Managing the growth
of your business:
3 essential skills
to develop

Adapt to new ways of working

According to Nicolas Gouin, to make your business grow, you have no choice but to get out of your comfort zone by exploring new markets, looking for new contracts, etc. If you limit yourself to what you know, you inevitably end up stagnating.

To do this, you need to have a high tolerance to stress, but must of all, you have to be very flexible. For example, when the people at L’Hibou got their first contract with a European customer, they had to adapt their work methods, their professional language and even their schedule!

Over time, customers far removed from the creative environment began to fill the company’s address book. Not only did these customers open new doors for the production company, it also led to a new reality: you have to maintain much closer communications with this clientele. You have to make sure that everyone involved perfectly understands the parameters specific to artistic creation: the creative process, the ins and outs of copyright, etc. Rather than see this additional effort as a roadblock, Nicolas Gouin says it’s an opportunity to review how you maintain business relationships with customers and understand how people work in various business sectors.

Protect yourself against misunderstandings

As you get new customers and sign bigger and bigger contracts, you also have to rethink the way you close agreements. Big projects generally come with major production expenses. To minimize the risk, it’s essential to be well protected. “When the stakes are high and you don’t necessarily know the customers very well, make sure you do things right and have lawyers draw up the terms of solid contracts. It’s a huge amount of work and a great deal of management, but it’s absolutely necessary,” Nicolas Gouin concludes.

When a business is starting up, it often has to redouble its efforts to find customers. That was Nicolas Gouin’s experience. “During my first four years in business, I accepted practically all of the projects that I was offered. As soon as I was available, I was working.”

Nicolas Gouin continued by explaining that with higher revenues come the necessity to learn how to sort projects and to say no. It’s more than simply turning down smaller jobs for those with bigger budgets. You have to choose projects that are in keeping with the company’s values and are in line with the entrepreneur’s vision.

Sometimes, rejecting certain projects can also be beneficial for long-term business development. To do that, you have to learn to distinguish between dead-end projects and those that have the potential to lead to new business opportunities or cultivate a long-term relationship. According to Nicolas Gouin, having a stable customer base that provides the company with consistent income is one of the best foundations for prudent growth.

For Nicolas Gouin, the entrepreneur is often one of the greatest impediments to a company’s growth. “We tend to keep a very close eye on our baby. You have to learn to trust the people you work with, to delegate. It’s not normal for the business to grind to a halt when the owner is absent,” he says.

That said, to succeed in delegating, first you have to hire. For young entrepreneurs, not only does hiring allow them to get more work done, it also divides the work differently so that everyone can focus on their strengths. However, according to Nicolas Gouin, when the time comes to determine hiring needs, a tough choice has to be made: “Either I hire someone who is very experienced and to whom I will probably have to pay a higher salary than I pay myself, or I take a chance and hire someone fresh out of school.”

There’s nothing wrong with hiring someone with little experience, quite the contrary. In Nicolas Gouin’s eyes, they are often very creative people, with a strong vision and are very eager to work. However, you have to invest a lot of time and money to train someone who is starting their career and you always run the risk of losing this investment if the person leaves the company rapidly. “If you want to build a team that will help the company grow, you have to learn to recognize those who seem to want to commit for the long term,” Nicolas Gouin says.