The Most Common Barriers to Business Growth

From pet food and artisan cheese to small-batch whiskey and salon-inspired hair products, the best brands know how to break down barriers to business growth. There’s no one-size fits all approach when it comes to growing your business, but it is worth familiarising yourself with problem areas where lots of enterprises slip up.

Ready to get stuck in? Read on to find out more about how to not just overcome, but completely obliterate four common barriers to business growth.

1. Not leveraging social media 

Love it or hate it, social media is one of the most powerful business growth tools out there. If your brand isn’t leveraging digital platforms like Facebook and Instagram, you’re missing out on huge growth opportunities. Start by ramping up your online presence and posting on a regular basis – weekly at an absolute minimum. When you’ve found your rhythm, you can advance to strategies like paid advertising and partnerships with influencers. Social media can be a difficult realm to navigate and more often than not, it’s worth investing in help from the experts. This leaves you free to focus on other business growth strategies.

2. Lack of strategic planning

While some start-ups wax lyrical about overnight success, the truth is that it takes time, effort and a clear-cut strategy to build a brand with staying power. This means you’ll need to invest time into detailing your brand goals and planning how you’re going to achieve them. It’s also worth exploring the values that underpin your brand and why they matter, as this will feed into the marketing materials you create to advertise your business and its offerings.

3. Failing to draft a mission statement

A powerful mission statement is one of the best ways to smash barriers to business growth. Short and sweet, your mission statement is a summary of your brand vision and can be used to engage both employees and customers. If you’re ever unsure of how to move forward with your business growth strategy, you can then pivot back to your mission statement for guidance. 

4. Disengaged employees 

Whether you run a bricks-and-mortar store, a door-to-door service or a digital empire, employees are the bread and butter of your business. They are the people who engage with your customers daily and have a huge amount of power when it comes to driving business growth. 

With the latest statistics revealing that only 50% of British employees feel engaged and “enthusiastic” about their jobs, chances are there’s room for improvement. Actively listening to employees, recognising and rewarding achievements and offering career development opportunities are just some of the ways top-performing businesses improve engagement ahead of growth.

Grow your business with BGN

With so many growth opportunities out there, there’s no reason for your business to fall short. Get in touch with the BGN team today to discuss how our tailored brand strategy service can help to grow your business from the ground up. With a dedicated team of experts on your side, you can break down the barriers to business growth and take your organisation to new heights.