NEWS

You are probably also active in entrepreneurial networks such as Voka & Etion.
And as fun and interesting as the conversations that are held there between entrepreneurs are, you probably also observe that talking openly about professional setbacks, about less good business decisions, about difficult periods and stagnating, even relapsing growth is still something of a taboo and is difficult for many entrepreneurs.
Yet in those more difficult topics invariably lies a great opportunity to learn, rebound, do better and grow (back).
In the words of Robert F. Kennedy:

Only those who dare to fail greatly can ever achieve greatly.

Still, to help break the taboo and expose learning opportunities for other, start-up entrepreneurs, we looked in our network for entrepreneurs who wanted to talk openly about their setbacks, inhibiting growth and difficult periods.
It was no surprise that only 4 of the 12 entrepreneurs approached wanted to tell his or her story.
We asked specifically about the roadblocks and obstacles they encountered during the growth process of their business.
What exactly caused growth to be slowed or stopped?
And most importantly, how were they able to solve this in a sustainable way?

Hello Sonia, Ilse, Boris and Thomas!

We spoke with 4 entrepreneurs of different types of SMEs in various stages of development: Sonia Pypaert of The Baby’s Corner (quality, safe, sustainable and trendy products for mom, baby and child in Eke-Nazareth), Ilse Desmet of Com&Co (specialized in marketing, HR and corporate communication in Ghent), Boris Rogge of Metanous (software development company in De Pinte) and Thomas Joos of Hypernova (growth coaching for ambitious entrepreneurs).

Tunnel vision!

Boris’ story will sound familiar to many entrepreneurs.
As a software developer, Boris focused entirely on the quality of their software solutions and the service around them.
The soundness of the software, the ability to offer customization and the intelligence of the solutions devised was for a long time the only focus of management and thus the only thing that was paid attention to.
This generated a kind of tunnel vision that prevented the other aspects of business operations such as marketing, sales, supplier management, employer branding, social impact and HR from being adequately developed.
This tunnel vision caused the company’s growth to stall: fewer new projects, difficult recruiting & hiring and ultimately a stagnant figure.

The solution for Boris lay in attracting external advice and specialized profiles who knew how to develop the ‘extra’ business activities better than the existing team.
By attracting new knowledge and experience, they created a broader view of the business but also managed to take a better and stronger position as both supplier and employer.

Digital transformation costs money … a lot of money!

For the first ten years of their existence, The Baby’s Corner grew spectacularly!
After all, they were already active online in 2002 with an ecommerce website and were able to offer online birth lists through a clever module.

To support growth, Sonia invested significantly in further developing its physical assets: retail and office space and a warehouse to ensure sufficient availability.
In addition to absorbing cash, these investments and subsequent projects simply demanded a lot of attention and time from Sonia and the team, reducing the focus on growth

After the first years in their growth process, large investments in brick & mortar with long-term loans followed.
As growth continued and thus their return on investment was sufficiently large, the investments were not considered risky.
However, between 2007 -2010, the large investments in retail office space and warehouse absorbed much of the liquidity anyway.
As a result of the work, sales growth was no longer achieved.
The skyrocketing investments and a weak ROI caused a decline in their growth.
Meanwhile, the (digital) world was changing at lightning speed, forcing the newly revamped store to compete against brands that became competitors with monobrand web shops.
Large e-commerce pioneers also shot up like mushrooms.
However, they were not prepared for these setbacks.
Since there was no budget left to invest in IT, they were forced to let the first and second wave of E-tailing pass them by.

Later, they then went for a new digital approach with the launch of a revamped website.
Marketing efforts were also optimized with the biggest focus on rebranding and content creation.
In 2014, The Baby’s Corner’s digital transformation was really put strategically on the map.
The investment in a new ERP system was necessary but did not have the expected success.
Two software systems were running side by side, resulting in a lot of customer complaints.
In addition, using a new ERP system also means upgrading the entire SME and thus the team.
These investments put the retail company in big liquidity problems.
Nevertheless, the company and especially Sonja did not stop at nothing.
In 2017, they mapped out a customer journey.
Using small investments and partnerships, they managed to get the web shops off the rails.
Just in time, they were able to introduce the full online birth list tool within the digital transformation journey, after which both the company and the team began to grow again.

Growing pains

What if you panic rather than celebrate when bringing in a new customer?
Growth pains are what the third company had to contend with.
Little Miss Robot currently has a lot of success and a large influx of new customers.
But it took a lot of effort in the early years for the SME to handle more and more projects at the same time and to deliver them qualitatively.
They preferred to combine this effort with a nice profit margin.
But unfortunately those three things did not go together.
The growing SME felt they had to work harder and harder to get everything done, while seeing profits and quality drop.

To remedy this growing pains, Thomas has begun to reframe Little Miss Robot’s vision of the future.
This was done by asking himself how he saw the progression of projects within this and a year from now.
It quickly became clear to him that the SME needed to be divided into different teams that could start and deliver projects independently.
He worked this out based on the following questions:

How does Little Miss Robot ensure a quality and profitable project?

