To Find Your Next Great Business Idea, Narrow Your Focus

When you’re just starting out in business, narrowing your target market can be difficult for fear you’ll be excluding part of your potential customer base.

But if you can clearly define a market and its needs upfront, you can tailor your product or service offerings narrowly to meet that demand and quickly gain more wallet share than your competitors.

What exactly does this mean?

Want to Thrive Like AirBnB and Uber? Build Growth Into Your Company's DNA.

When you’re trying to grow your business, you can never delegate it to one person and hope to succeed -- growth is a competency that must be baked into the DNA of the company. It has to matter to everyone to really work.

This is where most organizations get it wrong. They relegate the responsibility to grow to an individual or perhaps a small team. Larger companies put the onus on sales and marketing. But in most cases, growth is seen as the provenience of a select few, and not core across job functions, roles, titles and departments.

Why Growing Your Business Is All About Perspective

You have all heard the saying, "You can do anything if you set your mind to it." For entrepreneurs, this adage couldn't be truer.

Successful entrepreneurs tend to have what is referred to as a “growth mindset” as opposed to a “fixed mindset”. As the leading psychologist on the topic Carol Dweck puts it, "In a growth mindset, people believe their most basic abilities can be developed through dedication and hard work -- brains and talent are just the starting point," whereas people with a fixed mindset believe "their basic qualities, like intelligence are fixed."

Growing Funds Along With Your Business

It isn't an exaggeration to say that funding is the life energy of a business. If you own a small or medium sized business, then you must deal with cash flow issues day-in and day-out. It can be frustrating if you struggle to maintain your company's cash flow and are unable to cover ongoing operating expenses. At the same time, your company's invoice aging report shows that there are a significant number of outstanding invoices.