Starting a business: it’s only the first step.
But what happens when a business has established itself and now wants to focus on growth?
Growing a business is challenging, from keeping up with the market to managing cash flow. The right team, systems, and skills need to be in play for an organization to grow rapidly.
Curious to learn strategies targeted toward how to company growth? Below we explain 7 helpful ways to grow your business.
1. Hire the Right People
Before you start thinking about your company growth, take a look at what your business looks like right now. Are your employees satisfied? Are there gaps in any departments?
Having a solid staff in place will make it much easier for you to achieve your goals. A loyal group of hardworking people who share your vision will help you accomplish much more than team members who are rotating in and out of your company.
With hardworking employees who care about your company’s success, you’re in a much better position for company growth. You’ll be able to delegate tasks and trust that these employees will get them done.
2. Conduct a SWOT Analysis
You also need to understand where you are in terms of your competition and the market to achieve business growth. How do you look compared to your biggest rival? Are there any recent policy changes that will affect you?
This is when a SWOT analysis becomes helpful. SWOT stands for strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats.
Strengths will help you identify what you do well and what resources you can use. What do others see as your company’s strongest attributes?
Weaknesses refer to what you can improve. These are internal elements of your company that make you less successful, like poor company culture. What could you improve within your organization?
Opportunities show you what exists outside of your company and can benefit you. These can be trends or changes in the market that you can leverage.
Threats are external factors that could harm you. This could include a strong competitor or a recent law change that raises the prices of your suppliers.
3. Focus on Personalization
A personalized experience isn’t a benefit for customers – it’s now an expectation. Customers want to feel as a business can understand and even anticipate their wants.
Naturally, personalization makes consumers feel more valued. This will lead them to become more loyal to a brand. Ultimately, growing loyal customers will lead to business expansion.
It’s not difficult to offer personalized service with all of the data collection methods out there. Systems like a customer relationship management (CRM) platform can store important customer data so you can give them an experience that is tailored to them.
It can also take the form of customer service. Businesses can message customers through their preferred channels.
The bottom line: a personal customer experience is a better one.
4. Leverage Referrals
Word-of-mouth is one of the most effective ways to achieve business expansion. When you focus on referral marketing you already have an advantage: 92% of customers trust recommendations from friends and family over any other form of advertising.
When you cater your marketing strategy to referrals, you will already have a stronger chance of getting prospective clients to trust you.
Referrals also introduce you to people who are more likely to use your services. People who are referred to you will likely have expressed a need to their friend or family member, who will send that person to you.
5. Spend Smart
Chances are, you’re overspending in certain areas of your company. Maybe you have two people hired for a job that only needs one person. Maybe you’re paying too much for supplies because you haven’t done a recent market analysis on your inputs.
There are dozens of ways for you to spend smarter and save on the cost of operating your business. This could include anything from paying less for goods to lowing the amount that you pay to acquire each customer.
Always continue to look for creative ways that you can improve your company’s operations to help you save money. Those extra resources can be used to help grow your company.
Streamline your processes to reduce wasting time and resources. Look to improve your advertising and promotions so it costs less to bring in each customer.
6. Practice Corporate Social Responsibility
Customers want to buy from businesses that care about more than just making a profit. This is where corporate social responsibility comes in.
Corporate social responsibility includes caring for the environment, human resources, community development, and workplace culture. These categories cover a wide array of approaches and customer concerns, giving your business ample opportunities to incorporate ethical choices.
For example, say you’re a company that packages and ships many of your products to customers.
More than half of US consumers are highly concerned about the environmental impact of packaging. A social initiative for your company could involve reducing plastic use or waste involved in your packaging.
Other ways to practice social responsibility include supporting local charities, offering development programs for students, and helping with local fundraisers.
7. Network
Networking gives you the chance to connect with people you may not get to meet. Many of the people will have unique perspectives and experiences that could give you more insight into running your business.
Experiment with the events you go to. Attending different kinds of networking events will give you access to multiple groups of people.
For instance, you could attend one for businesses in your industry or one for new businesses. You could look for events catered to local business owners.
Grow Your Business Effectively
Grow your business effectively by staying informed and making the right decisions. From creating the right team to staying aware of market conditions, a growing business needs to manage dozens of variables.
But you don’t have to do it alone – the experts at Bradford Jacobs are here to help you expand your business with our years of knowledge. Contact us to learn more.
