Having started a wealth management company for doctors, MedCapital, in the last year and seeing it grow incredibly fast, and having run MedRecruit now for ten years through ups and downs, and through running Board of Directors for three years (which exposes me to tens of businesses and their owners), I’ve come to realise that there is one thing that you absolutely must have to have a consistently growing business.

Leverage.

What do I mean by that?

In a commercial market, there is a frenzy to grab customers. Growing by grabbing more market share is one of the hardest ways to grow a business, according to a paper published by McKinsey.

But that doesn’t mean it can’t be done.

When it happens effectively it is because the business has created a point of leverage whereby they can get a larger return on their investment than their competitors to deliver a major competitive advantage.

Leverage can come in the form of your product, your path to market, your service, your processes, essentially anything in your business that can give you an advantage.

If you can’t articulate what your point of leverage is then I suggest you devote some Think Time to developing it, because I’ve never seen a business flourish without one.