Small businesses vary in terms of organizational structures, management style, and independence of action. Nevertheless, small businesses often face the same challenge—quantifying their growth. How do you know that your business is growing at a steady rate and you’re treading on a path to success?
Before we answer that, it’s imperative to note that a typical business, whether big or small has five stages of growth. This includes existence, survival, success, take-off, and resource maturity. At the last stage, you experience all the benefits of running a small business, including greater financial control and flexibility to adapt to changes.
Apart from that, what else shows that you’re crashing the maturity stage? Check out these six characteristics of a successful small business to learn more.
1. You Realize Your Short-Term Goals
Every business has both short and long-term goals. Achieving short-term goals is what propels you to realize the bigger vision and mission. If your business is achieving what you planned to realize monthly or quarterly, you’re on a path to long-term success.
Maybe you planned to onboard 20 new subscription customers by the end of the month and it comes to pass. That means by the end of the year you’ll likely reach your annual target, translating to more sales and revenues.
2. Satisfied Customers
Another trait for a successful business is satisfied customers. As you already know, happy customers mean positive press. So, how do you know that your customers are happy? Experts recommend a customer satisfaction score (CSAT) of about 80%, which represents success. You can gauge this by running monthly or quarterly surveys.
Alternatively, you can watch out for reviews that customers post about your business. If you experience many positive reviews, the customers are happy with the experience you give them. Moreover, they’ll want to know more about your business and the faces behind it. It will help if you go ahead and hire a Wikipedia page creation service to highlight the virtues of your business and personal brand. Sometimes, giving more information to your existing customers and new prospects translates to a better customer experience.
3. Empowered Employees
Empowered employees are a sign of a business that has attained maturity and a greater level of internal trust. Of course, you should compensate your employees with respect to their contribution to the business. However, empowerment goes beyond monetary gains. Your employees want to feel more valued than just appreciated.
In that case, let your team take action and make decisions they deem fit for the business. If you don’t have to micromanage them, your startup is moving to a sustainable stage.
4. Financial Independence
Are you able to keep your startup afloat without sinking into debts? Can you restock during peak seasons without relying on business credit cards? Are you up-to-date with your existing loans and taxes? If your answer to all these questions is yes, your venture is financially stable.
Many small businesses fail to take off because of mismanaged funds or poor financial decisions. On the contrary, financial independence embodies success and resilience. It means your sales are on track or you’re performing beyond your expectations.
5. You’re Adapting Easily to Change
Adapting to change is critical, yet very challenging for small businesses. For instance, switching to software solutions can help you automate various business processes and save costs. However, you can be reluctant at first simply because the technology is new. You’re afraid of incurring training costs during employee onboarding. Also, you don’t want to lose your best talents that can’t keep up with the changing environment.
However, some businesses adapt to changes swiftly, even if it means doing away with some departments. If you’re able to implement the right systems and procedures without affecting sales and profits, it’s a sign of success. Moreover, it prepares you for what lies ahead. There will always be changes inasmuch as technology is there. Today’s consumer behavior may also not be the same when tomorrow dawns. So hang there and shift when there is a need to.
6. Self-Fulfillment
Do you feel somewhat contented with the current position of your business? Do you spend less time worrying about customers and suppliers? These are signs that your business is going past the survival stage and greater success lies ahead.
When your business is growing, you’ll also find it easy to delegate managerial duties because you already laid a working framework. Besides getting more time for yourself and your family, you’ll develop a different perspective about everything because that’s what successful entrepreneurs do.
Your Business Grows More If You Have Greater Passion Towards It
All these traits of a successful small business sum up to one thing—passion. This is what drives your commitment to deliver unique value to your customers and employees. It also steers you towards financial stability because you’ll only make prudent decisions that you’re passionate about.