The fifth of 5 top tips to grow your food business
1. Campaign
2. Know your numbers
3. Resources - Physical, Financial, Emotional
4. Your opinion doesn't matter!
5. Smart Change - What have you got in the pipeline?
TOUGH LOVE FOR CONSULTANCY'S CLIENTS
I'm privileged that people allow me into their lives so that I can help them grow their food businesses.
I say privileged because it takes a great sense of self awareness for people to ask for help and once they have done that they have trusted me to help them achieve their future hopes and dreams.
So, it is all the more difficult when my clients present me with the products that they have worked so hard on for me to say 'OK, that's great, but what's next?'
KEEPING THE PIPELINE FULL
There's one thing for sure in the food industry. If you have had the next great idea, someone will be copying it as soon as they can and competing with you. By the way, unless you're products are truly 'novel' there's no point in trying to patent them.
So, your only real defence is attack. Make sure you've got the next products already developed and ready to go and you've got the next products after that under development.
This will keep your business fresh, you and your people fresh and it will keep your buyers interested in your brand.
SMART FAILURE
Smart failure is an inspirational concept originate by Eddie Obeng - https://www.ted.com/talks
Eddie tells us that the speed of change in modern life is so fast that we must encourage new ideas even though there might be a high failure rate in getting those ideas to market.
The mere fact that we are encouraging new ideas makes us active, exciting and excited.
So if you are working with anyone who says 'if it aint broke don't fix it', make sure you give them a very wide berth.
Change for change sake is the new mantra in 2017. If you don't, you'll get left behind.
WHEN CHANGE BECOMES TOO DIFFICULT
Constant, business evolution might sometimes feel like trying to push a rock uphill but you've got to keep pushing.
If your creative juices are running dry then there's plenty of great people out there with great ideas just waiting to help.
If you want to drive your business forward in today's world of warp speed change, you've got to have product development writ large in your business strategy. You should allow sufficient resources and you should put it up there in importance with keeping your accounts straight.
If all this resonate with you for your business, get in touch and we'll see how we can help.
clive@thefoodagency.net .