Using the following Flourishing Methods will allow you to optimize the efficiency and effectiveness of your growth. By making smart decisions and avoiding potential pitfalls you can enjoy the personal and professional rewards that should come with entrepreneurship. Here are 9 quick tips for every business owner who aspires to be on the path to flourishing.

1. Learn the difference between sales and marketing and how to make each Flourish Many people think they understand sales and marketing but very few actually do. Marketing is a set of processes for creating, communicating, and delivering market value to clients and for managing customer relationships in ways that best benefit the organization. Selling is the act of persuading or influencing a customer to buy (actually exchange something of value for) a product or service. However, marketing activities should support the sales efforts. Actually, marketing should be the most significant force in stimulating sales.

Marketing attracts people and gets them to listen, sales closes the deal. For complex sales these are two very different functions. Even if you are selling soap or chewing gum or any low involvement product (products which are frequently bought with a minimum of thought and effort because they are not of vital concern nor do they have any great impact on the consumer's lifestyle) you still need to understand how to sell and how to market your product or service. If your desire is to grow your business, you need to bring on the best people you can find to join you in both of these areas.

Sales and marketing are not just common sense; the finer subtleties many times can be counterintuitive. So don’t try and just wing it, learn from and leverage experts who really know what they are doing. Sales and marketing should be distinctive activities, expertise in one does not necessarily mean expertise in the other, but they need to be cohesively linked to each other and to the overall corporate strategy. They also need to be the two areas of your business that you are getting the biggest ROI from investing in. If you are not, you need to learn how to do it better, because mediocre sales and marketing efforts are a recipe for failure.

2. Find good employees by intelligently hiring them Too many people wait until they are desperate to hire before they start looking. They force themselves into a bad position of hiring the first person they can find who has a pulse and seems like they are capable of a reasonable job. By being desperate, they take themselves out of the power position. When you lose power you lose choice and when you lose your power for choice, you increase your odds of making a poor decision.

Each position should have a job description. We mentioned the importance of job descriptions earlier, from a cash flow component, a small business should make sure that most if not all of the positions it is hiring for include a positive bottom line component. What do I mean? I mean you should be able to link the duties laid out in the job description back to either an increase in Revenue or a decrease in expenses. Either way, each and every position should positively impact your overall bottom line. If you stick to this rule, you are putting yourself in a good cash flow position. So before you hire your next employee, run this acid test, ask the question, is this person going to positively impact the bottom line. If yes, great, if no, perhaps you can rework their job description into something that will have a positive bottom line effect.

Using an assessment test for proficiency, aptitude and work style and psychological profile are also great ways to insulate yourself from the perils of making hiring decisions based on intuition. While I’m a big fan of intuition when it comes to making business decisions, using intuition to make hiring decisions is often not a good idea. Because of our natural social biases and the way that we judge people subconsciously without even realizing why we like or dislike someone, it is unwise to simply use instincts when making hiring decisions. There are many great resources available for profiling employees’ natural abilities and assessing their potential to gel with a certain team environment or succeed at a certain role. When you think of all the time you spend in training a new employee, investing time and resources into them and getting them to perform at their best, it is a terrible waste of time and money to make poor hiring decisions. Sure we all make one from time to time, but the more of this you can eliminate the faster you will be able to grow. You can save yourself a ton of time by getting some interview coaching from an expert, using an assessment tool that is best suited for your company, and the critical factors for success for a position, and by developing a strong corporate culture that will attract and bring out the strengths of the right people and repel the wrong ones.

3. Remember your customers are the whole reason your business exists and treat them accordingly Do you know the lifetime value of your customers? Cost loyalty is one of the least paid attention to metrics, yet one of the most critical for long term business success. New sales get all the attention from a metrics perspective because everyone thinks of new business as the glamorous side, Sales gets the best people, the best expense accounts, and they are the big prize winners at the annual company meetings. Retention of existing customers, is not as sexy, but just as if not more important. Look at how much you are spending to acquire new customers and ask yourself if some of that money would be better spent keeping your existing customers happy. Many penny pinchers may worry “what is the cost of good service?” I say, more importantly, what is the cost of bad service?

