How your business can take lessons from nature on growth
As the wife of an arable farmer spring is a time when we notice everything getting busy again and the farm comes back to life.
This Spring it feels like the modern ways of the world has really taken natures lead. The winter was all about hibernation of sorts to get control of the pandemic and now as the weather improves and nature finds the energy to grow so do, we with restrictions lifting there is a real buzz in the air not just in the countryside but in the business world too.
It’s been a long hard winter I think we are all ready for spring growth!
I know a lot of businesses have used the time wisely to reassess, learn, and recharge their energy and focus. Now it's time to make sure you are doing the groundwork as it were, to make sure your business growth is ready to flourish. You need a healthy kind of ground so that you can put down strong healthy roots to make growth possible. So, tip 1 is to check in with your why, your core values and vision and make sure you're doing things that fit in with these.
Just like on the farm they plough and cultivate the soil to get rid of any left-over stubble from last year. Is there anything in your business that no longer helps you or a task can make more efficient by smoothing out some bumps with a bit of streamlining?
What are you ploughing through to make things happen?
Once you have cleared the ground by creating space in your diary to give the idea you want to grow some time and space to implement, you’re ready for the next step.
You have an idea of what you want to grow, it could be your audience, a new offering or just your overall income goal and just like nurturing a plant to grow you need to plan the stages of growth. Getting your timing right so that conditions are set for success. For example, there is very little point in offering a new session to help busy mums have some “me time” at the start of the school holidays when the kids are home.
In a calendar plan how you’re going to make things happen. Break it down so you can see when each stage needs implementing just like the phases depicted on the seed packets. Stage one: plant that seed, you have the idea so what does it need to grow into a reality?
Gotta love a colour coded Gantt chart for nice clear planning
Nurturing plants is hard work and business is a bit like farming a crop, you’re rarely looking after just one seedling but have various products or services at different growth stages to care for.
As is often the case with farming and business it can be necessary for many jobs to happen at the same time to allow optimum results. Farming is actually a great advert for the concept of outsourcing work. If a farmer doesn’t have the right machine for the job or can’t be in two tractors at once, then they get help to do part of the process.
How could this help your business grow? Let’s look at some of the jobs needed to make seeds grow, ploughing, are you ploughing through any big tasks that are long and slow tasks? Such as replying to emails of commonly asked questions. An email template could speed this up!
What about weeds, is your need idea seedling struggling to see the light of day to grow because it's being smothered by pretty but in this case unhelpful weeds. For example, you can’t spend time running new sessions with your clients if you are tied to your computer creating content to maintain your online marketing.
Maybe you need your idea seedlings growth pushed on a little bit quicker than pure organic growth!! Having two heads working on a task, especially if it uses a person’s particular skill is like adding fertiliser to your crop to help it thrive.
Growing everything in nice neat orderly rows is no mean feat!
Whatever stage your business crop is in with careful nurturing you can see fresh shoots in spring develop into something beautiful.
If you’re not the most green-fingered person or just don’t have time to care for a whole crop in your business alone then I would love to chat with you and see which stage of your growth I can help you with.