. You will have bouts and times where it will feel quite dreadful. You'll have bouts and times where you feel you want to give up. Things won't always go the way you expect them to. That is a learning opportunity. You will hit brick walls, you will hit obstacles, things will go wrong.

People will let you down. Things will cost more than you expect. Things may not materialize. Those promises that have been made to you. It's a natural part of business life. It doesn't mean we have to like it, but it also means that we shouldn't get too hung up over it. The things we could do, certainly to minimize them and mitigate those events happening, but bear in mind there will be off days, there will be good days.

So make sure you look after yourself in terms of getting in connection with nature, for example, going for walks, good diet, good sleep, whatever it is that you do, make sure that you do it effectively. Lastly folks, be realistic and be patient. Making money in your business, growing your business successfully requires time and it requires patience.

You don't wanna grow too quickly, by the way, because that can be as bad as not growing at all. Growing too quickly, a topic for another video can be catastrophic, so make sure your growth, you've got a planned, measured progress that you want to do that and make sure that your patient. Typically, I would say most businesses will take about three to five years to generate anything of serious value.

The value is created in that period of time. Customers have got to know who you are. They've trusted you. You've made your mistakes. You've got a learning curve dynamic that's coming in. You are benefiting financially. You've got everything in place. You know your systems are much better. You've got a process bettered to

communicate with clients and all the rest of it, and then the real value will come in. So folks, I hope you found these tips useful. How do they resonate with you? Do they make sense? Do you have any to add? Are there any that you would actually contribute and add to the mix? I'd love to hear what they would be. Until next week folks head down and happy growth.

We hope you enjoyed this episode and appreciate you taking the time to listen to the show. We hope you got some value. If you did, then we'd love it if you shared the episode. We look forward to you joining us next week for another I Hate Numbers episode.