WorldExecutivesDigest | How to Develop a Business Growth Strategy? | There’s a great difference between growing your business and creating sustainable growth. You see, as you work, your workload is bound to increase, however, whether this is a fluke or a continuous trend depends on your strategy and your overall business model. Also, keep in mind that growing too quickly may be quite dangerous. This is why you need to ensure that the growth in question is something that you can keep up with. With that in mind and without further ado, here are several tips you need to hear in order to develop a proper business growth strategy.
Learn about your customers
The first thing that the growth of your business will depend on is the return customers. About 40 percent of your entire profit is generated by fewer than 8 percent of your regulars; however, in order to make your customers come back, you need to figure out what is it that makes them come back, to begin with. Find out what they want, why they buy from you and what kind of treatment they prefer. When addressing them (like in the post-sale follow-up), make sure to check which kind of approach they prefer, as well as what kind of jargon they use. Speaking to them in their own language is the most reliable way of avoiding a misunderstanding.
Focus on networking
Once your business starts expanding, you’ll be in a much greater need for partners. This can range from finding a reputable Hong Kong SEO agency to outsource a part of your digital marketing to, all the way to meet potential investors and major clients. This can also include taking cloud computing consulting services to improve the development process of your company. If you’re curious to get more details about these services, make sure to consult a reputed third party. Even without this, being on good terms with your direct competitors can turn out to be groundbreaking seeing as how it leaves room for future collaboration. Also, in a scenario where they are struggling to meet their current workload, they may redirect any clients that they have to refuse your way. This way, they get to save face and do you a favor, at the same time. All in all, networking is pivotal to the success of your enterprise.
Set an appropriate marketing budget
One of the things that not a lot of people do right in the business world is figure out how much money they are supposed to spend on their marketing. The problem is that there’s a rule out there that you should appoint about 10 percent of your average annual revenue to your marketing. The problem, nonetheless, lies in the fact that, if you’re in a field that’s particularly competitive, you might be forced to go for somewhere between 20 and 50 percent of average annual revenue, instead.
Groom people for positions of leadership
As a small business, you have the time on your side. However, just because you’re currently running on a skeleton crew, this doesn’t mean that you can’t utilize what you’ve got. For instance, the staff that you currently have (90 percent of the time between 3 and 19 employees), can become the core of your future enterprise. These people you can groom for positions of leadership and even send them on courses and seminars where they can learn unique skills. This way, you’re turning already loyal employees into specialists.
Give back to the community
Being too profit-centric is something that the general public doesn’t look kindly upon. Sure, while you’re a struggling business, no one is expecting you to spend all of your hard-earned profit in order to support a cause. Still, as your business starts taking off in the business world, it would be expected of you to start giving back. Keep in mind that these acts of altruism and generosity need to be proportional to your possibilities. So, the bigger you get, the more you should give back.
Measure everything
Every plan and growth strategy needs an adjustment, nonetheless, in order to know what, when and how to change, you need to keep records of everything and try analyzing any pressing matters that your business faces. Fortunately, in the digital era, this is simpler to pull off than ever before. Just make sure to engage in an elaborate record-keeping effort and even pay for a premium business intelligence (BI) tool to help you out.
In the end, developing a business growth strategy is the only way for you to achieve your goals in a reliable way. Instead of allowing business success to control you, you’ll be the one controlling your success. This will allow you to get the most out of it, as well as to get ahead as the leaders within your own industry.
