When we talk about business growth, what usually comes to mind is expansion, enlargement or addition of a new opportunity, which means working on something new.

But the truth is business growth does not necessarily mean addition or more opportunity, more clients or customers, more business locations, and so on.

More is not certainly better, and better is not necessarily value-added.  Adding a new thing usually absorbs more attention, time, money and team.

Since the attention and the other resources that used to be given to the old thing is now divided and directed to the new thing, the old thing usually begins to suffer and depreciate. This is because the old thing is no longer receiving the focus and attention that it used to receive.

It is much worst when the old thing has a not so good system in place or no system at all to leverage on, in order to profitably scale.

You can see that is not negotiable, it is a must to have a working system in place that will maintain your old or current business before adding a new opportunity.

Saying it in another way, your old business requires maintenance to avoid depreciation and deterioration. Without the maintenance of the old, the net incremental growth, profits, or enriched value from adding a new thing will amount to zero.

Just imagine after all the work and effort put in developing a new outlet of your business at the end, not significant growth. You won’t even want that for your enemy much more yourself.  But unknowing to you, it is happening.

Therefore, business growth requirement is to have a system in place that will maintain the old or current business, while working on or creating the new one. If this is not strategically put in place before adding the new one, the old one that is currently sustaining you will be neglected and thereby decrease in its output.

For instance, it makes no sense to get more clients when you are not maintaining the old ones to make the most of them.

It makes no sense to get additional contacts, opportunities, etc. when you are not making good use of the existing contacts and opportunities.

What am I saying? You should optimise first before you maximise.

Make good use of what you have first before adding a new one.  Growth is not necessarily the addition of new things, but value-added to the bottom-line.

Your Business and Personal Growth Specialist

Luke  Ikekpolor