Get customer feedback. Don’t run from it, encourage both positive and negative feedback. You are in business to fulfill your customers’ needs, you need to know if you are doing that, before they stop coming. Most customers won’t take the time to complain, nobody really likes to, that is why you have to create an open environment where your customers can share their feedback, in whatever way is comfortable to and easy for them.

4. Pick a focus and stick with it Some business owners have no strategy and some have too many, both of these scenarios is problematic. You need to have 1 very clear direction that you are moving in. And everyone in your organization needs to be clearly focused on this goal and see how everything they do ultimately leads back to this goal. At the same time, you are always staying alert to market feedback and adjusting and fine tuning accordingly, but know the fine line between adjusting to market feedback and being schizophrenic, and tread on the right side of it.

5. Think systematically (if you can’t, hire someone who can) A business’s value lies in its ability to replicate success. Doing something well once is a service, a one time transaction or goods/service for money exchange. Being able to replicate that and produce consistent value over time and do that at a profit is business value. Business value has future value, a one time transaction typically has no future value. If you are not in business to create something of long-term value, then you should not be in business for yourself. If you are trying to create value, than you need systems. I don’t necessarily mean computer systems, but processes and a systematic way for things to run. Your high level strategy should be able to be translated down to tactical level and each tactic should have a systematic way in which tasks are executed in order to achieve the desired response. Every function within your business, whether it be how you keep in touch with customers, how you process orders, how you organize inventory, how you train new employees, as much of your business as you can, you need to get to run in a systematic way. There are many great process consultants out there to help get the more spontaneous entrepreneurs on track, find on that can see your vision and benefit from their strengths. You will reduce wasted time which for many businesses is their biggest untapped resource. Also by taking you and your staff out of fire drill emergency and reactive mode, you will free up your creativity as well.

6. Plan, Execute, Measure, Plan, Execute, Measure… Have a plan, realize it will not be exactly what happens, be flexible, listen to the marketplace, adjust and stay on a continuous track of improvement. You are probably familiar with the expression – if you’re not growing you’re dying, as it relates to plant and human life. In business, if you are not getting better, you are getting worse. Unfortunately and fortunately, nothing ever stays the same. “We live in a constantly changing environment” – it’s a clich? because it’s true. Being nimble is one of your biggest assets, but be careful not to let yourself, nimbly hope around all over the place. Have a plan, a high level plan, this does not need to be a detailed business plan, it can be on the back of a napkin, but always have a plan. You must measure, again this can be as formal as keeping a paper tally sheet of response rates to different offers, or as sophisticated as using more complex measuring and reporting tools, these have become even easier to use over the past year or so. Check out www.izenda.com. The better handle you have on your data, the better visibility and insight you have into your business. Once you can see what’s going on, you make smart decisions and adjust. The more well planned you are, the less stress you will feel and the less you’ll be leaving yourself vulnerable. Sometimes planning can seem futile because things don’t all go according to plan. Don’t get sucked into this logic. Even though your plan will not unfold as it was written, having gone through the exercise of planning, you will be in a much better position to react to the market and adjust.

7. Keep an eye

2. Find good employees by intelligently hiring them Too many people wait until they are desperate to hire before they start looking. They force themselves into a bad position of hiring the first person they can find who has a pulse and seems like they are capable of a reasonable job. By being desperate, they take themselves out of the power position. When you lose power you lose choice and when you lose your power for choice, you increase your odds of making a poor decision.

Each position should have a job description. We mentioned the importance of job descriptions earlier, from a cash flow component, a small business should make sure that most if not all of the positions it is hiring for include a positive bottom line component. What do I mean? I mean you should be able to link the duties laid out in the job description back to either an increase in Revenue or a decrease in expenses. Either way, each and every position should positively impact your overall bottom line. If you stick to this rule, you are putting yourself in a good cash flow position. So before you hire your next employee, run this acid test, ask the question, is this person going to positively impact the bottom line. If yes, great, if no, perhaps you can rework their job description into something that will have a positive bottom line effect.