With more than 100 projects on his counter, Thomas has grown over the years into an expert in the subject of interface design.
All the knowledge was in his head, which made it difficult to share with the team.
In creating workflow documentation that he could share with the team, he saw a solution.
By concretely explaining how to start projects, the intermediate steps and what to look out for, he ensured that his team could not only start assignments themselves, but also deliver them.

What does an ideal team composition look like?

In addition to sharing his know-how, he also began to work out an ideal team composition.
By naming roles and responsibilities, dividing tasks and scheduling deliveries, he was able to bring more insight into the SME’s structure and organizational chart.
In this way, each project team had the same composition, making it increasingly easy for employees to find their place.

What do I myself, as a business manager still do?

Finally, he questioned his role as an entrepreneur within the SME.
He had to choose between remaining active as a creative expert or working as a business manager for the company, rather than in the company.
Which was by no means a simple choice.
He has always enjoyed supporting the projects and designing the interfaces.
At the same time, he wanted to grow his SME and create room to take on new projects as well as generate quality and profit.
He was also very keen to see his colleagues and teams grow.
The latter was decisive in his decision to work more on the company.
He made this decision based on what gives him the greatest satisfaction as an entrepreneur and would recommend it to other managers.

Hiring the wrong people too quickly

Working with a strong team is critical in a growing SME.
Com&co, specializing in marketing, HR and corporate communications, had the biggest growth trap of hiring the best, but not always the right candidate.
The SME is running well and so there is a lot of surplus work.
Ideal but dangerous at the same time.
Because as soon as someone drops out or one more big job comes in, the SME is nearing its limits.
Extra people need to be hired.
Consequently, a vacancy was hastily drawn up and, if all went well, a few CVs were sent out.
After which a test procedure could start and interviews were scheduled.
But the perfect candidate was usually not among them.
Still, under pressure, as the work kept piling up, the best candidate was chosen.
That way, space was freed up and the SME could breathe again with the team.
Unfortunately, these candidates did not always turn out to be the right ones.
Either the capabilities were not sufficient, or there was no match with the values of the team and the SME, or the specific experience was not present.
As a result, a lot of resources, time and effort went into training the chosen candidate.
Sometimes the new employees stayed, others left.
In either case, it was very detrimental to the SME.
The amount of work kept piling up, which only increased the risk of losing quality, job satisfaction and customer satisfaction.
Ilse recognizes that the trap of choosing “the best candidate of the moment” is one that Com&co, in its infancy, fell into many times.
Poor recruitment not only damaged the SME, but demotivated the entire team.
The company has learned from its mistakes with age, and is currently raising the standard when hiring new employees.
Currently, using tight procedures, they are trying to resist the pressure to want to handle everything too quickly.
They are also using strong employer branding to make the SME more attractive as an employer.
In this way they can enjoy a continuous and solid inflow.
So that Com&co can start growing again.

From these four entrepreneurs and the growth process of their SME, we can learn the following:

• That entrepreneurship goes beyond a focus on sales and customer service.
  By optimizing ancillary activities such as marketing strategy, for example, an SME can broaden its outlook and grow faster.
  Moreover, a smart marketing strategy creates additional visibility that allows a company to assume a stronger position within the marketplace.
• When optimizing ancillary activities, get help from outside experts or new employees if necessary.
  You need people around you who provide stability, quality and expertise at the right time.
  Dare to set aside your own thinking, too.
  Present a problem to someone else and ask them how they would approach it.
  Get inspired and don’t try to solve everything yourself.
• As an entrepreneur, go brainstorming to yourself.
  Both in the story of The Baby’s Corner and Little Miss Robot, we have seen that it is crucial to grow as an entrepreneur as well.
  As an entrepreneur, ask yourself some personal questions.
  What do I want to achieve as an entrepreneur?
  Where do I want to go with my business?
  How can I achieve my goals?
  These questions and their answers can already be very enlightening.
• Focus on strategy and goals.
  As an entrepreneur, if you have very well defined the direction of the business, it also becomes easier to communicate the mission and vision to the team.
  Regular SWOT analyses and helicopter views of the business are thought processes that certainly help with this.
• Build a strong team composition.
  Structure your organizational chart and communicate clear goals, tasks and methodologies.
  Make sure your team can handle extras, start and deliver projects independently, and grow with the company.
  In addition to an optimal human resources policy, a good working atmosphere within a company is also very important.
  Recruit only people you think you can trust.
  And reward or promote people not only for doing good work, but especially for being loyal and daring to identify and solve problems.
  That way you foster a culture where you build your business together and feel less alone as a business owner.
  Really create a core team that helps carry the change processes and is strongly involved in the SME.
• Use tight recruitment procedures to recruit the right candidate.
  With strong employer branding, you can strengthen your position as an employer and count on a continuous qualitative influx of applicants.

You can learn from “mistakes,” and from these four entrepreneurs and the growth process of their SME, we can learn that for a business to continue to grow successfully, the team, the business operations and the business owner must also continue to grow.
Ask questions, make SWOT analyses and think out of the box.
A successful growth process involves development, innovation and, above all, persistently achieving quality.