As a business growth consultant I help small business owners to put in place the right strategies, processes and systems to drive predictable growth in all areas of their business, from increased traffic, to converting leads, to sales opportunities, to ultimately give the business more customers and revenue year on year.

Using the STEPS Methodology to drive small business growth

Over the past 30 years I have grown eight of my own businesses and helped hundreds of small business owners to grow theirs and this has allowed me to develop proven processes that work. These are the same processes I have used to help one client grow his business through to a £28m acquisition by Iris Software and another to grow towards an £8m sale to Price Waterhouse Cooper.

I pulled the approach together into something I call my STEPS growth methodology and it follows five key principles that I focus on for small business growth consultancy. You can see these in the graphic below, Strategy, Traffic, Engagement, Promoters and System.

The Business Growth Consultant Has Changed Forever

I have got to be honest here and say that I never really liked consultants, whenever I came across them they always seemed to be corporate types who had a bit of experience in large organisations and very little understanding of the challenges I faced growing my small business on a day to day basis. They would be happy to focus on the “what” I needed to do and never really share the “how”, to make matters worse the “what” were nearly always things I already knew I needed to do but did not know how to go about it, so their value was limited.

So my style of business growth consultancy is very different, it focuses on strategy first driving tactical execution. So my work with a client will always start with a 12 week growth strategy creation.

STEPS starts with Strategy

Over the initial 12 weeks we will work closely, to put together a growth strategy for the business. My growth strategies focus only on the elements that I know will drive growth for the client and their business, nothing else.

I have to admit that this is an intensive three months and sets the scene for the rest of our relationship, as I will be working hand in hand to get this right for their business and my goal is that if this was the only work we did together they would have clarity on how to execute the strategy and what to focus on each day.

I have shared a free step by step guide to creating your own Remarkable Growth Strategy, so make sure you download it.

Traffic is the next principle

Once the strategy is in place I move my business growth consultant work with my client straight into driving the right type of traffic to their business and most importantly their website.

It is important to understand that not all traffic is good traffic, in fact a lot of traffic I find businesses driving to themselves is low quality and unlikely to buy anything. My focus is on website traffic, organic search traffic, organic social media traffic, referral traffic from customers and partners and paid traffic campaigns.

Fix your leaky bucket. It is critical to focus on traffic conversion first and then driving a higher volume of warm traffic into a highly converting funnel. The #1 mistake I see businesses making is in not optimising how they convert the traffic into leads, opportunities and customers. So they spend more and more money on generating traffic that does not convert. I equate this to pouring water into a leaky bucket that is full of holes.

The ability to understand and optimise a number of traffic sources is the key to effective lead generation and growth of your business.

Engagement is everything

The next principle in STEPS is engagement of the traffic that you are now attracting to your business. How effective are you at connecting and engaging with that traffic? Do you understand where they are in their buying journey when you speak to them? Can you be human, holistic and helpful to start a sales conversation?

Engagement is all about your ability to give the right information, to the right person, at the right time, to help them make the right decision for them. As business growth consultant I help my clients to craft a sales process and use sales pipelines to make this engagement as natural as possible.

Turning your customers into Promoters

Now you have effective traffic sources and remarkable engagement in place, your business will be converting new customers on a daily basis, the secret now is to focus on delighting those customers and turning them into promoters of your business.

Why promoters, well I have always felt that great client engagement is all about driving referrals, additional sales, testimonials, asking for reviews, creating case studies and asking for feedback through surveys. All of this comes from nurturing great customer relationships and a good growth consultant will always focus on this above everything else.

It is very easy to be a busy hamster on a wheel trying to constantly generate new leads for your business, but time spent engaging with your existing customers can produce more revenue for less effort.

Systemise to optimise

The final principle in my STEPS methodology is all about building out your technology and leveraging systems, software and tools to scale your business.

Again, many small business owners I meet have got multiple pieces of software that they have purchased over the years, but not connected system that acts a single source of truth as to what is happening in their business.

Over the years I have used Hubspot, Pipedrive, Salesforce and many other tools, before finally developing my own CRM, Marketing, Sales and Service software called Leadnamic to act as my business growth toolkit, with all the tools I need on one piece of software.

As a business growth consultant I see first hand, every week, the power that having the right system in place gives to business owners, increasing their efficiency, saving time and giving a level of clarity into what is working and what is not working, more than they have ever had before. I can promise you that spending time developing the right system can be a game-changer for your business growth.

So take the time to think through exactly what you want to achieve with your business and decide if a business growth consultant will help you get there. I love what I do and the results I see with my consultancy clients, but it is not a silver bullet, it requires a commitment of time, investment of money and a lot of hard work, but in the end I know it will get you where you want to be with your business and that is what matters.