Welcome to 2016!
TO grow your business this year, for many it’s not going to be any different from 2015. But for a few, it is going to be the greatest year of their lives yet. None of these two outcomes are automatic; they both require your permission to come to pass. To have the same kind of year as you did last year depends on you. To have a different year than you did last year, also depends on you.

Fortunately, this unusual article is for the entrepreneurs seeking the second outcome; to make this year 2016 the greatest year of their life yet!

5 Killer Activities to Grow your Business this Year
To grow your business this year, you will need to focus on some very fundamental activities that produce killer results. I have always believed in fundamentals, they are the unchanging elements of getting anything worthwhile done. Rather than occupy myself with the latest fad or gimmick or tactic in town, I focus on sharpening the fundamentals. Gimmicks, fads, and tactics will always come and go, but fundamentals remain the same. They are timeless! So, rather than telling you about the popular business gimmick, fad or tactic in town, I’m going to draw your attention back to the fundamentals that you’ve been ignoring. These fundamentals are not going to be ideologies that you are going to passively learn and forget soon, these are going to be activities. They are actions you must continually take throughout the course of this year in your business. They are practical actions you have heard of in the past but not actively doing. I call them killer activities because of their dual impact on any business.
They are killer activities because failure to continually do them and do them well is what will KILL your business. That’s a guarantee!
They are killer activities because continually doing them and doing them well is what will GROW your business. Again, that’s a guarantee!
In other words, their impact on any business is powerful. It can kill and it can transform. They are unavoidable.

Marketing:
This is one of the greatest fundamentals of growing your business this year or any other year ever. It’s a do or die fundamental activity of any business. Let me repeat myself; to grow your business this year, this is a DO or DIE fundamental activity! There’s no substitute to marketing. I have witnessed this fundamental activity over and over again in my business that I can boldly say this; without it, your business is a living corpse. It’s just a matter of time, it will eventually die! There’s never enough marketing. So if you aren’t doing it at all, then you are simply digging your own grave. Those who do it are working towards doing more of it because they have experienced the killer results it brings.

So what is marketing fundamentally?
Every activity that involves reaching out to both your existing and potential customers in order to add value is marketing. Here are the keywords to bear in mind;
Activity: it’s an action. Meaning, if you don’t do it, it doesn’t get done.
Reaching out: it’s always about others. Meaning, you do it in order to connect, engage and communicate with others. It’s not done in isolation.

Existing and Potential Customers: it’s for both kinds of customers. Your old ones and the new ones you are pursuing. It’s not one sided. Both deserve to be reached out to continually.
Add Value: it’s about helping the customers. Any marketing that isn’t focused on helping the customer is a failed strategy. It won’t last. You reach out in order to help them solve a problem or achieve a result they can’t do on their own.
Now that we have covered the fundamentals, to get started, you need to have the 3M’s of marketing;
The Message
The Messenger
The Medium

Team Building
To grow your business this year or any other year ever, will require the collective efforts of several skilled and passionate people other than yourself. The growth potential of your business is directly dependent on the collective potentials of the people working on it. By taking on two additional vision partners last year, my business exponentially grew. We broke through the limitations placed on our revenues! The saying that; “together efforts achieve more” is no cliché. It’s a fact! Don’t think you will earn less by bringing on other smart people to join you. The ironic truth is that you will actually make more money than you ever did alone. But this doesn’t happen automatically, you do need to get the right people on board to make it so.

I have witnessed on several occasions people whose business crumbled when they got in others. It’s all a question of getting the right people on board.

So what is Team Building fundamentally?
Bringing in on board other smart people to complement you with other skills critical to the business’s growth is team building. Here are the keywords to bear in mind;
Other smart people: don’t bring on board a fool. Don’t bring on board someone you are smarter than in all areas. They must be competently skilled with one or more skills the business needs but you don’t have. Don’t bring on board your jobless brother or sister or cousin or nephew just to help them.

Complement: this is the objective; someone to complete you in the areas where you are weak. I tell my vision partners, that I don’t expect anything less than 110% from them because I know I brought them in to enable me focus on my strength 110%. In return, I expect them to focus only on their strengths too. That way everybody performs at their best and not averagely.
Other skills critical to the business’s growth: for growing businesses, don’t bring in two of the same skills at first. Duplication of functions early will allow other areas to suffer. So highlight the key skills the business needs to grow and first fill all with at least one very smart person that will serve as the leader of that function.

Once every team member complements one another with the critical skills for the business, the next phase is to duplicate yourselves with new subordinates. This time around, you are not just getting them for their skills; you also want to show them how the business works in relation to their skills.
The function of the first team members is to help create a system of how that functions will be performed going forward in the business. That’s why you really need a very smart person for this first role. Not just anyone with the lacking skill set.
TO BE CONCLUDED NEXT WEEK
Tito Philips is a young Nigerian that is M.A.D – Making A Difference