Growing your business can sometimes feel like another item on an already groaning to-do list.  But are you really too busy to grow your business?  Or is it a sign that you need to spend less time on certain tasks?

Counter-intuitive though it may sound, sometimes cutting back is the way forward.  Here are three ways you can accelerate business growth by doing less.

Say goodbye to bookkeeping and admin

Many business owners start off doing their own bookkeeping and admin.  Maybe there was no other option at first.  Or maybe you just wanted to keep a close eye on the ‘inner workings’ of the business.  While that’s all well and good in the early days, you shouldn’t be hanging on to these tasks years later.

Hand over your day-to-day financial transactions to a professional bookkeeper who can manage your accounts with an online accounting package – that way, you can easily stay on top of the numbers, while freeing up your time for more valuable tasks.  As for admin, try delegating more to your team or hiring a virtual assistant.

Spending less time chasing new clients

This suggestion might surprise you.  But the truth is business growth can come from many different directions – not solely from winning new customers.

Instead of spending all your time chasing new business, look for opportunities to boost revenue and profitability among your existing client base.  Could you sell additional services, for instance?  Review your pricing to increase revenue or reduce costs to boost your margins?  Expand your reach into new parts of a client’s organisation? Revisit lapsed clients to reignite a business relationship? Perhaps the key is to review and revise your marketing and sales processes to improve productivity so you spend less time, and potentially money, acquiring each new client.

Plan less (do more)

Of course business planning is important.  The danger is you spend so long planning, nothing else gets done. For example, one client was delaying following up with new prospects because they spent so long planning and re-planning some marketing changes.  As a result, nothing was getting done and the new business pipeline was rapidly dwindling.

The lesson?  Planning should kick-start activity, not hold it back.  Besides, business planning doesn’t have to be a lengthy or time-consuming process; sometimes, a quick, ten-minute review is all you need.

Cutting back on these three activities will help you to be more effective and avoid spreading yourself too thin.  Because when you’re at your most effective as a business owner, that generates valuable momentum across the rest of the company.

We are experts in accelerating business growth.  Discover the many different ways Henchards can help you drive your business forward in our latest business growth video, or drop us a line to discuss growing your company.  Together, we’ll work out which growth strategies are best suited to your business.