Business growth doesn't happen by snapping your fingers. It takes a strategic approach to make necessary tweaks to critical systems. With over 30 years of business experience, Brad Sugars is a proponent of systematic wealth building and building businesses that can eventually run themselves.

The entrepreneur knows how to overcome roadblocks on the path to success. And he attributes his growth secrets to simple business concepts. What’s one of his favourites? It’s the concept of the business chassis.

Back when Ferdinand Porsche built his first Porsche, he used the chassis of a VW. The result was two very different cars that ran on the same chassis. This brings us to the concept of the chassis of business - you can run two companies on the same chassis if you know what you're doing.

Few things change between industries. That’s why the trick to growing a company is to know the core business chassis and use it well. Economies may be slightly different, but the same key concepts in business apply. So, we can grow enterprises if we know what to do and when to do it.

One of the things that go hand in hand with growing a business is having good cash flow. In this article, Sugars shares five fundamental secrets that help increase cash flow to help position a business for growth.

Five Secrets to Growing Your Business

Secret #1. Lead Generation

Think of it as the cornerstone of growing your operations. Do you think there are any companies in the B2B and B2C spaces that don't use lead generation? There are not. They may use different means and terms, but even the most successful companies emphasise the importance of getting new leads. 

Unfortunately, some small business owners know how much they need new leads but can't make it work. So how do you get better at lead generation? It all starts with measuring. You have to know how many leads you get regularly. And you also have to know all your methods of lead generation.

Is it word of mouth? Do you have a website or run ads? Do your leads come to you through referrals? Measure those numbers from all your lead generation avenues. Because to understand how to fix your lead generation, you have to know where leads come from first. You also have to know how many leads you get regularly on each source. This helps you identify your best sources for leads.

Don't forget to involve your team, too. When a lead comes in, there's a simple question team members can ask – how did you find out about us? That will give you a clear answer that numbers might not always do. You could also try to create a Referral Program to encourage your customers and employees to act on your behalf.

Read more about it here: Why Sales Isn’t a Dirty Word

Secret #2. Conversion Rates

Leads aren't enough to grow your business and they don't guarantee sales. What you need to do next is fix your conversion rates. Sugars believes that one big problem among small business owners is this – they don't know their conversion rates. They probably don't even bother calculating it. 

But how can you fix a problem if you're not sure what it is and you have no facts? If you know how many leads you get regularly, you also have to think about how many of them you usually convert. If 100 leads come in, do you convert three? Or is it 10 or more? Those figures matter, as they tell you that you have a problem or there’s a process you can improve on. And the exciting thing is that once you focus on those numbers, things immediately start to improve.

Sometimes the reason you can’t grow a business is that you can’t focus on the right growth drivers. If you don’t understand the value of certain numbers you can’t focus on them. However, calculating and analysing the numbers diverts your attention to a critical driver of growth – in this case, conversion rates. That gets you focused on one of the things that matter, and the necessary tweaks will follow.

Secret #3. Number of Transactions

Contrary to popular belief, your conversion rate may not equal the number of transactions. And to get the actual number of transactions, you need a good accounting system in place. You need that database that you can access to track every transaction from every customer. If you don't have a few transactions next to each customer, you know that you threw away money. Why?

Acquiring new customers takes effort and money. And businesses invest in getting new customers, not in hopes of breaking even but to make a good return on investment.  Not capitalising on repeat business means throwing money away. That’s why it’s one of the keys to growing a business. 

You have to increase the number of transactions for each customer. And the easiest way to do that is to build a relationship and leverage that connection over time. But how do you know if you haven’t leveraged the relationship enough? If you look at communications between you and customers, you have to see more than one or two invoices. 

You have to see dozens of transactions between you and each of your customers. After all, you can never find a better next customer than your previous one.  A happy returning customer will always be better – you invest in getting them to like and want your brand only once.

Secret #4. Average Dollar Sale

What do you think would happen if, starting tomorrow or next week, you’re to increase your prices by 10%? Chances are, you would increase your revenue. It’s because happy customers don't have a problem accepting price increases if they like the product or service.

But you can also increase the average dollar sale by offering more or adding value to your existing offer. How? Whenever someone buys something from you, mention other products they may need. People are usually quick to buy extra perks, products, and services offered to them.

Think of a client that walks into a law firm. If they think of a specific task they need to get done, they won't ask for anything else. So, what's stopping any of the associates from asking if the client needs more services and offering up examples? Nothing, other than that lack of salesmanship skills.

At the end of the day, if customers see a need or the value of an additional product or service, they will want it. That means by upselling extra perks to customers, your business makes more money per sale.

To know more, we have a blog post that outlines 8 Ways to Increase Your Average Dollar Sale

Secret #5. Margins

Now, the best for last. If you don't have control over your margins, increasing leads and customers might not help as much as you think. When you consistently operate at a loss, doubling customers may only double your loss. One of the most important things you can do to grow your business is to boost your base profit.

You can do that by working out your margins and making the right adjustments. If you can first operate on a profit at a reasonable margin, then you can worry about fixing your lead generation and getting more customers.

Cash flow mistakes are often quite common which is why we have created a blog post regarding the 10 most common cash flow mistakes - Don't Fall Into the Cash-flow trap.

Massive Profit Comes from Strategic Adjustments

Everything in your business has a particular purpose and works towards helping you maximise profits.  Brad Sugars’s five key secrets that can put you on a growth trend are margins, leads, conversions, transactions, and the average dollar sale. If you tweak these things to make them more efficient, growth will happen sooner than you realise. 

The next steps

Remember to start by fixing your profit margins to ensure you have a base profit as a starting point. Only after that can you worry about how to tackle everything else. There are more secrets to business growth. Book a free strategy session now and use the knowledge of a business coach to your advantage.