You want to know how to grow your business. Everybody does. It’s unfortunate that most owners don’t know how to do it. The ideas are simple enough; it’s just the execution that can be difficult. You can find ideas all over the internet but we’re going to give you some ideas on how you can execute them.
There are some fundamental strategies that all business can take advantage of to drive your revenue and profits. A word of warning though, you should only pick one or two to focus on.
If you try to do everything at once, you’ll become overwhelmed and your focus will be too watered down for you to be successful. For instance, if you’re planning to have a tire shop business, decide on what your unique value proposition should be. Concentrate on it, and move towards diversification later on as your business grows.
Other strategies include maintaining customer loyalty like when you’re trying to boost your hair salon sales using a CRM tool to constantly follow up with your customers.
A word of warning: growth strategies do have some risk and they don’t always work, however with the right planning, execution and team buy-in, they can be used to expand your company.
1. Increase Your Audience
This sounds simple and straightforward and is often the first thing business owns think of when they want to grow their business. But it’s often difficult to expand your reach as it often means penetrating into a new market and taking customers away from your competition.
Execution
The easiest way to build your audience is to advertise—again it sounds simple enough. The easiest way to do this is through Google Adwords or Facebook advertisement. Both are extremely effective because they can pinpoint your audience exactly. You’ll want to test your ads against each other to know which ones are working best. This process is called A/B testing and should be used for all the ads you put together. Networking with current customers can also be an effective marketing tool to incentivize the sale and promotion of your products and services without spending anything on ads.
2. Improving Your Product
Another way of growing your business is by improving either the product or the service you provide. Think of Gillette razor. You would think a razor is just a razor right? Wrong! You can now get advanced, reusable triple-blade action. Do you really need three or even four blades? Not really but it is a way to offer a premium product for something that is relatively mundane and ordinary.
Execution
Think of one or two ways you can improve your product. It doesn’t need to be ‘the next best thing’. Instead think in terms of Gillette and just add a blade. It’s important to always be innovating even if you’re a common household product.
3. Expand Your Reach
Thanks to the internet, any small business can sell nationally or internationally. It’s fairly easy if you sell things on your website and you can expand your business further than your local area. You no longer have an excuse of not being able to find customers ever again!
Execution
The best way to do this is set up an e-commerce site attached to your website. If you don’t know how to do this then hire a web developer to do it for you. There are also third-party sites like Amazon or Shopify that you can sell on. It’s relatively simple to set up and the best thing is that you don’t need to carry extra inventory to sell online.
4. Diversify your Products
Apple was the leading personal computer company when they decided to branch into digital music. Think about what types of products complement your existing market. The product must make sense with your existing band and shouldn’t confuse your customers. If you’re a coffee shop it probably won’t work to sell shoes.
Execution
Out of all the ideas, this is probably the most difficult to execute. It requires lateral thinking that isn’t always intuitive. Do your research and find out what products are already on the market or innovate and find something new. Make sure your core business is secure and successful before venturing into unknown territory. You don’t want to extend your resources too thin.
5. Upsell To Your Existing Customers
The easiest sell is to your existing customers. They already know you and trust you. McDonalds is probably the most successful example of this with their famous upsell “Would You like Fries with that?” and “Would You like that Supersized?” These small upsells create millions of profits. What can you upsell to your customers?
Execution
It’s usually easy to think of ways to upsell, whether it’s a warranty or dessert or something else. The toughest part of this strategy is getting your staff to buy into it and getting them to offer the upsell to every customer. If you don’t explain it properly, your staff often feel mechanical or part of a cog.
I hope this blog has given you some ideas of ways to grow your business and increase your sales. It’s important that you keep track of your customers and build good relationships with them. We have developed a CRM app to handle all that for you. Visit us at www.smallbizdream.com to learn more.