Getting a business up and running is one thing but keeping it going and growing bigger is even more important.
Here, multi-business owner Miles Long (@mileslong4real) shares his top five maintenance tips for keeping your enterprise growing.
Understand the market
Miles advises that it’s important for you to properly understand the market climate you are in, what the next one that will be coming will be and know how to address those changes as they come.
He knows that these will come at a rapid pace so you must plan for any change so that you can be ahead of the curve, and already be in the next market before your competitors.
This, believes Miles, will give you a huge advantage over them and in business as well.
Adapt and change
Trying to be too niche means that your business or idea can’t evolve as time goes on, or worse, becomes outdated quickly, suggests Miles.
He believes that this directly equates to building failure or an end of life to your business plan.
One analogy he thinks captures the sentiment well is if you imagine yourself on an island with just one palm tree.
If your business plan is to chop the palm tree down, you just killed your business, answers Miles.
Instead, he says that you must pick a plan and business idea that can grow and that you can grow.
Look forward
Miles points out that because business changes, you must be able to look four or five steps ahead and modify your product to fit so you’re not left behind.
A perfect example of this says Miles is when he first got started as an actor the format of choice was VHS.
This changed to DVD, a brief fight between Blu-ray and HD DVD, and then the shift became the internet.
If Miles and his team hadn’t been constantly looking forward their product could have got left behind, as it is he’s still making movies 21 years later.
Don’t lose focus
Miles maintains this is a fine line that every business owner needs to walk carefully as it can be the difference between succeeding and failing.
While it’s important to stay focused on your product, don’t put your blinkers on and miss opportunities.
He says you have to be constantly looking ahead at the bigger picture but at the same time around the corner.
The entrepreneur insists that sometimes the opportunities that are most valuable to you don’t always come from your main focus but from things you didn’t plan.
Loyalty counts
The best way to keep a good employee is to show them that you care, advises Miles.
A simple way is to tell them they are valuable and do it in public so others can see and hear it.
Always make sure to reward an employee for working hard, be sure to recognise it as it really will keep them happy and value you as much as you do them.
Miles says that in order for any business to succeed it relies on employees being loyal to you, and you being loyal to them.
If you want your business to be successful, you will want your employees to be successful too, he states.