3 Levers to STOP Reactive Growth in Your Business

Is your business growing — or just reacting? There's a big difference, and in this episode, Nicky Miklós breaks down exactly what smart, sustainable business growth looks like under the hood.

If you're relying on a handful of high performers to carry your results, running on scattered processes, or leading a team that's constantly in reactive mode — this one is for you.

Nicky unpacks the three key levers every business needs to pull to move from chaos to clarity:

1. Commercial Leadership — going beyond managing a sales team to actually building a sales engine. This means cultivating a high-performance sales culture, developing real coaching skills in your leaders, and following through on performance management.

2. Streamlined Methodologies — ditching the cowboy culture by putting a documented sales process in place, building a playbook that brings it to life, and investing in your team's capability to execute it.

3. Rhythm for Momentum — the piece that ties it all together. A clear roadmap, meaningful benchmarks of success, and consistent coaching and team checkpoints that actually happen.

Plus, Nicky shares a free Sales Resilience Check — a five-minute audit that scores your business across four key areas and tells you exactly where to focus next.

Learn more about Nicky  at nickymiklos.com

Grab The Growth Code™ here!

Get your a copy of Healthy Hustle: The New Blueprint to Thrive in Business & Life at www.healthyhustle.com.au

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Contact: 0403 191 404 | hello@nickymiklos.com 

Music by Jules Miklos-Woodley

Transcript

Hello, hello friends and thank you so much for joining me today for a conversation around what actually is smart business growth. You know, we've heard this term thrown around. I talk about it all the time. It is at the core of my business to really help businesses focus on and attain sustainable smart growth.

But really when we think about it, I want us to have a look under the hood as to what are the nuts and bolts? What does that actually mean? And what does that look like in your business? Because the world that we live in, and this is the world that we're building our businesses in, is more complex than ever before.

Whether we look at the relationship of the sales role or the role of salespeople, the relationship that we're having with prospects and clients, that has changed fundamentally in so many ways in this modern day complex world. Our role as salespeople is no longer being able to provide the information and show the features and benefits of what we're offering. It's bigger than that. We need to facilitate the decisions of our clients and our prospects to be that safe pair of hands, which is more complex, right? That's the reality.

We also need to be able to adapt as leaders ourselves, as humans, as family members, as partners, as a member of community and society around how we're dealing and navigating in this world that is information overload, where there's global and local impacts — economic, political, all of the different things. But we as humans have to navigate that. It is very complex.

We also need to look at how are we fundamentally growing our business so that it's not reactive and we are finding that balance, that middle ground, that intersection of commercial results and healthy, happy people. And ultimately that is what smart business growth is really about.

So today, again, I want to focus on the nuts and bolts. And to do that, we need to be able to get really clear on three key levers that are going to help move your business in the direction of smart growth, not just reactive growth.

You know, a lot of the conversations I'm having at the moment are businesses kind of wanting to be prepared about what is the next curveball that will be thrown at them? How can I shore up my business so that whatever comes next — whether that's a curveball, whether that's a negative impact or whether that's an opportunity — I actually have the foundations ready to go to ride through that wave. And that's what this is.

These three levers are really setting up the foundations of your house, your boat, whatever the foundations of your business so that you can ride through the next wave and then the next wave and so on and so on and so on.

Because the reality is right now, what's happening in a lot of businesses is that the leadership is being very reactive. It's either because they are new to leadership roles, they haven't had a lot of investment in development, stepping into a leadership role. It could be because the culture is a busy culture. So everything is just spinning at a really fast pace and people are trying to keep their head above water, especially the leaders.

And then this is also resulting in perhaps not managing performance as effectively because the confidence or the time is not there to really hold the standards. So there's this reactive leadership happening.

The other big thing that I see a lot in businesses, especially that SMB where you're really at a growth set point, is what I call cowboy culture. So you've got some high performers that are nailing their numbers, but the whole results of the business are relying on those few high performers. And it could be that those high performers have a bit of a cowboy culture in that they're doing what they need to do, but there's no streamlined structure or approach.

You know, I kind of look at it as when you're setting up — if I think we watch some of those Western movies, you know, where they're pioneering days and they're setting up the new towns and the cowboys come in and they do what they need to to get the results. And that's cool because that's the way that it is. And then at a certain point, that town is established enough that a sheriff has to come to town and there needs to be some laws laid down, some rules of play so that there's synergy between the cowboys and what they're doing.

And I really love that metaphor in this context because I do see that in businesses where all of a sudden cowboy culture isn't going to be the thing that gets you to the next growth phase or is not going to be the thing that gets you through the next wave and the next.

We don't want to put shackles on people, on salespeople, but there needs to be some streamlined methodologies that everybody in the team — salespeople, sales leaders alike — can really align to and it unifies them. And then they can bring their own personality to it.

