ConnectWise co-founder and CEO Arnie Bellini probably didn’t expect the company he started in the spare bedroom of his parents’ Tampa, Fla., home 36 years ago would grow to a $1.2 billion valuation—and he might have even wondered if it would still be around three dozen years later. [related]
But Bellini says it took a lot more than luck to get to this point, and it’ll take more than luck to keep ConnectWise growing in the future.
“Success is not a campaign,” he told the Tampa Bay Business Journal. “Success is not an event. Success is a philosophy and you have to live that philosophy in your businesses, in your startups and you can never give up.”
Bellini pointed to culture, innovation, strategy and enthusiasm as the four pillars that have helped to catapult ConnectWise from a dream in his parents’ spare room to the go-to provider of business management software solutions.
And, while following those four business growth pillars won’t mean every entrepreneur will find the same success Bellini has with ConnectWise, he urges them to keep following their dreams and push for that same growth he has achieved with his company.
“There will be times when it is difficult for you,” Bellini told the Journal. “There will be times when it is tight for you. There will be times when you say, ‘I cannot bear this.’ I get it. I’ve been there many times. Know that you are there with friends and with people who can help you.”
Growing Your Business
ConnectWise VP of strategy Tony Thomas and HTG’s Arlin Sorensen highlighted five key disciplines business owners can follow in the quest to accelerate their growth and master the art of business maturity.
As with Bellini’s four pillars the five disciplines behind business growth start with establishing a culture across your company. That starts at the top. If the owner/CEO isn’t a champion of culture, it’s never going to follow through to the rest of the company.
From there, it’s about personalizing your strategy for success to your desires and talents.
Strategy isn’t a single meeting, a dialogue, or a presentation. It’s an ongoing, collaborative process that allows your entire leadership team to come together, agree on what matters most, and support the process of getting there. With the right team structure, ownership is shared and the process is more successful.
Once you’ve got a culture established and chosen the strategy to follow, it’s time to follow a plan to keep things headed in the right direction. It’s natural to reach a peak, but you’ve got to have everything in place—from a plan to a communication process to team buy-in—to avoid the decline and make the jump to your next peak.
That means following the rhythm of business. Meetings can be one of the best forms of rhythm in your business, and if it doesn’t feel that way, you might need to take a closer look at how your meetings are run.
Those ingredients—culture, strategy, planning and business rhythm—all work together to establish your legacy as a business and a leader. Consider everything from financial impact to legal requirements. Start thinking through what you want your legacy to be, and look for the right connections to get the job done.
Business Growth to Business Resilience
Whether you consider “resilience” as staying power or stamina, it’s what keeps your business running when the pressure is on. Business resilience is what helps keep your business ahead of changing technology by finding new ways to create additional revenue.
Business resilience starts with having a balanced, diversified portfolio of revenue sources that allow you to create a stable, trustworthy, money-generating company.
With internal technology teams dedicated to each piece of the Solutions Menu, you can align your customers’ needs to your technology teams and meet their needs even more efficiently.
Begin setting the stage for your business resiliency by conducting a gap analysis. This will help you determine what you’ve got covered easily, and what you’ll need to add to keep meeting your customers’ expectations.
Review the required processes, applications, tools, knowledge, and resources you have on hand and then rely on ConnectWise to help you build out the rest.
When you’re ready to add another technology team to the mix, you’ll start the gap analysis process all over again. Aligning customer needs with the solutions you offer is essential to creating a stable, money-making business that’s resilient in a world of rapidly changing technology.
If these tips on business growth have whetted your appetite to make some changes but you’re still not exactly sure how to get started, head to Orlando Nov. 7-9 for IT Nation, where speakers and presenters will talk about it from a variety of angles.
