You have started your own small business and now the time has come to grow further.
In this new growth phase, you will encounter completely different challenges than in the early start-up phase of your business.
In this article, I, therefore, give you the ten best tips to successfully grow your small business.
What's in this guide?
1. Set ambitious goals
Growing your small business starts with the right attitude. Set ambitious goals and don’t think too small.
Because growth is virtually impossible without taking risks. So don’t be satisfied with just a stable turnover. While that may bring you success for a short period of time, it will not lead to further growth.
To achieve business growth, it is important that you clearly know what you want to achieve and why. In addition, you must have a concrete step-by-step plan to achieve these goals. Drawing up a business plan is a good starting point for this. As long as your goals are clear, you will be able to face many challenges.
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2. Look for financing
You will most likely always need additional financial resources to grow your small business, especially if your company is not yet profitable enough to generate the necessary investments. It can then be necessary to attract external investors.
Get more financing as soon as possible. Don’t wait until you really need the money. There are various ways to obtain financing: think of a loan or selling shares to an investor, for example. The latter has the advantage that you have no interest and repayment obligations and only have to pay dividends when your company is profitable. Make sure you are well informed, so that you can agree on good terms and conditions.
3. Study the competition
Analyzing what your competition is doing is not about copying their style. When you study the competition, you can more easily understand some of their strengths and weaknesses in the sales tactics they use, so that you can make the right decisions and take advantage of their weak points to strengthen your strategies; and thus grow your small business.
Additionally, it will give you some ideas that allow you to face the difficulties or challenges that arise in your business, especially in the area of marketing and when meeting the needs of the public.
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4. Pay attention to your customers
Taking on the task of listening to your customers may sound like group therapy, but it’s really about understanding what they want so you can better position your brand. In this way you can make your offer more and more relevant and attractive to them.
If you want to grow your small business like a professional, your clients must be your priority. As a seller, you must be able to start a pleasant conversation with them to make them feel well cared for and really know what they want or need.
If you have salespeople, try to train them to connect with people. Never forget that strengthening customer service is extremely important so that there is trust and, therefore, loyalty towards your brand.
5. Invest in digital marketing
Did you know that you can sell much more if you use social networks, electronic commerce and web pages? These digital marketing strategies allow you to make it easy for people to learn about and fall in love with your products. Remember that growing your small business involves attracting more people to your business!
It is no longer enough to have an eye-catching product or great service, you also need to find the most efficient way to make interested people aware of your brand and reach you.
You must therefore carefully evaluate which digital marketing strategies are best suited to the characteristics of your business. If you apply the right strategy you will make your business take off, but if not, it is likely that you will not get the expected results.
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6. Take care of your social networks
Social networks currently represent a direct communication channel with your customers and future customers. These platforms have various uses for your business:
- Promote your products or services
- Sell through posts on Facebook and Instagram Business
- Interact with the public
- Measure their responses to your posts
- Get data to adjust your tactics
Social media strategies do not require a large investment of money or time to obtain good results. So, they are effective both for people who are starting a business and for SMEs.
Perhaps the most important thing about social networks is that they allow you to get to know your audience better and keep in touch with them constantly as a way of ensuring that customers fall in love with your brand.
7. Make your customers loyal
Customer loyalty is one of the best tips to grow your small business. It’s said that one happy customer is worth more than two sales from two people who are indifferent about your business. That’s because a happy customer will more likely be willing to buy again and also recommend your brand.
The loyalty process must start from the first contact you have with the public and be constant until the moment of selling. It is a big mistake to think that the only way to get loyal customers is to contact them after the sale.
Certainly, post-sale interaction is important, we all like to feel that they care about us! However, the best way to build trust and satisfaction in your customers is to offer them the best shopping experience possible.
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8. Keep goals aligned
In a boat, everyone must row to the same side or else it won’t move anywhere. Same way, in your small business, everything you do should respond to the core objectives of your company, for example:
Before making an Instagram post with the photo of your products, you should ask yourself: what do I want to achieve with this post? What message am I transmitting? What audience do I want to reach? Similarly, with everything you do in your business.
Doing anything without considering your strategies can backfire on you. It is vital that you, as well as your assistants and employees, always keep in mind why you perform each action.
9. Reduce operating costs
You may be wondering, why is this point relevant to me, if my business is not in charge of producing? The truth is that operating costs are not exclusive to manufacturers, but also to distributors.
There are several ways in which you can reduce these costs, starting by adapting your product portfolio to the most common needs of your clientele. In this way, you will have a greater cash flow and thus you will be able to optimize your investment.
Similarly, you can reduce your costs by hiring a reliable provider. Suppose you have a fragrance business, you need a good company that deals with the wholesale of original perfumes, because that way you can get volume discounts and even reduce shipping costs.
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10. Keep Innovating
As the size of your company increases, you will notice that it becomes increasingly difficult to stay innovative and flexible.
More staff also creates more red tape, which can slow things down. But innovation is necessary to continue to grow in the future. So make sure that innovation really becomes part of your company.
You can do this by consciously scheduling time to work on innovative ideas and make it part of your company culture. Give your employees the space to innovate and encourage them to try new things. Don’t be afraid of failure, because that’s how you learn.
Conclusion
Here are the best 10 ways I think you can grow your business based on the growth process of top brands. While implementing these strategies, don’t expect everything to come easy. Keep pushing regardless of all challenges and you’ll definitely see your business flourishing. Cheers!
