10 Tips for Growing Your Business
If you’re wondering how to grow your business, you’re not alone. Whether you own a brick-and-mortar business or have an online business, it can be difficult to maintain and even expand your customer base without putting in hours of overtime. However, with these tips for growing your business, you can avoid the stress that often comes with trying to increase your customer base without spending too much time on this aspect of your business.
1) Know what you want
Knowing what you want out of your business is the first step to growth. Do you want to grow your company or be a one-person shop? If it's the latter, then don't worry about marketing and focus on your product and customer service.
Do you want your business to scale, or do you prefer to keep it small? Once you have an idea of what size your business should be and how you plan on accomplishing that goal, it’s time to evaluate your market and decide which audience is most likely to buy from you. Doing so will help define your customer service policies, pricing models, and marketing tactics. The first step in doing so is writing a detailed customer profile. This should include an age range, income level, gender, where they live, and why they should care about buying from your company. It might even make sense to conduct surveys or interviews with potential customers before writing a profile.
Once you have a customer profile, it’s time to think about marketing. Of course, it all starts with your company name and your logo. If you don’t have a professional designer or aren’t a graphic designer yourself, crowdsourcing your logo is a great way to go. Sites like Fiverr and Upwork offer reasonable prices for designers who can take your idea from concept to reality. You should also consider developing an online presence, including social media accounts and email marketing campaigns. Having a website where potential customers can get information about how they can buy from you is also important.
2) Understand your product and market
#1: Make sure you know your product and market inside out. What is the problem it solves? Who are the people who buy it? How are they different from each other? Why do they buy it? How much will they be willing to pay for what you're selling? Who are your competitors and how do you compare to them? The more you know about your product, the easier it will be to develop a marketing strategy that can help you sell more.
#2: Make sure your business has a competitive advantage. If there's something about your business that makes it different or better than those of your competitors, make sure people know about that difference.
#3: Know your customer. Every product and service has its target audience. This will change over time as your business changes, but if you're going to be successful in making a profit, you need to figure out who's going to buy your product or service and where they can be found. Consider what makes them different from other customers and why they are interested in doing business with you rather than with your competitors.
3) Create a structure
1) Know your goals. What are the milestones you want to hit in the first year? What do you hope to have accomplished in five years' time? How does this grow your business, and how does it help your customers? When setting goals, think about what will help you achieve sustainable growth.
2) Create a solid foundation. Define who your customer is and why they should buy from you over your competitors. Who are the people that will buy from you instead of anyone else because of what you offer? Figure out the value of your product or service and make sure that it's worth more than its price tag.
3) Develop a marketing plan. How will people find out about what you're selling? How will they know it's worth their money?
4) Identify your strengths and weaknesses. Assess what skills you already possess, where you might need to improve, and what areas could be handled by an outside party. Outsourcing can be a good option if there are some aspects of your business that could benefit from hiring experts. For example, getting a lawyer or accountant up to speed on your vision or brand will save you time in the long run.
4) Focus on the customer
It's not just about what you want or how you want to do things. It's about how your customer wants it done, and how they want to be treated. They are the ones who will keep you in business, so it's important to go out of your way to make them happy.
If you don't know what they want, ask them! Surveys and feedback forms are a great way of getting their input while also giving yourself an opportunity to improve things based on that feedback.
Even if you've been working in your industry for decades, there may be things about what your customers are looking for that you don't know. Focus groups and surveys will help you get a better idea of what they're looking for, so pay attention to these responses and take them into consideration. You may also want to talk with successful businesses within your field to find out how they do things, as well as how they managed their own growth.
You must always focus on customer experience as a priority over profits because people would rather pay more and receive good service than pay less and receive bad service, or even free and not receive anything at all.
5) Keep it simple
Growing your business can be tricky. It's easy to get overwhelmed, especially when you're juggling so many different aspects of running a company. Here are some ways to make things a little easier:
1) Keep your focus on the customer. What do they want? What do they need? Make sure you have an excellent customer service team in place who understands the latest trends and best practices.
