A growing business is a successful business – and every business owner wants to see their business grow. As a small business owner, you might witness an initial jump in sales and then a prolonged never-ending flatline when nothing seems to happen. What then? Do you wait and hope that business eventually speeds up? That might never happen if you sit back passively and wait for things to happen. Instead, there are things you can do to set things in motion, get sales up, and even expand your business. Here are six strategies you can begin using today to grow your business.
Table of Contents
1. Give your customers what they need and not what you want
Sell what your customers need and not what you think they need. Focus on ensuring your products or services solve a problem that plagues your customers, and you will see a natural spike in sales. Products/services that meet the needs of your customers leads to:
- Customer satisfaction.
- More customers.
- More sales.
Use surveys and research to:
- Get brutal and honest feedback about your existing services/products.
- Understand how you can improve your existing products/services.
- Understand how your business can help them.
2. Establish loyalty
It’s one thing to attract customers but an entirely different matter to get them to stay loyal to you. While your initial marketing and sales pitches attract new customers, that’s not enough to get them to remain loyal to your brand. To retain existing customers and win their loyalty, you need to provide them with continuous reasons to stay faithful to you. That means:
- Make customers feel special not just at the beginning of their journey with your business but also throughout their lifetime.
- Provide attractive incentives like reward points, discounts, and promotions for new customers.
- Don’t forget about your old customers – their patronage matters. Please provide them with loyalty points, attractive discounts, or first-day promotional benefits.
3. Improve customer service
Happy customers are repeat customers, and one way to ensure your customers are satisfied is by providing excellent customer service. Here’s how you can improve your customer service:
- Strengthen your customer service team. Place people who have patience, empathy, good communication skills, and a thorough knowledge of your products/services in customer-facing roles.
- Track the performance of all your customer service representatives.
- Seek customer feedback regarding their pain points and experiences with your customer service team. Use that feedback to make improvements in your customer service.
4. Focus on social media – but use it the right way
There is nothing to beat social media when it comes to reaching out to a large pool of your target audience. But you can go horribly wrong with social media if you are on the wrong platforms or use it to oversell your products.
Being active on every social media platform there is out there is a waste of time. Stick to the ones you know your customers use. To maximize the benefits of social media:
- Listen to what people are talking about your business.
- Read comments that people leave you and make it a point to reply to them.
- Reach out to your existing clients and potential clients.
- Provide information and content that is relevant to your business.
- Seek new relationships and not only followers.
- Focus on helping your audience instead of merely selling your products.
5. Be adaptable
A genuinely successful organization will be able to switch directions and quickly respond to market changes. If you can keep up with the changing needs of the market, your business will grow even when your competitors flounder. Being adaptable also means you are not afraid to test various business approaches and find out what works for you. It also means you are not scared to fail, pick yourself up, and try again and again until you succeed.
6. Create a business toolbox
Every business needs a business toolbox that includes a:
- Business plan: To keep track of your business progress.
- Marketing plan: To build and keep track of a loyal customer base.
- Employee manual: An outline of rules and regulations for your employees to follow ensures your business stays compliant with labour laws.
- Accounting software: To keep track of your business and provide you with the latest financial reports.
- IT infrastructure: To run your business seamlessly.
Conclusion
There is no certain formula to grow your business overnight, but these six strategies have proved, time and time again, to be beneficial to companies. Finally, consider investing in public liability insurance to protect you and your business. Every business is prone to making mistakes at some point in time, leading to heavy lawsuits filed against the company. While public liability insurance does not directly help in business growth, it will protect your business and prevent your company from being dragged down in case of a lawsuit. For more information on the benefits of public liability insurance for growing businesses, click here.
References
Sprout Social. 2021. 15 Tips to Building a Better Social Media Presence. [ONLINE] Available at: https://sproutsocial.com/insights/building-social-media-presence/. [Accessed 13 April 2021].
Social Media Today. 2018. 4 Strategies to Help Improve Your Customer Service Standards. [ONLINE] Available at: https://www.socialmediatoday.com/news/4-strategies-to-help-improve-your-customer-service-standards/529799/#:~:text=Great%20customer%20service%20can%20help,your%20business%20than%20anything%20else.. [Accessed 13 April 2021].
Business News Daily. 2020. 11 Secrets for Growing Your Business Quickly. [ONLINE] Available at: https://www.businessnewsdaily.com/7690-rapid-business-growth-tips.html. [Accessed 13 April 2021].
Forbes. 2019. 21 Expert Tips To Take Your Business To The Next Level. [ONLINE] Available at: https://www.forbes.com/sites/allbusiness/2019/04/03/expert-tips-take-your-business-to-next-level/. [Accessed 13 April 2021].
Small Business Trends. 2018. 9 Things You MUST Do Today to Grow Your Small Business. [ONLINE] Available at: https://smallbiztrends.com/2018/04/how-to-grow-your-small-business.html. [Accessed 13 April 2021].