In an effort to continually grow, businesses often try out different strategies to see what works best. While there’s no shortage of advice available on expert-approved, “tried-and-true” tactics, the reality is that not every approach will work for every company.
Both individualized and broader market factors must be considered to determine whether a particular growth strategy is applicable to a business’s situation. If you’re not sure where to begin, follow this advice from the members of Forbes Business Council. Below, they share 16 helpful methods to determine whether that new strategy is the right move for your business.
Members pictured from left to right.
Photos courtesy of the individual members.
In our line of business, market penetration and diversification are key to our business growth. The more we penetrate and nurture the markets we currently serve, the higher the probability of growing our business. Also, diversifying our portfolio through different markets provides additional growth opportunities. – Roshawnda Allen, SAWTST, LLC
To determine the right growth strategy, leaders should evaluate their business’s target market, resources and strengths and weaknesses. This helps determine if it aligns with the business’s overall vision and capabilities. This method is beneficial, as it ensures the strategy is tailored to the specific needs and goals of the business, leading to better outcomes and avoiding misaligned efforts. – Andrew Shotland, Local SEO Guide
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Research the target market, competitors and trends to determine feasibility. Ensure the strategy aligns with the company’s values, mission and business objectives. Assess the availability of resources required. Identify challenges and develop contingency plans. Piloting on a small scale can help determine viability. This method allows leaders to make informed decisions and minimize risks. – Ran Mullins, Relequint LLC
A unique way to try out growth strategies for various business situations is to conduct a “reverse mentoring” process. This involves pairing a senior executive with a junior team member possessing a different perspective or expertise in a specific area like tech or social media. The junior member can provide fresh and surprising perspectives on current trends, customer needs and new tech like AI. – Eric Collins, Montage Connect
The leader must first analyze the company’s current position and market. This includes investigating the competitors, identifying any market opportunities and threats, analyzing the company’s strengths and weaknesses, identifying any potential barriers to success and creating a plan to overcome them. The benefit is knowing the true feasibility and potential return on investment of a growth strategy – Ryan McKenzie, Kidder Mathews
Hire an expert consulting company that specializes in determining effective growth strategies for your unique business, industry, goals and budget. They already know what’s effective and what’s trending now, as strategies change constantly in today’s marketing landscape. Using an expert will save enormous amounts of wasted time and money in guesswork strategies and shooting in the dark. – Angela Delmedico, Elev8 Consulting Group
Going back to lean startup principles is a great way to identify the fastest and cheapest ways to incrementally test new growth strategies. Launching a fast and independent minimum viable product (MVP) allows you to quickly draw hypotheses. When they do work, it’s worth investing time and money to test their scalability. The caveat here is to make sure that your competition is not going in the same direction. – Cristobal Alonso, Startup Wise Guys
Gone are the days when leaders had the time and cushion to do iterations of their strategy and a pilot to validate it. The strategy I suggest for leaders today is what is called building a plane while flying. The ability to quickly assemble pieces as the business operates in the market—and keep the organization nimble to shape itself accordingly—is one that I think all leaders need to master. – Xavier Prabhu, PRHUB
The main factor of success is the increment, no matter what the specific KPI is. In analyzing a strategy, you need to understand how and how much it incrementally increases the success of the business, as well as the cost of that growth. If the total cost factors are less than the incremental influence, then it is more likely to grow in the long run. That approach works the same as compound interest with a cumulative effect. – Vladislav Kraynov, MSOFT
When evaluating growth strategies, it’s important to assess several factors unique to your organization. Performing a scorecard evaluation will help to identify whether a particular strategy for growth aligns with business factors such as budget, timelines, competitive landscape, desired market share and core competencies. The budget may not permit growth by acquisition, for example. – Virginia Poly, Poly Tech Talent
While competitive benchmarking is the most obvious method, it may be applicable to mature industries only. Innovation in the digital world requires customer-centric thinking and learning from other industries’ digital transformation experiences. For example, the solutions to supply demand in the hospitality industry may be very relevant to solving the supply demand of the outdoor media industry. – Srikanth Ramachandran, Moving Walls
In your go-to-market (GTM) strategy, it’s important to ensure that you’re never deviating far from what you can do better than any other business in the world. Determine how you can apply your special knowledge to serve new customers in new ways, and choose to move forward when the potential of that opportunity is large enough to motivate you. – Courtney Folk, Renewal Logistics
Apart from comparing to ensure it is the best option for your business within your own context, one way of determining a strategy’s validity is to set expected growth markers and milestones to trigger growth measurement. Early-stage growth markers are important. Once the growth indicators are favorable and progressing, you can safely say it works for your business. – Onyekachi Ginger-Eke, Edutech Global
There are several ways that a leader can determine whether a particular growth strategy is best for their business’s situation. Conduct market research, and assess your resources. Think about the long-term goals of your business and whether a particular growth strategy aligns with those goals. Evaluate the risks and rewards. – Sharmylla Siew, Lending Valley Inc.
Discipline is at the core of determining whether a growth strategy is successful. Especially in growth businesses where it is very easy to get distracted midway through the implementation of a strategy, it is necessary to select clear milestones as well as kill switches. This way, when comparing strategies, you have apples to apples and can choose the one that is more effective. – Tamara Kostova, Velexa
One simple rule of thumb is that your growth strategy must make sense—we call this the “duh” test. In social impact, we see companies fail this test because they don’t ask three key questions: Is this strategy values-aligned?; Will our stakeholders “get it”?; Can we sustain this work? If the answers are fuzzy, you’re likely on the wrong track whether the strategy is impact-related or otherwise. – Emily Kane Miller, Ethos Giving
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