Just like you keep a firm eye on your business revenue, you must take care of your momentum. But if you’re running low, how can you top up and refire?

Although it can be sustained for a very long time, momentum will not last forever. Not on its own. And just as it may accrue at one time and work against a company at another moment, eventually it will dwindle and disappear if you don’t take care of it. Like all good things in your life, you’ll have to work for it to stay great.

The biggest and most experienced momentum firms understand that they always have to be on their toes to keep their momentum going. They are continually assessing and reassessing their position, exploring growth options and finding new and better ways to grow.

If your business momentum is slowing down, then you know that you’re either doing something wrong or you have simply failed to look after your momentum.

What do you do in this position? How do you reignite the momentum in your business and keep things moving along at an exhilarating pace? That’s what we’ll discuss in this article.

Harnessing the Compound Effect

If you have been paying attention to the meaning of momentum over the course of this series, you will have realized something by now. Momentum doesn’t just happen by itself.

Business Momentum is the result of a train of highly specific actions geared towards achieving a particular outcome.

When these actions and their results start to accrue, that’s when a business begins to enjoy the momentum effect. This accrual is also linked to what legendary business thinker, Darren Hardy, referred to as the compound effect in his similarly named book.

For him, momentum is what takes over after an individual identifies an achievable goal, develops an effective plan and establishes a routine to get it done. He uses Michal Phelps as an example.

Phelps trained with his coach over the course of 12 long years before he first broke into the limelight at the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing. His coach required such consistency when it came to practice that Phelps relates one of his most vivid memories as when he was allowed to leave training 15 minutes early so he could go to a school dance. Only one time in 12 years.

The victories Phelps won at the Olympics weren’t achieved there. They weren’t achieved the year before. They were the result of a highly specific train of actions; he repeated daily for 12 years earlier. The win was a result of the momentum built over the years and the compound effect of his actions.

He uses another powerful example of the compound effect. At first glance, $3 million seems a much better deal than a single penny that doubles in value every day for 31 days. But due to the consistency of its doubling value, that single penny will become $10,737,418.24 by day 31, a sum more than three times greater than $3 million.

The above example powerfully highlights the fact that consistency is crucial to establishing and maintaining your momentum. Imagine if that penny had stopped doubling for even a single day. The final value would be $5.3 million. And for every day it stopped doubling, the ultimate amount would be reduced by that much. Do you get it?

To get momentum and its compound effect working for you again, you need to look carefully at your routine and ask the hard questions. Amongst these, ask yourself:

Did you start right at all?

Did you intentionally set out on a path of disruption and extraordinary achievement? Or did you just stumble your way into your current state of the business?

Did you identify a problem and develop a powerful yet simple way to solve it? Or are you still daydreaming of Forbes publications while you aren’t even able to kill your darlings?

If the above examples sound familiar, you might never get to know what sustained momentum feels like. But don’t be afraid, it’s never too late to start all over. Okay, Okey, I get it, starting over might be too rigorous but seriously. I’m not saying you should dismantle your 5-year old one-person consultancy firm and start something else. Just take a step back and take a sit and have a rethink about the factors that have led you to this point. What was your founding goal, and why did you start this business in the first place? How cancan you shoot straight when you don’t know where you’re aiming. Paint a goal in your head, that is the first step of recapturing momentum, you need to know where you’re going. you shoot straight when you

Measure the momentum you currently have in your business to identify when it’s halting. It will give you a great idea of where you are currently lacking and what area’s of your business will need serious work.

When you’re done thinking about your own company, take a look at these five examples of companies that connected powerfully with the momentum effect. Their patterns and the unique paths they took to achieve exceptional growth will help you understand what ways your business can also decide to achieve serious growth in your industry.

If you did everything right from the start but are contending with depleting rates of momentum by the day, the next section is for you.

How to rejuvenate your business momentum

In the words of learned professor J.C. Larreche, momentum does not take care of itself. If you take your foot off the pedal, sooner or later, you’ll start to lose speed. To continue enjoying momentum in your business, you have to nurture it actively.

If you’ve lost your mojo, here are some things you can do to get back on track and start building some momentum anew.

