How you can grow that young startup into a global giant

Late last year a young university graduate requested me to help him draft a business plan. He had an ambitious dream of starting a business that one day would grow to become a global giant. He had some ideas that he felt if polished and professionally guided could help him achieve his goal.

Apparently, he had done his homework well and established that most of the global giants had very humble beginning and the founders had several limitations such as lack of capital, education, connections and so on. He felt he was up to the task.

After listening to his story, I tried to advise him we develop a business that address current needs of his target customers who he is able to serve with his current capacity and let the growth and expansion be guided by the demand of his products.

As we were discussing this, what came to my mind was the success story of one of my best authors Dale Carnegie, who wrote his best seller, How to Stop Worrying and Start Living immediately after the Great Depression in America. When writing it he did not plan for it to be a world best seller. Nay, in fact, he was not even writing a book!

In his own confession, he decided to eke a living by meeting the needs of business community who were bruised and depressed by the economic downtown. He started adult classes to teach business people survival life skills such as public speaking, customer care and dealing with difficulty people. To aid his classes he developed good notes that would teach practical things to retain customers who were not interested in certificates but practicability of whatever they learned to their business and lives.

Later due to demand and encouragement from friends he developed notes and published them as books. This gave birth to few best sellers and thrust him into global limelight and fame.

Other case studies show similar pattern - the global businesses were never designed to be global at the inception. They were started as businesses to meet the immediate and practical needs of a local community. The rate of growth and spread of a business is directly proportional to the impact it causes to the lives of its customers and not the plans of the business owner.

Jesus Christ the founder of Christianity, the biggest and most influence global religion, started his ministry by teaching and meeting the needs of a small community. Even when he commissioned his disciples to spread the gospel to the whole world, he advised them to start from Jerusalem and spread out.

One of the greatest hindrances to business success is being preoccupied with how to make your business big.

If you focused on offering excellence service to your to positively impact their lives, growth becomes a pulling force and even the sky cannot limit how high you will go. Start from your Jerusalem by being relevant and valuable to the few customers you have and continue modifying your business plan to ensure you continue offering them same experience and before you realise you are a giant.

Mr Kiunga is a business trainer and the author of The Art of Entrepreneurship: Strategies to Succeed in a Competitive Market. [email protected].