2) Be personable, passionate, and proud of what you do. Make sure this is seen in all your interactions with customers, from phone calls and emails to how you present yourself on social media channels like Facebook or Twitter.
3) Communicate. If you don’t, there’s a good chance your customers will be left confused and frustrated. Whenever anything happens that will impact them, make sure you reach out to let them know what's going on and keep them in the loop as much as possible. This is an especially important point when it comes to changes or updates that could have a negative impact on your business or its customers.
6) Don’t go into debt
It's important to grow your business, but don't go into debt in the process. To avoid this, consider borrowing from a bank or an individual instead of using credit cards. When you borrow from an institution like a bank, it is easier to determine what your monthly payments will be and what the interest rates are. This can help you budget better and stay on top of your finances as you grow your business.
If you choose to take out a loan from a bank, be sure to have a solid business plan and accurate financial statements ready. In addition to these documents, banks typically ask for an individual bank statement and two or three years of personal tax returns as part of your application. Once you land your loan, make sure you read all of the fine print so you understand what repayment terms are expected. Also, make sure that once you get approved for your loan that you follow up with monthly payments until it is completely paid off.
7) Stay motivated
You might be feeling like all the work you put into your business is not paying off. But, it's important to stay motivated and keep going. Keep in mind that successful businesses take time to grow and there are no shortcuts to success. Be patient, set goals, and work hard.
Getting started can help to break your overall goal into smaller, more manageable pieces. Then you’ll be able to see your progress and stay on track. It can also be helpful to create a plan that lays out your goals and how you plan to achieve them. For example, if you want to grow sales by 20% next year, you might set specific monthly or quarterly targets that move you closer to meeting your larger goal. You could even set different types of goals depending on what phase of business development you're in (e.g., starting up versus growing).
8) Measure everything
Measure everything. There is no such thing as too much information. You never know what will work and what won’t, so you need to measure everything to get an idea of how your marketing and business are performing. If you don’t have the time or the expertise to do this yourself, hire a professional with experience in the field that you are measuring. They can provide insight into what is working and what isn’t.
Make sure you measure your success using more than just sales. There are numerous ways to measure how well your business is performing, and understanding which metrics matter most to you can help you make better decisions going forward. For example, if you are trying to determine whether a new advertising campaign is successful, measuring only sales isn’t enough. While they can provide valuable insight into whether or not people like your product or service, they don’t necessarily give any information on what effect that ad had on purchase decisions or buying habits. Sales numbers also don’t tell you anything about customer retention or loyalty. Using analytics software to monitor everything from e-commerce purchases to web traffic will give you a much fuller picture of where your business stands than looking at just one aspect alone will.
9) Do what works for you
There is no one size fits all solution to growing your business, but here are ten tips that you can use as a starting point. The only thing that these tips have in common is that they work.
1) Listen to customer feedback and act on it. Your customers know what they want, so if you're not listening to them, you're missing out on a lot of valuable input.
2) Be transparent with your customers about how the company operates and what products are being sold. Let them know when things will be back in stock or when there might be changes made to the product line-up.
3) Stay connected. You should have a regular dialogue with your customers—make sure to know who is doing business with you, but also be in touch regularly on social media and through any other available channels. Do not just respond to complaints or questions; use these opportunities to help customers feel more connected and engaged with your company as well as get a sense of what they want and need. A good way to go about staying updated on your customers' needs is by sending out an email newsletter with information about new products, promotions, discounts, coupons, etc. Make sure that you respect any privacy settings that are in place though if you are dealing with emails.
10) Work every day
Work every day. You're going to have days where you have a ton of energy and days where you can barely get out of bed, but if you stick with it, you'll see growth in your business.
At the end of the day, no matter how much work you do, there's always more to do. But don't let this discourage or stop you from working hard. It's not about being perfect; it's about making progress every single day.
Set aside a set time and place to work every day. I like getting up early, having a healthy breakfast, and then working at my desk until noon or later. You might prefer lunch hour or an evening session. It doesn't matter what you do so long as you stick to it. But sticking to some sort of schedule is critical to your success.
