When it comes to starting up or running a business, there is a lot of advice on how to make it a success. But going beyond that initial success to make sure you are continually achieving sustained growth and are keeping pace with your business’ growth, requires a different approach.

Sabri Suby knows this only too well. Having launched his digital marketing agency, King Kong, four years ago, the agency is now the fastest growing digital marketing agency in Australia (AFR Fast Starters 2017 and 2018). Here are Sabri’s top five tips to succeeding (fast) in business.

Take risks

“An effective risk taker is someone that has the ability to quickly weigh up the positives and negatives, and make a calculated risk. The reality is, business moves quickly, so the notion that you need 100% of the facts to take a risk is a real fallacy. Great leaders should have the ability to make effective decisions with a mere 30-40% of the facts. If you can’t do that, your business will move slowly - and if you’re moving slowly, you’re already losing. Learn to be decisive and make decisions without all of the information on hand, so that you won’t lose opportunities and can stay ahead.”

Value your team

“Without good people supporting you, it's very difficult to scale and pursue every opportunity presented. Hire for attitude – a good CV might give you a candidate with the right skills but it's only part of the equation. Don’t narrow down your talent pool based on skills that can be developed with further training or experience. Find someone with a can-do attitude who's not afraid of hard work and you’re on to a winner.

“And if your winning team is going to spend 40+ hours a week working for you, you’d better make it a good time. There’s a myth that business success comes from putting your customers first. That might work when you’re a start-up, but if you want your business to grow, your team is the most important thing to get right. Hire good talent, treat them well and give them a reason to be happy when they step into the workplace and they will look after your clients for you.”

Demand an ROI

“If you aren’t generating at least $2 in revenue for every dollar you spend on marketing, then you are wasting your time and money.

“This is the approach we take for all our digital marketing clients, and also the approach I take when marketing King Kong. Everything we do is results-driven, and this approach has seen us amass more than $400 million in sales for our company and our clients.”

80/20 rule for productivity

“Using Pareto's principle of the 80/20 rule, which demonstrates you can and should disregard 80 percent of your business activities - I identified which 20% of my activities accounted for 80% of the revenue. And I now delegate the rest of the load to my very capable team.”

Guard your time

“Every minute spent planning saves you time down the track. Break down your end goal into monthly, weekly and daily goals. This outlines what you need to do and allows you to attack them in an achievable way. Planning the night prior means you can hit the ground running each morning with a clear action plan.

“Free up your 'mental RAM' and avoid decision fatigue, and you'll find the quality of your attention improves along with your productivity.

“You can also take control of your time by blocking out a couple of hours a day for your team to meet with you. That way you're accessible but you won't be interrupted while you're in a productive flow. Make use of gatekeepers like your executive assistant or open segments of your calendar for staff to request a chat, rather than (metaphorically) leaving the door open.”

About Sabri Suby:

Sabri Suby is the founder of King Kong kingkong.com.au, which has been named Australia’s fastest growing full-service digital marketing agency for the second year in a row, coming in at 28th on the Australian Financial Review’s (AFR) Fast Starters List, and 9th on the Smart50 list. King Kong uses true ROI and only charges for success. Based in Melbourne, King Kong has clients across Australia and overseas. Its services include SEO, CRO, PPC, Facebook Advertising, web design and landing pages. kingkong.com.au