Using an assessment test for proficiency, aptitude and work style and psychological profile are also great ways to insulate yourself from the perils of making hiring decisions based on intuition. While I’m a big fan of intuition when it comes to making business decisions, using intuition to make hiring decisions is often not a good idea. Because of our natural social biases and the way that we judge people subconsciously without even realizing why we like or dislike someone, it is unwise to simply use instincts when making hiring decisions. There are many great resources available for profiling employees’ natural abilities and assessing their potential to gel with a certain team environment or succeed at a certain role. When you think of all the time you spend in training a new employee, investing time and resources into them and getting them to perform at their best, it is a terrible waste of time and money to make poor hiring decisions. Sure we all make one from time to time, but the more of this you can eliminate the faster you will be able to grow. You can save yourself a ton of time by getting some interview coaching from an expert, using an assessment tool that is best suited for your company, and the critical factors for success for a position, and by developing a strong corporate culture that will attract and bring out the strengths of the right people and repel the wrong ones.

3. Remember your customers are the whole reason your business exists and treat them accordingly Do you know the lifetime value of your customers? Cost loyalty is one of the least paid attention to metrics, yet one of the most critical for long term business success. New sales get all the attention from a metrics perspective because everyone thinks of new business as the glamorous side, Sales gets the best people, the best expense accounts, and they are the big prize winners at the annual company meetings. Retention of existing customers, is not as sexy, but just as if not more important. Look at how much you are spending to acquire new customers and ask yourself if some of that money would be better spent keeping your existing customers happy. Many penny pinchers may worry “what is the cost of good service?” I say, more importantly, what is the cost of bad service?

Get customer feedback. Don’t run from it, encourage both positive and negative feedback. You are in business to fulfill your customers’ needs, you need to know if you are doing that, before they stop coming. Most customers won’t take the time to complain, nobody really likes to, that is why you have to create an open environment where your customers can share their feedback, in whatever way is comfortable to and easy for them.

4. Pick a focus and stick with it Some business owners have no strategy and some have too many, both of these scenarios is problematic. You need to have 1 very clear direction that you are moving in. And everyone in your organization needs to be clearly focused on this goal and see how everything they do ultimately leads back to this goal. At the same time, you are always staying alert to market feedback and adjusting and fine tuning accordingly, but know the fine line between adjusting to market feedback and being schizophrenic, and tread on the right side of it.

5. Think systematically (if you can’t, hire someone who can) A business’s value lies in its ability to replicate success. Doing something well once is a service, a one time transaction or goods/service for money exchange. Being able to replicate that and produce consistent value over time and do that at a profit is business value. Business value has future value, a one time transaction typically has no future value. If you are not in business to create something of long-term value, then you should not be in business for yourself. If you are trying to create value, than you need systems. I don’t necessarily mean computer systems, but processes and a systematic way for things to run. Your high level strategy should be able to be translated down to tactical level and each tactic should have a systematic way in which tasks are executed in order to achieve the desired response. Every function within your business, whether it be how you keep in touch with customers, how you process orders, how you organize inventory, how you train new employees, as much of your business as you can, you need to get to run in a systematic way. There are many great process consultants out there to help get the more spontaneous entrepreneurs on track, find on that can see your vision and benefit from their strengths. You will reduce wasted time which for many businesses is their biggest untapped resource. Also by taking you and your staff out of fire drill emergency and reactive mode, you will free up your creativity as well.

