Growing a business can be challenging, but it does not always have to be. Good leadership will produce a good team—and your team is the lifeblood of your business

As a business development trainer and coach, it fascinates me when a company that wishes to grow its market share increases its budget for marketing, new logos, new company strap-line, new hardware, software, systems, and so forth. However, I rarely see a budget for talent discovery and growth.

Smart companies have come to learn and appreciate that in order to grow a business and enjoy sustainable growth, they must nurture the talent within their team. Instead, too many companies employ only the hands and feet of people—and not the brains. In fact, I am totally convinced that every member of a team has talent that is not being fully developed. What’s more, failing to tap into these talents not only hinders the potential of the employee, but also the potential of the team and company as a whole.

It often takes an effective manager/leader to draw out that talent and bring it to the surface. But before you can grow a talent, you need to identify the talent. So, on a scale of 1 to 10 (10 is good), how would you rate yourself in regularly identifying talent within your team?

Now, imagine for a moment the impact it would have on your team and company as well as your influence in your marketplace if you as a leader followed a process that enabled you to develop the talents within each team member. What would this process look like?

Billions of resources are wasted every year by companies that fail to identify and develop the talents of their team. The result is low team engagement, productivity, and profitability. This also leads to higher turnover of staff, increasing recruitment cost. What can you do now to ensure that your team and company enjoy greater team engagement, productivity, income, and profitability? How can you identify talents of each team member? What are your plans for nurturing and growing that talent? Do you have any processes in place for multiplying the talents within your team?

Bottom line: The key to building a sustainable business is not flashy business cards or marketing brochures; it is developing the talents around you. There is no point in having a talented team whose talents remain dormant. Good managers value the importance in not just attracting the most talented people to a team, but also the importance of identifying and developing that talent. And with good leadership, talent does not come and go, rather talent comes and grows. So you see, if you really want to grow a company, take some time to grow the talent.