Skills and attitudes

Entrepreneurs are the driving force behind creating and growing new businesses. All too often, they are also the people holding them back.

The abilities that can help you launch a business are not the same as those you need to help it grow. It's vital not to fool yourself into valuing your own abilities too highly. The chances are that you'll need training to learn the skills and attitudes required by someone who is leading growth.

To grow your business, you need to learn to delegate properly, trusting your management team and giving up day-to-day control of every detail. It's all too easy to stifle creativity and motivation with excessive interference. As the business becomes more complex, you also need to develop your time management skills and learn to focus on what's really important.

As your business grows, you may need to bring in outsiders to help. You'll want to delegate responsibility for particular areas to different specialists, or appoint a non-executive director or two to strengthen your board. As you start tackling a new opportunity, someone who has experience of that activity can be vital.

For many successful entrepreneurs, learning to listen to - and take - advice is one of the hardest challenges they face. But it may also be essential if you are going to make the most of your opportunities. Some entrepreneurs, recognising their own limitations, even appoint someone else to act as managing director or chairman.

Complacency can be a major threat to a growing business. Assuming that you will continue to be successful simply because you have been in the past is very unwise.

Regularly revisiting and updating your business plan can help remind you of the changing market conditions and the need to respond to them.

An up-to-date plan helps you identify what action you need to take to change your business and the way it operates, for example:

·                     Changing to suppliers who can grow with you and meet your new priorities. As your business grows, consistent quality and reliability may be more important than simply getting the cheapest offer.

·                     Renegotiating contracts to take account of increased volume.

·                     Training and developing employees. Your own role will also evolve as the business grows.

·                     Making sure that you keep up to date with new technologies.

You need to be fully committed to your strategy, even if it takes you out of your comfort zone. This may involve hard decisions -for example making employees redundant or switching business away from suppliers you have become friends with. But unless you're prepared to do this, you risk putting your business at a dangerous competitive disadvantage.

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