While it’s true that businesses go through ups and downs and various challenges, it can be frustrating when a business owner sees their company go through those lows. If your company had been on a continued upward trajectory and growth has now stagnated, it’s time to start asking questions. Stagnation can be manageable for short periods, but it’s never wise to ignore the problem and assume it will work itself out without intervention.
If this all sounds familiar, then these tips can be exactly what your medium-sized company needs to break out of the current state of stagnation.
Are the Business Goals Realistic?
Sometimes it can feel like growth has slowed down and stagnated when in reality that’s exactly the trajectory that is to be expected. Ask yourself if the milestones and goals you’ve set for the company are realistic. Are they attainable? Perhaps you were expecting too much, too fast.
Is Your Company Leaning Into Innovation?
It’s also a bad idea to just rely on the current offerings (services and products) and assume that will always be enough. Businesses need to lean into innovation – embrace it and rely on it to push the company forward. Innovation helps to keep the company fresh, in demand, and competitive.
Do You Have the Right Staff On-Board?
This isn’t so much a question of letting people go, it’s asking if the company has the right people in the right roles. Maybe you need to bring in additional staff with fresh ideas, new skills and talent that will help the company reach its many goals.
Adopt New Advertising Techniques
Here’s a question to ask, what’s the company’s current advertising plan, techniques, and campaign? Does it properly reflect where the company stands today and where it wants to go? Could it benefit from reaching new and different markets? If the answer to those questions is “yes”, then it’s time to make changes.
Adopting new advertising techniques allows you to embrace the most effective tools available today. Perhaps there are practices you didn’t consider when the company was just new and very small, but now as a medium-sized business, it warrants those options. Take advertising on SiriusXM as an example. The SiriusXM radio advertising cost can seem steep to a start-up, but for an established medium-sized company that wants to continue growing and connect with a much larger audience that is filled with decision-makers and leaders, then it can make perfect sense.
If a business has stagnated, it means your current techniques are no longer adequate, and that should include advertising.
Has There Been Enough Monetary Investment in the Company?
Finally, has there been enough money invested in the company to make growth possible? Is the budget holding growth back because it’s too restrictive? It’s perfectly normal to need to reassess the current budget and make additional funds available while attempting to grow the company.
Break Free of Stagnation
All of these tips can help medium-sized businesses break free of stagnation and start to grow and expand once again. Keep in mind that this is a normal occurrence, it comes down to how quickly and effectively the stagnation is addressed.