Identifying opportunities and fine-tuning growth strategies can take many forms and involve a number of approaches.
This month, Insider magazine talked to figureheads of South West businesses who have seen significant growth over the past decade to find out how they took their companies’ profits to the next level.
Among those was Thrings Managing Partner, Simon Holdsworth, who spoke of the value of client as well as in-house relationships and communication.
To identify what worked for the business, Thrings sought to find out what was working for its clients. The firm used external support to gather feedback about its services from its top 100 clients.
“We found out about the strength of our relationships – and just what we add through our knowledge about our clients, and our interactions off the clock,” said Simon Holdsworth. “We got the message loud and clear that this makes all the difference. You know that stuff intuitively or anecdotally but sometimes it’s good to take your learning that bit further. And everything that came out told us to work even harder at nurturing relationships.”
“Once you can fully capture the value of the time spent with clients, and start to work out how to support them better across the board by improving internal processes and in-house relationships, it translates very quickly into actively doing more business – and more valuable business at that” he added.
The exercise proved successful, as reflected in the company’s balance sheet in the years to follow. In the three years following the client survey, turnover rose 28 percent at the firm – and profits by 42 percent.
“Specialisation has been the other piece in the puzzle. Our expertise in agricultural law pushed us to open a Hampshire office with this specialism, and it’s thrived. The office was turning over £2m within two years of its 2016 opening and already has 21 staff. It shows just what’s possible if you go after the right opportunity in the right way.”
To read the full article in the August edition of Insider, please click here.
