Lavinia is a growth marketer who has led multiple six-figure marketing launches for tech companies. She has successfully developed growth strategies responsible for over £1.2m in new business. Lavinia founded yourautomatedbusiness.com to help entrepreneurs streamline and automate their systems so they can reduce costs, improve productivity and build strong foundations for rapid growth. She is a co-author of a best selling book and has dedicated over 500 hours to top-level B2B mentoring.
Below there are top 5 growth tips for start-ups that Lavinia shared. These will guarantee profitable marketing launches and will set the stage for a smooth and rapid growth:
1. Choose the right marketing strategy
This is a very hard thing to do. Choosing the most effective marketing strategy is crucial, and depends on a number of factors. You need to be seen, and you need to be seen fast. When deciding the best approach to take, find answers for these three questions.
- What are you aiming to accomplish? Not all businesses are in the same stage of development. Think about where you currently are and where your marketing strategy is trying to go. Does your strategy focus on a short-term win, or can it benefit a longer-term goal?
- What resources are at your disposal? Identifying what resources are under your command and how to utilise them is very important. Depending on your available budget and human resources, you want to choose a cost-effective strategy that you can execute to the highest quality. Properly executing a specific target will often be more effective than throwing money at a far-reaching but inefficient solution.
- Can you afford to fail? Making the correct decisions are vital for any business, but even more so when starting-up. By being mindful of your marketing approach, you can stay within budget and avoid overextending your reach and suffering a potential setback.
2. Build systems that can be automated or replicated
As you are building the departments of your business, you will notice that you have a specific way of doing things. Regardless of which process you are focusing on, find a way to build a system around it. Identify what can be automated and what can’t. Automation will optimise certain processes and save a tonne of time and effort in the future. For everything else, is there a set process in place that can be easily followed? Ask yourself this – if I on-board twenty new team members, can they all learn and apply the process to produce the desired outcome? If the answer is yes, then you know your system is scalable and you’ve set a good foundation for growth.
3. Make the right hiring decisions
When you start hiring your very first team members, identify what you have more of – time or money. If you have the budget, hire an expert. Trust in their experience and ability to deliver, and concentrate your efforts elsewhere. If you cannot afford to hire someone with the requisite experience just yet, hire C level talent with A level attitude. Find the person that shares your vision and is looking for the opportunity to distinguish themselves. The time you spend shaping them will pay off in the long run. Hire the person who loves to do the things you hate, or has a skill-set that complements the gaps in your own. This way, you can divide responsibilities and conquer more ground faster.
4. Involve your audience in your product development decisions.
Many start-ups make the mistake of spending significant resources developing their product and then going straight to market with it. You need to collect insight from your audience as you build it. This way, you can make sure it is tailored to their needs. They’ll tell you what’s going right and where you need to improve. Take them on a journey with you and create an emotional connection with your brand. When your product launches, you’ll already have your finger on the pulse for a strong start.
5. Know when to pivot
Pivoting is making a shift in your strategic approach. Let’s say you started a strategy and things are not going well. How do you know when it’s time to pivot? Ask yourself, is it the strategy itself that is failing, or simply the execution? Did you execute this strategy as intended? It needs to look at everything from the planning, timing, budgeting, delivery and tracking. If there are areas of inefficiency in your execution, fix those and give it one more try. After all, 90% of the work is already done. If, after you look at the data, you learn that your audience is not responding well to this strategy, it’s important to understand why and ask yourself what would work instead. The data you collected is going to inform what the next move should be. Remember, this failure was just a rehearsal for future success. Learn the lessons from it and know when to move forward in a different direction.
Conclusion: Simplicity is everything. Start with one thing and do it well. Then add another, and another, and soon you’ll have the infrastructure in place for a successful business. Decide what you can offer and how to deliver it, and set about surrounding yourself with the tools to succeed. Target the correct audience. Work with the right people. Automate everything you can so you can pay attention to the finer details. You’ll make mistakes along the way but being thoughtful and diligent in your approach will allow you to reflect on what’s working and what’s not. Follow these simple tips and you’ll be building a strong platform to inspire growth with your start-up.