Realizing your dreams as a Founder is all about playing the long game. It’s easy to get bogged down in the day-to-day of putting out fires and figuring out how to survive, but it’s a beautiful thing when you’re able to finally come up for air, take a step back, and admire how far you’ve come: That’s growth. Designing and cultivating the right strategies for growth will ensure that growth is sustainable and aligned with your mission and values.

Here are five ways you can pursue strategic growth, starting right now

Set clear goals and align them with the business vision

One great way to approach this is by developing the right business plan for your organization. As Harvard Business School puts it, “There should be a correlation between your company’s key performance indicators (KPIs) – quantifiable success measures – and your business strategy to justify why the goal should, and needs to, be achieved.” HBS also points out that it’s important to balance stretching your team out of their comfort zone with a healthy dose of realism, and that at the end of the day, implementation is where most large corporations go wrong (so, let’s learn from their mistakes). 

Understand your market and prioritize customer needs

If you’re not sure where to start researching your market in order to understand it, we’ve got a whole separate blog post on it for you. Remember to keep your customer needs top of mind when making big decisions, relying on your market research as behavioral predictors. You need your customers to trust you, and then you need to maintain their trust by keeping good communication practices and implementing customer feedback.

Build and empower a skilled team for strategic growth

Think critically about which roles will need to be filled at each stage of your organization’s growth. For some Founders, marketing will need to come off of your plate sooner rather than later. Others may need to prioritize hiring for an administrative role. Whatever roles you hire, don’t fall prey to micromanaging. Even though your business is your baby, you need to trust your brilliant team to do the job you hired them for and empower them every step of the way.

Optimize operations for efficiency and innovation 

There is always room for improvement in the efficiency department. Lean on technological innovations to streamline your operations wherever possible, and keep lines of communication open across departments and hierarchies. Listen to employee feedback to gain insights that can lead to innovation and improvements in operations, and define your workplace culture as one that prizes efficiency and innovation.

Track progress and adjust strategies as needed

Knowing when to pivot is key. Decide ahead of time what your markers will be to track your progress, or to decide if a particular project or initiative has failed. Failures happen! They are learning opportunities. On the bright side, as a Founder, you’re in charge, and you get to decide and put into practice how you and your organization will move forward and implement the knowledge you gain from any failed experiments. On the other hand, make sure you have a plan for if and when everything goes right. Be sure you’re prepared for the repercussions of growth by knowing how you will scale your operations, what positions you may need to hire for, and how you can continue to replicate your own magic.

If you feel like you would benefit from bouncing your strategic growth ideas off of a fellow Founder, book a mentor session today to get some feedback as to what your best next move would be. Not a member yet? Sign up for a FREE 7-day trial with Selfmade and gain the skills you need to nurture the strategic growth of your business.