So there's messy, scattered processes. There's no unified approach of how we actually have sales conversations. And again, results are reliant on a few high performers.

The other key thing is that there's not inconsistent touch points, or coaching is scheduled and then it's cancelled. There's no follow through. If you are a decision maker in your business and you're paying the check to invest in things like sales training, leadership training, any kind of training, if there's no follow up coaching, if there's no follow up from leaders with the salespeople or people that attended it — that is money left on the table.

That is really a waste of money that's invested in training because we know that people will forget things. We don't implement it. And just like leaders get caught up in the busy trap, so do the salespeople on the ground. And so there's this messy rhythm around touch points, connections, benchmarks of success. Again, I did a podcast episode on this. You might not even have KPIs or benchmarks of success in place.

So it results in this business — yes, you've got some great results, but there's messy rhythms that are not considered consistent. There's scattered methodologies and process again that are not consistent and results are reliant on a few high performers. And if they left, the business is screwed. Or the leadership are just trying to keep up, very reactive, head above water, either because they don't have the skills or they're caught in this trap of not having enough time.

So what we want to do instead is we want to bring in these three levers to focus on. And when you do that, you move your reactive leadership to a place of commercial leadership.

Now, commercial leadership is one of the levers and it's super important because it takes care of even more than sales leadership. So let me explain. I see sales leadership as being — I'm running a team, I have a sales team. But when we can put that commercial lens in place, it means that we're not just running a sales team, we're actually building a sales engine, we're building a sales function. So it's a much more elevated getting on the balcony of the business, the helicopter view, which again is going to elevate your business and therefore allow it to ride through whatever wave is coming next.

When we think of commercial leadership, there's three key areas you want to look at.

One is making sure that you have a sales culture in place. And by sales culture, I mean, yes, it's the important things like vision, mission, purpose, values — that all is still really important in terms of sales culture — but it's also getting really clear on what are the goals, making sure that everybody has some accountability, that everyone's pumped and aligned with chasing down and driven and determination to hit the numbers because the culture is a culture of high performance, of celebration, of success, and of achieving those results.

The second area in commercial leadership is making sure that there's a coaching culture as well. So there's coaching skills. Honestly, I reckon this is one of the most important aspects. I mean, they're all really important, but this is oftentimes the opportunity that is untapped. So making sure that your leaders have really good coaching skills.

Coaching is beyond just having a transactional conversation around how you're tracking to your numbers. Coaching is beyond — it's more than just going for a coffee with your team members once a fortnight. Coaching is the art of asking the right questions to unlock the potential within that team member. Coaching is actually the key to creating that autonomous team so they can eventually self-coach themselves.

So we've got a sales culture, a high-vibing sales culture. People know what they're there for, why they're there, and what they're there to achieve. They're being coached so that their development is elevated even beyond just the sales training.

And the third part of commercial leadership is making sure that there's performance management in place. The tough conversations are happening. The accountability is happening. And this — the three levers or the three areas within this commercial leadership lever — is absolutely going to take you away from reactive transactional leadership to a place where you're setting up the foundations of your business for the long term.

So lever one, commercial leadership, which includes having a high-vibing sales culture. It's making sure the leaders have strong coaching skills, and it's also making sure that performance management is really top of mind for your leaders, and they follow through on that. And that links back to culture. So the three of them really kind of link in together.

As I'm talking through these, I want you to think about your business structure and tick, tick, tick — do you have those three things in place in terms of commercial leadership? As I take you through this, I also want you to identify what's the biggest gap? What's the biggest butt clench moment where you're like, oh, I didn't even think of that. Or I know I should be doing that. Oh, the dreaded should.

So the second lever is around streamlined methodologies. We've got to make sure that there's actually articulated, documented methodologies in place. It's not necessarily the sexiest area to work in, but it is fundamental in terms of moving away from that cowboy culture.

So three key areas in your streamlined methodology. Making sure that there's a sales process. Like, actually, is there a documented process? And if there is, when was it revisited last? If it is, are people actually — do they know that it's there? Are they using it? How are you making it interesting and engaging?

So first is, you've got to make sure that there's a process. The second is creating a playbook to bring that process to life. And then the third area here is capabilities. So actually do the team have the capability — in other words, the sales skills — to be able to use that playbook, which brings the sales process to life.

So we've got to make sure there's clarity on the process. There's a playbook, which could be a document, an intranet, training sessions on it, regular touch points, regular updates — like how do we make it interesting and engaging? And then the capability. Now capability is where sales training comes into play. And it's super important.

Like all of these levers and all of these subset areas of each lever is super important. But the mistake that a lot of businesses make is that they invest in the capability component, which is great, but they miss so much of the other stuff. So they miss the coaching skills of the leader to bring that capability to life even more. Or they miss the process and the playbook that's a part of it. And so really this is a big ecosystem, if you like, to make sure again that the foundations are set.

