Ten options, not ten simultaneous projects
Use this menu to generate choices. The options are original planning categories for this library, not a ranked list of guaranteed growth methods.
| Option | Evidence to check first |
|---|---|
| Improve customer targeting | Which enquiries genuinely fit and can buy? |
| Clarify the offer | Do buyers understand the outcome and scope? |
| Improve enquiry response | Where do suitable people wait or give up? |
| Improve proposal and follow-up | Is there a clear, agreed next decision? |
| Reconnect with relevant past contacts | Is there a current reason to speak? |
| Improve customer retention | Why do appropriate customers stop returning? |
| Develop referrals or partnerships | Who serves the same need without duplicating you? |
| Adjust price, packaging or scope | What happens to contribution and demand? |
| Remove a delivery constraint | Which repeated delay limits reliable output? |
| Test an adjacent offer or market | What new assumption needs evidence? |
Match the tactic to the constraint
A quiet order book and spare delivery capacity may justify acquisition work. A full pipeline with no next steps may justify conversion work. A strong sales result followed by missed promises may require a capacity decision. The same tactic can be useful in one situation and harmful in another.
Research the customer and alternatives rather than assuming the owner sees the market completely. Also ask the team doing the work. Their evidence may reveal a handover problem hidden by a high-level dashboard.
Unlock the rest of this lesson
You're halfway through. Enter your email to read the full lesson, use the exercises and quizzes, and unlock the rest of The Business of Growth library.
Already signed up through The Business of Growth? Use the existing signup to return and unlock this browser. No payment required.
Worked example (illustrative): choose between three tempting ideas
A bookkeeping service considers paid ads, a referral partnership and a faster onboarding process. It has twelve suitable prospects waiting, but new clients take three weeks to supply the required documents. Staff then chase information repeatedly.
The immediate test is a clearer onboarding sequence with one document request, a named owner and an agreed start condition. The service does not abandon marketing forever. It pauses expansion until it knows whether extra clients can be onboarded reliably.
On five new clients, it measures time from agreement to complete information, staff follow-up effort and first-delivery reliability. If delays mostly reflect customer readiness, the answer may be better qualification or timing rather than another reminder sequence. A failed hypothesis still produces a useful decision.
Use a small test budget and a stop list
For the selected option, define effort, spending and commitments separately. A "free" partnership can still consume substantial founder time. A price test can create customer expectations that need careful handling. Count these costs before comparing options.
Write down what will not be changed during the test. That makes the result easier to interpret. If you change the audience, offer, price and follow-up together, a better result cannot tell you which change mattered. Sometimes a combined change is necessary, but describe it honestly as a package rather than claiming one component caused the outcome.
What about the fastest way to grow?
Existing relationships may be quicker to approach, but they are not an unlimited source of suitable work. A large new contract can arrive quickly and still be a poor decision. Define speed as time to a useful, sustainable result, not time to an impressive announcement.
Choose the option with a clear mechanism, affordable downside and evidence you can gather. Revisit the menu after the test. Growth planning is a sequence of decisions, not a permanent obligation to keep every tactic running.
Your next action
Select three options from the menu and write why each might address your current constraint. Reject one because its mechanism does not fit. Hold one as a later option. Turn the remaining option into a limited test with a measure and a stop condition.
Your notes stay on this page unless you choose device saving, download them or submit them to Greg below.
Keep names, private customer details and confidential information out of your notes. Device saving is optional. Only the separate Send my lesson work button below sends anything to Greg. There is no account or cross-device sync.
Two questions before you move on
These checks support learning. They do not assess business health, award a qualification or send a result to Greg.
Ask Greg
Ask a question about this lesson or a challenge in your own business. I read submissions and may reply or cover common questions in future lessons. I cannot promise an individual reply to every question.
Lesson: Ten growth options and how to choose the next one to test. Please do not include confidential client, financial, health or staff information.
Questions this lesson answers
How to improve growth in a company?
Locate the constraint, choose a fitting intervention, assign an owner and compare the outcome with a baseline. More activity alone does not demonstrate improvement.
How can I grow my startup?
For a trading startup, test the next unresolved customer or delivery assumption. A pre-launch business should first establish evidence of a problem and an appropriate paid offer.
What is the fastest way to grow your business?
There is no universally fastest method. Look for suitable opportunities you can reach and fulfil with the least unresolved risk.
How to stimulate business growth?
Stimulate growth by addressing a specific limitation, such as poor fit, unclear next steps or unreliable delivery. The ten-option menu helps choose a test.
How to grow your new business?
Establish paid demand and repeatable delivery before making large expansion commitments. Keep the experiment proportionate to available resources.
What are 10 effective ways to grow my small business?
The ten options are targeting, offer clarity, response, proposals, reconnection, retention, partnerships, price or scope, delivery improvement and adjacent expansion. They are alternatives to evaluate, not a promise that all ten fit.
Work out where your business is getting stuck
The free Growth Diagnostic asks ten questions across acquisition, conversion, relationships, delivery and commercial control. It gives you an area to investigate and three things you can do next.
One complete sample lesson in each stream is fully open. Read halfway into every other lesson, then enter your email to unlock the remaining content, exercises and quizzes across the library. Ongoing marketing emails are optional.