6. Plan, Execute, Measure, Plan, Execute, Measure… Have a plan, realize it will not be exactly what happens, be flexible, listen to the marketplace, adjust and stay on a continuous track of improvement. You are probably familiar with the expression – if you’re not growing you’re dying, as it relates to plant and human life. In business, if you are not getting better, you are getting worse. Unfortunately and fortunately, nothing ever stays the same. “We live in a constantly changing environment” – it’s a clich? because it’s true. Being nimble is one of your biggest assets, but be careful not to let yourself, nimbly hope around all over the place. Have a plan, a high level plan, this does not need to be a detailed business plan, it can be on the back of a napkin, but always have a plan. You must measure, again this can be as formal as keeping a paper tally sheet of response rates to different offers, or as sophisticated as using more complex measuring and reporting tools, these have become even easier to use over the past year or so. Check out www.izenda.com. The better handle you have on your data, the better visibility and insight you have into your business. Once you can see what’s going on, you make smart decisions and adjust. The more well planned you are, the less stress you will feel and the less you’ll be leaving yourself vulnerable. Sometimes planning can seem futile because things don’t all go according to plan. Don’t get sucked into this logic. Even though your plan will not unfold as it was written, having gone through the exercise of planning, you will be in a much better position to react to the market and adjust.

7. Keep an eye

3. Remember your customers are the whole reason your business exists and treat them accordingly Do you know the lifetime value of your customers? Cost loyalty is one of the least paid attention to metrics, yet one of the most critical for long term business success. New sales get all the attention from a metrics perspective because everyone thinks of new business as the glamorous side, Sales gets the best people, the best expense accounts, and they are the big prize winners at the annual company meetings. Retention of existing customers, is not as sexy, but just as if not more important. Look at how much you are spending to acquire new customers and ask yourself if some of that money would be better spent keeping your existing customers happy. Many penny pinchers may worry “what is the cost of good service?” I say, more importantly, what is the cost of bad service?

Get customer feedback. Don’t run from it, encourage both positive and negative feedback. You are in business to fulfill your customers’ needs, you need to know if you are doing that, before they stop coming. Most customers won’t take the time to complain, nobody really likes to, that is why you have to create an open environment where your customers can share their feedback, in whatever way is comfortable to and easy for them.

4. Pick a focus and stick with it Some business owners have no strategy and some have too many, both of these scenarios is problematic. You need to have 1 very clear direction that you are moving in. And everyone in your organization needs to be clearly focused on this goal and see how everything they do ultimately leads back to this goal. At the same time, you are always staying alert to market feedback and adjusting and fine tuning accordingly, but know the fine line between adjusting to market feedback and being schizophrenic, and tread on the right side of it.

5. Think systematically (if you can’t, hire someone who can) A business’s value lies in its ability to replicate success. Doing something well once is a service, a one time transaction or goods/service for money exchange. Being able to replicate that and produce consistent value over time and do that at a profit is business value. Business value has future value, a one time transaction typically has no future value. If you are not in business to create something of long-term value, then you should not be in business for yourself. If you are trying to create value, than you need systems. I don’t necessarily mean computer systems, but processes and a systematic way for things to run. Your high level strategy should be able to be translated down to tactical level and each tactic should have a systematic way in which tasks are executed in order to achieve the desired response. Every function within your business, whether it be how you keep in touch with customers, how you process orders, how you organize inventory, how you train new employees, as much of your business as you can, you need to get to run in a systematic way. There are many great process consultants out there to help get the more spontaneous entrepreneurs on track, find on that can see your vision and benefit from their strengths. You will reduce wasted time which for many businesses is their biggest untapped resource. Also by taking you and your staff out of fire drill emergency and reactive mode, you will free up your creativity as well.

6. Plan, Execute, Measure, Plan, Execute, Measure… Have a plan, realize it will not be exactly what happens, be flexible, listen to the marketplace, adjust and stay on a continuous track of improvement. You are probably familiar with the expression – if you’re not growing you’re dying, as it relates to plant and human life. In business, if you are not getting better, you are getting worse. Unfortunately and fortunately, nothing ever stays the same. “We live in a constantly changing environment” – it’s a clich? because it’s true. Being nimble is one of your biggest assets, but be careful not to let yourself, nimbly hope around all over the place. Have a plan, a high level plan, this does not need to be a detailed business plan, it can be on the back of a napkin, but always have a plan. You must measure, again this can be as formal as keeping a paper tally sheet of response rates to different offers, or as sophisticated as using more complex measuring and reporting tools, these have become even easier to use over the past year or so. Check out www.izenda.com. The better handle you have on your data, the better visibility and insight you have into your business. Once you can see what’s going on, you make smart decisions and adjust. The more well planned you are, the less stress you will feel and the less you’ll be leaving yourself vulnerable. Sometimes planning can seem futile because things don’t all go according to plan. Don’t get sucked into this logic. Even though your plan will not unfold as it was written, having gone through the exercise of planning, you will be in a much better position to react to the market and adjust.

