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Business Aerodynamics

Top of Your To-Do List

In this GrowthEngine Daily, I want you to think about business aerodynamics and what’s currently streamlining or stopping your business from achieving the goals that it wants to achieve.

You could translate this into the personal development area of dynamics.

Ultimately, if you were to take a snapshot… If I was to sort of peer over your shoulder right now and have a look at your to-do list, what are the top one, two, things that are really stopping you getting to where you want to go?

For example, you maybe have

  • A lack of funds or finance to grow
  • A lack of skills and you’re struggling to recruit
  • Challenges to get market research in play to venture into new markets
  • The need to look at new premises because you are at capacity; you’ve hit that glass ceiling, you can’t break through until you get bigger premises or a bigger office, or a bigger warehouse or a new depot at a different part of the country.

The Articulated Truck Aerodynamics Example

As I’m driving I see these trucks on the motorway and for a minute think about what it looks like.

It looks like the tractor unit in the front, the box or the trailer at the back, but what’s sat on top of the cab? It’s an aerofoil.

The reason that that’s there is that these trucks, they’re only doing, I don’t know, maybe there are some truck experts in the community, but what they’re doing, six, seven miles to the gallon; something ridiculous like that.

So, it’s all about aerodynamics, and if they put that aerofoil that sits on top of the tractor of the cab, the air’s going to streamline and go over the top of the box container, making less drag, more fuel-efficient.

Business Aerodynamics

To translate that truck example of less drag back into your business.

What’s stopping you?

What’s that’s a big box that’s pushing against the wind that’s really holding you back?

And first things first; really simple steps.

Identify what it is. Look at 30,000 foot and identify what’s stopping you in finance? In operations? In people recruitment, HR? In marketing? In sales?

Or is Is it in your legislation that you don’t have enough traction?

I remember when we opened GrowthEngine Ventures, our venture capital intermediary arm, we needed a specific licence from the Financial Conduct Authority, so we couldn’t trade until that governance was in place.

We couldn’t as an intermediary legally trade, so we had to have that licence in place before we could work on financial deals.

Recognising the Priorities

I would love you to leave me a comment below; what is the drag that’s stopping you getting to that next level?

If it’s your business, if it’s in person, in personal development, is it you, your management team?

What’s stopping you going to that next level?

I’d love to learn what that is. I’d love to help you frame that out and identify it.

And then, between us, we can design that aerofoil that’s going to sit above it, that’s going to help the air go over the top of it and really help streamline it.

So, here are some quick pro tips.

  • Identify which department it is that’s the number one thing that’s stopping you moving forward
  • Take that down, not quite to the granular level, but to the 10,000-foot level, and then sort of dissect it and strategise what would help remove that. Identify the size of the sledgehammer to break that down?

If you’re struggling for finance, then is that a commercial loan, is that equity investment that you need?

If you want to recruit, do you need to hire a recruitment agency, do you need to change your salary banding? Do you need to put more benefits in? Do you need to get a better training or compensation package? So, break that down to 10,000 foot.

  • Then take it down to 1,000 foot. What tactics do you physically need to execute in your business? I know it’s obvious but some people miss obvious points.

I need to write that job spec and I need to get it posted online before 5 o’clock today.

It might be that you need to create that financial forecast and then get that submitted to a traditional bank to secure a working capital overdraft if you’ve got a corporate-financier like what we do in our Ventures Arm. You might want to send that to us?

You might have to write that business plan?

You might need to get a quote from a manufacturing machinery business if you need to get some justification to how much money you want to borrow.

So to summarise, identify the department that’s really causing the blockage in moving you forward.

Then take it down and then really identify which part of that and what type of sledgehammer that you need to break that down. Finally, what are the actual tactics that you need to ultimately execute on it and then make it happen?

It’s a bit like in sales. There’s a great saying that Zig Zigler used to say, and that is,

“You miss 100% of the sales that you don’t ask for.”

And if you’re stuck in your business right now, and you’re not addressing what the aerodynamics is to stop being held back.

If you don’t do anything to do address that, you’re going to miss the opportunity to grow.

So I’d love your comments below on these three areas.

  1. What is the number one thing that is holding you back?
  2. How are you going to approach that to break it down?
  3. What are the tactics that you’re going to execute on?

We are more than happy to get those answered for you.

Mike Midgley

Mike Midgley is the Strategy Director at 6teen30 Digital and a dynamic digital entrepreneur, nxd, strategist, public speaker and host of TheOpenMike Podcast show & Co-Host at The Inbound Podcast. Mike has achieved successful six and seven-figure exits over a 25-year career, raised in excess of £1.6m [$2.5m] in Venture Capital and highly experienced with franchising.