If there’s one thing we’ve seen over the past few years, it’s that change really is the only constant. As a small-business owner, it’s vital to embrace ever-present change if you’re to remain relevant, grow and win in a noisy and competitive market.

The biggest risk comes when a business is running reasonably well and the entrepreneur at the helm has learnt all the important aspects of running a business. They have internalised all the processes and skills and are no longer aware of the knowledge they have. Think of the way we drive a car or make coffee or brush our teeth. We don’t first think about the best way to change gears or fill the kettle or squeeze the toothpaste out of the tube. We just do it without thinking.

This is when we do things automatically. And this is where things tend to go wrong in a business. Why? It’s comfortable, especially amid great change, and being comfortable makes us resist change. In my experience, this kills a business.

To ensure that your business thrives instead, you, the business leader, must see yourself as just that – a leader. Being a leader is a lifelong commitment that will continually open doors if you embrace it within a growth framework.

In other words, it’s up to you as the leader, to build your small and medium-sized business purposefully to create an organisation that will leave you financially secure one day. Typically, this entails six stages of business growth, each of which requires a different phase of business leadership.

The six phases of growth leadership

1. Leading your new business’s positioning

This phase of the business is all about understanding the business you’re in.

Your business is not defined by your product or service, but by who you serve, what problem your product or service solves for them and the experience that would make this target market choose your business over a competitor. It’s easier said than done since everyone starts with a product or service and then defines the business around it. Usually this is set out on the landing page of a company website.

As the founder or owner, it’s your responsibility to lead the business through this phase to develop and clarify your exact business premise and niche.

2. Leadership in the organic growth phase

Once you know what business you’re in, the next phase of leadership centres on scaling your serviceable platform. In practical terms, it’s about building commercial processes and systems you can delegate to a team that will create a reliable, consistent customer experience.

Your role will be to guide and oversee the set-up of these processes and sign off on the final iterations that will deliver the experience (as defined in the first positioning phase) your customers demand.

Getting this right is vital if you’re to be released from daily operations to deliver the next phase of leadership – growth.

3. Leading for accelerated business growth

Approximately seven years after launching your business, at least 70% of your attention should be focused on growth leadership.

This will evolve as you grow your company, but the first step in the growth leadership phase is centred on dominating a slice of the industry you’re in. Since you have clarity on your positioning and you have the support of your commercial system and team, you can now lead the marketing and sales effort to earn more customer segments in your target market.

For example, as a furniture manufacturer you may choose to dominate the SOHO (small office/home office) segment in the market. To do this you will have to calculate its approximate value and develop and enable market access strategies, campaigns and relationships that will allow you to penetrate this market segment.

4. Leading the business to next-level growth

As you deepen your market share, the next phase of leadership is about de-risking your exposure to that segment while increasing profitability. It takes discipline to define your next big growth move within the framework of your positioning, that is, the problem you solve and the experience you deliver consistently.

In Sweat, Scale, $ell (Pan Macmillan South Africa), I used the example of Jack the Baker who established his business as a provider of freshly baked goods to hotels. He had created the ideal experience and secured consistent, reliable organic growth. He deepened his marketing and sales efforts to dominate the hotel sector.

For the next level of business growth, he began to offer the same experience with the same product to supermarkets that needed freshly baked goods to capture the morning trade. This gave Jack the Baker a brand-new revenue stream which increased his profitability dramatically with a marginal increase in operating costs.

5. Leading in the capital growth phase

This phase is all about locking in your business’s value in a manner that enables you to successfully sell and exit the business for a capital gain. From start to exit, over a period of 20 to 30 years, your leadership should be focused on building a business through the phases in the above framework. The result will be enjoying a capital exit of between R60 million and R200 million. Yes, it’s absolutely possible, and you can do it. I see it every year across the companies I work with in South Africa, the UK, USA and EU.

I don’t, however, recommend retiring by the sea at this point. It’s not the final phase of leadership. Legacy growth is.

6. Establishing and growing your company’s legacy

Your experience, insights and relationships will allow you to spot young winners who will benefit from your knowledge and mentorship. Therefore, I always advise creating a structure to house your exit capital and setting aside a portion of the funds to invest in a few early-stage companies in the industry you were in.

Investing in the next generation of businesses and business leaders will keep you in the game at a strategic level while allowing you to remain relevant and enjoy a life of purpose and meaning.

Find more management advice, growth insights and practical day-to-day business tips for small-business owners on the Old Mutual Corporate content hub.