Reconnect with your founding vision

Perhaps the most critical root of momentum is a dedication to a specific and extraordinary goal. Is your company committed to changing the face of business in your industry as it currently exists? Is your purpose big enough and simple enough to make life easier for consumers in ways that are better than what the competition offers?

Even for many businesses that have found a goal that differentiates them and provides a likely trajectory to the top, the commitment to that vision may be waning. When Netflix started as a lightweight DVD rental store, it would have been difficult to hold onto its idea of becoming the world’s best entertainment company. But despite the almost ridiculous scope of their dreams, they didn’t let up or allow intervening circumstances to throw them off track.

This doesn’t imply that your goal has to be complicated. Some of the best things are ridiculously simple. Look at Google’s early vision, for instance, simply to “find better answers”.

Revisit your processes

Even when the vision is still intact and in sight, a company may already be drifting due to processes not properly adapted towards securing that goal. Imagine if Google had created its ambitious goal of finding the best answers to the world’s problems without developing the algorithms and later investing in the R&D that would consistently put them on top. Would they have reached where they are now?

If your processes are inadequate to achieve your goal, you may end up losing all the momentum that your bold, audacious plan brought for you in the first place.

Explore new growth strategies

One of the essential areas that speak directly to momentum relates to the procedure your business is implementing for growth. You may be running out of momentum simply because your current strategies and processes are ineffective and outdated. At this point, it may make a lot more sense to invest in new strategies to drive growth. Trust me; I see way too many businesses still executing the same outdated sales strategies for years and years because it still feels like its useful.

For a quick reference: These below described intensive growth strategies, identified by Keith McFarland, are a great place to start. This is because, being internally driven, they can seriously add to your momentum when you get them right. They include:

• Market Penetration: Find new ways to sell more of your product. For Walmart, this was done by direct marketing strategies and presenting lower prices through economies of scale.
• Market Development: Find new ways to sell your product to an adjacent market. This could be a new market in another city, state or country, or a new economic market. Or this could even mean selling a B2C product to B2B customers. Is this that would work for your product line?
• Alternative Channels: Pursue customers in a new way. For instance, you can start selling your product online. Or could just start calling your customers instead of spamming them on LinkedIn.
• Product Development: This means developing new products to cater to your existing customers. Selling to your current customers will always be a good strategy as you don’t have to “learn a new product and market at the same time”. I do this by simply asking my current customers one simple questions: What other problems do you think I can help you with?
• New Products for New Customers: This involves taking advantage of market conditions to access an entirely new market with new products. Apple was a computer company until it introduced its first iPod. Then it introduced the iPhone. Now, it has introduced Apple Wearables, which if it stood on its own, would be a huge company all by itself.

You may also look to explore specific integrative strategies. However, you should be careful with these.

Up to 75% of acquisitions fail to deliver on their value.

Integrative strategies include:

• Horizontal: This means buying up a competitor. This helps your company grow and eliminates a barrier to future growth.
• Backwards: This strategy involves creating your own supply chain. By investing in its own original productions, this is exactly what Netflix did.
• Forward: Buying up companies in your distribution chain can also work for you. An example would be an electric car company buying up the largest manufacturer of EV charging stations near highways.

You’ll discover that several of the biggest momentum companies incorporate several of these strategies. This is because it ties into the fundamental philosophy of business momentum, which is to always use current successes as a propellant for future achievements. Never rest on your laurels and make sure you are always on the …

Look out for the next big thing

Momentum firms are visionary. Although this sounds fancy, it is a natural consequence of taking the long view. If you’re looking for something, you’re more likely to find it. Momentum firms that are playing the long game are constantly on the lookout for opportunities that can accelerate their progress towards far-sighted goals. These firms are never satisfied.

As a result, they are better informed and equipped to recognize and take advantage of game-changing opportunities when they see it. Netflix is a study in this. At various crucial points of their development, they took advantage of opportunities that competitors around them simply couldn’t see because they were already looking.

Final words

With momentum working for you, there’s no limit to what your business can achieve in its industry. And as long as you keep taking care of it, you’ll enjoy it for as long as you want.

Remember that momentum is not for every business. You can still be successful without momentum and its explosive effects. But for those that are not content to be one of the crowd, for those that have the stars in their eyes, nothing but the exceptional effect of momentum will do.