Once you establish your own business, you’ll eventually want to see it grow—but how? There’s no single way to achieve small business growth. Perhaps you want to hire more employees, expand your office space, add a new product line, or target a new demographic. Because expansion can be measured by different metrics, it’s up to you to decide how you want to move forward.
Here are some different growth strategies to consider:
- Create partnerships: Partnerships can be great for increasing brand awareness and demand for your products. This might involve partnering with a complementary business, supporting a nonprofit or social cause and reaching out to bloggers and influencers. Partnerships can include reciprocal advertising or deals, such as receiving coupons for your partner when a customer patronizes your business, offering free goods to influencers in exchange for social media posts or donating a percentage of your profits to a local nonprofit in exchange for a mention.
- Get rid of less profitable goods or services: You should regularly review how each service or product you offer performs. If there’s a less profitable option, consider getting rid of it in order to cut costs—you can reinvest that money in top performers.
- Hire more employees: When your company starts to take off, you’ll eventually need (more) employees to help you manage the business. As you begin the hiring process, think about who you’re hoping to find, then consider trying new recruiting tactics. For example, if you’re a small law firm, consider working with local law schools. Their career placement office may be able to help you hire interns with the option of bringing them on as a junior attorneys after they pass the Bar.
- Acquire competitors: If your competitors are struggling and leaving the industry, consider purchasing their companies. Target businesses that can save you time and money. For instance, purchasing a competitor with an established customer base and content may be a better investment than spending money on marketing and creating content yourself.
- Improve the customer experience: Customer relationship management (CRM) systems help you keep your clients happy. Whether you’re making it easy to submit support tickets and get a response or sending birthday discounts to people on your email list, investing in CRM tools helps you retain old customers and impress new ones.
- Build a better marketing plan: Marketing is a tried-and-true way to expand your business—and it can take many forms. Research your competitors to find out what’s working for them, or improve your advertising conversion rate by offering incentives and clear calls to action. Creating a sales funnel can help you determine at which point customers are most likely to decide not to make a purchase. In turn, you can refine your sales and marketing tactics to encourage sales.
These are just a few of the top ways to expand a small business. Whether you’re bringing on new team members or trying to attract more customers, all small business expansion should be supported by accurate, detailed records and professional bookkeeping assistance. Contact MCG Solutions today to learn more about how we can assist you during your growth.