7. Keep an eye

Get customer feedback. Don’t run from it, encourage both positive and negative feedback. You are in business to fulfill your customers’ needs, you need to know if you are doing that, before they stop coming. Most customers won’t take the time to complain, nobody really likes to, that is why you have to create an open environment where your customers can share their feedback, in whatever way is comfortable to and easy for them.

4. Pick a focus and stick with it Some business owners have no strategy and some have too many, both of these scenarios is problematic. You need to have 1 very clear direction that you are moving in. And everyone in your organization needs to be clearly focused on this goal and see how everything they do ultimately leads back to this goal. At the same time, you are always staying alert to market feedback and adjusting and fine tuning accordingly, but know the fine line between adjusting to market feedback and being schizophrenic, and tread on the right side of it.

5. Think systematically (if you can’t, hire someone who can) A business’s value lies in its ability to replicate success. Doing something well once is a service, a one time transaction or goods/service for money exchange. Being able to replicate that and produce consistent value over time and do that at a profit is business value. Business value has future value, a one time transaction typically has no future value. If you are not in business to create something of long-term value, then you should not be in business for yourself. If you are trying to create value, than you need systems. I don’t necessarily mean computer systems, but processes and a systematic way for things to run. Your high level strategy should be able to be translated down to tactical level and each tactic should have a systematic way in which tasks are executed in order to achieve the desired response. Every function within your business, whether it be how you keep in touch with customers, how you process orders, how you organize inventory, how you train new employees, as much of your business as you can, you need to get to run in a systematic way. There are many great process consultants out there to help get the more spontaneous entrepreneurs on track, find on that can see your vision and benefit from their strengths. You will reduce wasted time which for many businesses is their biggest untapped resource. Also by taking you and your staff out of fire drill emergency and reactive mode, you will free up your creativity as well.

6. Plan, Execute, Measure, Plan, Execute, Measure… Have a plan, realize it will not be exactly what happens, be flexible, listen to the marketplace, adjust and stay on a continuous track of improvement. You are probably familiar with the expression – if you’re not growing you’re dying, as it relates to plant and human life. In business, if you are not getting better, you are getting worse. Unfortunately and fortunately, nothing ever stays the same. “We live in a constantly changing environment” – it’s a clich? because it’s true. Being nimble is one of your biggest assets, but be careful not to let yourself, nimbly hope around all over the place. Have a plan, a high level plan, this does not need to be a detailed business plan, it can be on the back of a napkin, but always have a plan. You must measure, again this can be as formal as keeping a paper tally sheet of response rates to different offers, or as sophisticated as using more complex measuring and reporting tools, these have become even easier to use over the past year or so. Check out www.izenda.com. The better handle you have on your data, the better visibility and insight you have into your business. Once you can see what’s going on, you make smart decisions and adjust. The more well planned you are, the less stress you will feel and the less you’ll be leaving yourself vulnerable. Sometimes planning can seem futile because things don’t all go according to plan. Don’t get sucked into this logic. Even though your plan will not unfold as it was written, having gone through the exercise of planning, you will be in a much better position to react to the market and adjust.

