We all sometimes have bad days. The car won’t start, somebody is horrible to you at work, you have an argument with your partner. These are days that we just have to get through if we’re going to move on and be successful.
Hump years are the business equivalent. They’re the trying time when your business is getting to maturity, but it still needs that breakout moment. A business’s hump year is usually its third year. After the excitement of all the planning and strategy is out of the way in the first two, the third year is where the rubber really meets the road. It’s at this time when all your systems are in place, and you’re ready to grow in size.
But even if you’ve already got a whole raft of trusted clients ready to buy your product, things can still go wrong in this vital hump year. Here are some tips for how to survive it and come out the other side a better business.
Accept That Being Successful Takes Time
Most people think that Twitter was an overnight success. But as the CEO, Jack Dorsey, likes to joke, it was an overnight success that took ten years. Even Twitter took nearly a decade of hard work to take off, and it’s since become one of the most successful social media companies in the world. Amazon also had a long run in. It was about ten years before Amazon turned its first profit, all thanks to the type of business its founder, Jeff Bezos, wanted.
Success is about more than cash flow. It’s about developing the tools and technologies that’ll help you win more business in the future. It’s also about things like brand reputation and new ventures in the pipeline, ready to fulfill the needs of future markets.
Reinvest Money In The Business
If you want the business to grow, the third year of the firm is the year in which to do it. Many companies, however, stick with their regular IT systems and marketing plans and don’t think big. According to itWORKS!, an IT management company, it’s actually easier than ever before for businesses to update and improve their systems. There’s no need for them to do it all in-house. Instead, their systems can be managed for them and redesigned to cope with increasing numbers of clients. Marketing is easier to scale up and automate too, thanks to digital marketing companies, apps, and tools.
Blow Through Your Comfort Zone
As in life, growth in business only comes from blowing through your comfort zone. Doing the things that your business finds easy is an excellent way to stagnate. Pushing the boundaries, on the other hand, forces you to develop new client relationships and new products. Start off by reexamining your core offering. Is it what customers will want in three years time? Or will it need to be updated to suit their changing tastes? Then look at whether your business is viable in the long term. If it’s not, then why not?