So Streamlined Methodologies — we've got processes, we've got the playbook and we're investing in capability to bring all of that to life.

Now these are the two sort of main areas, but what's often missing is the part in the middle, the component in the middle that actually brings it together and gives you momentum for long term. So you could have really good commercial leadership. You could have some really great streamlined methodologies in place. But you've also got to look at what is the rhythm in the business.

It's the rhythm that will actually create momentum ongoing. The three key areas within the rhythm are things like making sure that there's a roadmap. So is there actually a sales strategy in place, a plan on a page, 90-day milestones, whatever format you use — it doesn't matter as long as there's something.

I use the True North framework with my clients. It's outlined in the book Healthy Hustle, if you haven't got a copy of that yet. But that's okay, you don't have to use that. Just some kind of roadmap, which is basically a plan. So again, there's clarity of direction. Once you have that in place, that's the first part of having rhythm for momentum.

The second part is making sure that you have benchmarks of success. Actually, what are the KPIs? What are the indicators that each person in your team — salespeople and leaders alike — are moving in the right direction? The benchmarks of success are the broken down indicators of success that feed into the overarching goals and the direction, the roadmap that you want to head to.

Now the KPIs and benchmarks of success are the broken down components — daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly, whatever suits your business — that also feed into the overarching high performance sales culture. So they're all really connected in terms of how they fit together. So you've got clear benchmarks of success. There's a whole podcast episode I did on that as well.

And then the third bit that is really often missing are the regular checkpoints, my friends. How regularly are you checking in?

Have you got your coaching sessions? So we've got the commercial leadership, the leaders now have the skills to be effective and great coaches. Are those coaching sessions actually scheduled in for the rest of the year? Or are they moved? Are they not scheduled at all? Are they ad hoc?

Your checkpoints from an individual and a team point of view really, really matter. Best practice looks something like making sure that you have — it could be fortnightly open coaching, it could be fortnightly KPI conversations. Depending on your team setup, how many people your leaders have in their teams, all those sorts of things will depend on the frequency.

But it's making sure that there's both open coaching sessions — you get a very different outcome from them than you do from your KPI or boss catch ups. Making sure that there's weekly team meetings or a cadence that suits your business. Making sure that there's monthly or quarterly wraps as a team.

Collectively, how did we go this quarter or this month based on what we said we would do? You know, I've got clients that quarterly wrap absolutely suits them better. So that's where they go to. Whereas for other businesses, it might be that monthly suits them better. So you've got to think about how does this structure fit into your particular workplace?

But we're really macro at the moment. So the question here for you to consider is — do you actually have regular cadences, regular individual and team touch points? Are you actually managing performance to the KPIs or the benchmarks, or are they not in place? And do those feed into the overarching sales or growth roadmap?

So almost a bit of a self analysis here, but I can tell you right now that it is the businesses that are focusing on developing their leadership to be commercial leaders, that are really focusing on streamlining their methodologies, and that are also paying attention to the detail of what is their regular cadence of the rhythm checkpoints — these are the businesses that will be able to weather whatever happens externally.

Because your leadership is ready to work through it and they're set up for success in being able to problem solve. Your salespeople are also being supported and set up for success. And your structure in the rhythms takes care of itself. It's no longer, I can't find time to fit in my coaching session or one-on-one. It's more, it's a part of the structure and it happens consistently.

So it's the blueprint, if you will, to make sure that your business is focusing on smart business growth and it's not being reactive. And when we look at the promise at the beginning of this podcast episode, I said I want to give you the nuts and bolts. So there's a fair bit of detail in here.

You can almost listen back and there's a big checklist for you in terms of what are the areas that I really need to focus on and what are the areas that I'm doing really well in to help make this easier for you.

If you do want to do a little bit of a self audit, I've created a Sales Resilience Check. Basically, it's a totally free online audit. You get a score at the end of it and we've broken it out into four key areas for you to be able to keep driving this sustainable growth in your business. We look at sales activity, we look at leadership habits. It will take probably five minutes if that and you'll get the results immediately with a downloadable PDF so that you can actually see what results am I getting in each of my key areas. And I then give you one area to focus on.

So I hope that you are somewhat inspired or curious or thoughtful after listening to this episode around what are the strengths and what are the current blind spots. Jump in and do that Sales Resilience Check and let me know how you go.

Even if you don't do that, make sure that you're really thinking in terms of these three levers that you can be pulling in your business to ensure the sustainability of smart growth forever.

And of course, if you want to share with me your results, let me know what you got and what your key focus area is. And of course, always celebrate what's working well. Have fun with it, take it lightly, and I'll see you in the next episode.