7. Keep an eye

6. Plan, Execute, Measure, Plan, Execute, Measure… Have a plan, realize it will not be exactly what happens, be flexible, listen to the marketplace, adjust and stay on a continuous track of improvement. You are probably familiar with the expression – if you’re not growing you’re dying, as it relates to plant and human life. In business, if you are not getting better, you are getting worse. Unfortunately and fortunately, nothing ever stays the same. “We live in a constantly changing environment” – it’s a clich? because it’s true. Being nimble is one of your biggest assets, but be careful not to let yourself, nimbly hope around all over the place. Have a plan, a high level plan, this does not need to be a detailed business plan, it can be on the back of a napkin, but always have a plan. You must measure, again this can be as formal as keeping a paper tally sheet of response rates to different offers, or as sophisticated as using more complex measuring and reporting tools, these have become even easier to use over the past year or so. Check out www.izenda.com. The better handle you have on your data, the better visibility and insight you have into your business. Once you can see what’s going on, you make smart decisions and adjust. The more well planned you are, the less stress you will feel and the less you’ll be leaving yourself vulnerable. Sometimes planning can seem futile because things don’t all go according to plan. Don’t get sucked into this logic. Even though your plan will not unfold as it was written, having gone through the exercise of planning, you will be in a much better position to react to the market and adjust.

7. Keep an eye on your cash Never let this one out of sight – some would say this is the only real cause of business failure. The only reason businesses fail is because they run out of cash. Money is out there in many forms, but you must learn how to use it wisely. The small business owner has more access to capital today than ever before. But don’t let this abundance of other people’s money let you make poor choices. You can self fund, or you can go outside to debt or equity financing options. Stick to the basic rules. Short-term financing should be used for short term financial needs, these are things that you will get a ROI on the investment on in a relatively short period of time, 6-8 months is a good expectation to lay, since there is a tendency to be overly optimistic and this gives you a good safety cushion for getting it paid off in 12 months. Long term financing is a loan with a term of longer than 12 months. This should be used for long term investments, such as in capital assets. Some people hear the old adage of you’ve got to spend money to make money and fail to make sure that their projection for how the numbers will play out makes good business sense.

Don’t use your marketing money to buy capital assets, know which money is appropriate for which purchases, and demand an ROI on everything you do spend money on. As a small and growing it is prudent to demand that all purchases will lead to a positive bottom line affect, this is either an increase in revenue or a decrease in cost. Sometimes the equation is a little more complex such as, hiring someone to do this, means that I free up my time to do this other revenue producing activity which I can make more money on, enough to pay this other person and still turn a profit. When the numbers look like that, outsource and delegate away.

8. Keep your friends close As a business owner, some of your most important decisions are the partners that you pick to do the stuff that you decide not to do internally. Whether it be your accountant or attorney or your phone system or IT support, or who you buy your raw materials from or any of your supplies or parts. Good this is all part of good vendor relationship and supply chain management.

We could also call this Vendor Relationship Management with Vendor being defined as anyone you buy stuff from, including consultants to batteries and everything in between. The quality of these relationships will have a great impact on the end output that you are able to produce. I am a firm believer in outsourcing as much as you can that is not a part of your core competency or key differentiators. There are important caveats to this strategy, namely insuring the desired quality level and efficiency or cost effectiveness. This outsourced vendor should be able to provide you a bundle of products and services that you would be unable to produce internally (total cost) for less or the same. Big businesses call this, shared services.

9. …And your enemies closer Competitor analysis means marketing awareness and always being sure that you are providing value to the existing marketplace. Although, competition isn’t really the problem. That’s right, the dreaded competition that you are so scared of, their threat to you is not nearly as threatening as that of your own ignorance of the marketplace. It is the market landscape and cultivating value to the marketplace that you need to be putting your attention on. As long as you are doing that you can have a Flourishing Business. You see, markets can hold several successful Flourishing Businesses. It is really just a matter of finding the right spot for you. Your company is a unique collection of assets and resources. We are all capable of providing our own unique value, something that we do better than others can. This is true on an individual level and on the level of businesses which function as a collection of individuals for the purpose of achieving a certain goal. What is it that your business brings to the table that nobody else can? Create that unique value that the marketplace desires and will reward.

The sooner you implement these 9 tips, the sooner your business will flourish.