10 Rules for Growing Your Business

1. Create a strategic plan for growing your business. Establish benchmarks for performance, and hold your managers accountable for the numbers.
   
   
2. Don't wait for annual reviews to make adjustments to your business plan. Markets don't wait for annual planning reviews, nor should you.
   
   
3. Every business owner must make a personal transformation from technical expert to master strategist for the enterprise.
   
   
4. Adopt the 3 cardinal principles of business growth: Drive the numbers higher today; drive the numbers higher tomorrow; and drive the numbers higher this week. If you focus on growing your business in the short term, you won't have to worry about growth over the long run.
   
   
5. Develop a financial and operational reporting system that allows you to track all your critical numbers. If you don't measure it, you can't manage it.
   
   
6. Hold a daily management "huddle" with all department heads to go over the numbers and make adjustments to daily action plans.
   
   
7. Control your costs when growing your business by budgeting percentages rather than dollars.
   
   
8. Identify all the key people who are driving your business and create incentives for each of them to grow your business for you.
   
   
9. Throw out the old management model you started your business with and create a new one. Innovation in management systems is the key to out-distancing your competitors in the race to the top.
   
   
10. Growing a business is like competing in a championship sport. Play the game the way a championship athlete plays: Play to win instead of playing not to lose...and enjoy the game.

Source: IPA-IBA