7 Tips to Grow Your Business

The economy is not an excuse for becoming stagnant. Many businesses are growing today. Yes, today. Many of today's big and successful businesses were founded in tough times. Need names? Here you go: Microsoft, Apple, Adobe and Southwest Airlines.

I'm not saying ignore the economy and go about your business. Rather, I'm suggesting you take a look at your business in the following seven ways. These will help you grow your business and cash flow.

1. Do the lifelong value of your average customer math: This number gives you the most important that helps you decide -– among other things -– how much to spend on finding new customers. All companies, from GM and the corner lemonade stand to profit and non-for-profit must know this.

2. Grow your bottom line, exponentially: Single digit gross margins are a curse except for those selling millions of widgets like Proctor & Gamble or conducting millions of transactions like eBay. Your bottom line will grow exponentially when you do any of the following:

a. Spend more to acquire new customers (see item #1).
b. Use creative incentives to hold on to your customers longer (never take them for granted!).
c. Up your gross margin.

3. Figure out which customers represent 80 percent of your sales: Ah, Pareto Principle in action. What have you done for your customers lately? Do you know what their specific interests are? Wedding anniversary? Childrens' birthdays? When was the last time you took them to a sports game? Or for a good meal?

4. Pretend you lost your one or two customers: Not just any one or two customers. Pick the ones that make up more than 60 percent of your revenue. Ack! The horror! But seriously, you need to know what you'd do if this should (and it CAN!) happen. Go into "Red Alert." Drop every other project not related to diversifying your customer base NOW. Remember: "Today's laurels are tomorrow's compost."

5. Use the Internet: You can't ignore it and you need it for your business, not just for connecting with friends and shopping. The Internet has changed the way buyers meet sellers. Figure out ways to supercharge the size of your marketplace. Learn to embrace change: take a class, hire smart people, become the first one of your colleagues to be out there taking advantage of social media.

6. Name one breath-taking project you are working on: What will it do for your company if you actually "Hit it out of the park"? How many hours did you "invest" in the project in the last week? What have you done about it today?

7. Regularly review your overheads with a very critical eye: See what you can outsource to others and transform it into a variable cost instead. Outsourcing isn't a bad word. It can be cheaper for your business to let someone who's an expert do the work. What might take you five hours a week could take the outsourcer only an hour. It could mean the difference to having more cash flow and focusing on steps to grow your business.

So what are you going to do? Ignore this or grow your business?