You need a good strategy to grow your business. Successfully scaling your company can be about doing the fundamentals and having the stamina to see them through. This can take considerable effort. It can also mean wearing several different “hats,” such as sales, marketing, finance manager, IT, and human resources.
Likewise, it could require you to interact with customers regularly. You may have to buckle down and focus on your company for more than just 8 hours a day. Doing all of this can take a toll on you. But it can be worth it if you scale your company and take it to the next level quickly and efficiently.
How to Grow Your Company
You must put in the time and effort to reap the benefits of owning a successful and profitable business. In this case, looking long-term is critical. You should also genuinely care about your customers.
Regardless of the industry your company falls into, there are several proven strategies for scaling it. These include the following:
- Building a sales funnel
- Utilizing a customer management system
- Knowing your competition
- Creating a customer loyalty program
- Identifying new opportunities
- Building an email list
- Forming strategic partnerships
- Leveraging global platforms
- Licensing deals
- Considering a franchise model
- Diversifying your lineup of product or service offerings
- Building passive income streams
- Acquiring other businesses
- Expanding internationally
- Creating webinars
Building a Sales Funnel
Building a sales funnel is one of the best ways to grow your business. These can help you automate your business. While some front-end work is involved, sales funnels can help you build an automated sales machine to quickly grow and scale your company.
Utilizing a Customer Management System
Manually tracking transactions can be time-consuming. So, using a customer management system can help scale your business quickly. Some popular customer management systems options include:
- SalesForce – This cloud-based software provides sales, service, and marketing solutions.
- Quickbooks – Quickbooks is an accounting tool that allows you to easily track income and expenses, pay contractors and employees, and manage projects.
- InfusionSoft – This program can help with sales and marketing for your business. It can also integrate with other cloud-based services.
Knowing Your Competition
Knowing your company’s competition is critical for growing the business. Some methods for doing so can include:
- Uncovering competitors’ online advertising methods
- Finding ads that have been running for a long time, and emulating them
If various marketing tactics are working for your competitors, they will likely also work for you.
Creating a Customer Loyalty Program
Getting customers can be a difficult task. Keeping them is essential for growing your business. Customer loyalty programs can help you increase sales and keep clients returning, especially if there is a clear incentive for them to spend more money with your company.
Some examples of customer loyalty programs include:
- Discounts
- Referral fees
- Points programs
Identifying New Opportunities
You can analyze new business opportunities by better understanding your demographics. This refers to everything from distribution channels to competitors. There are likely many new opportunities you could pursue immediately with the proper analysis.
Building an Email List
Building an email list is one of the most effective strategies for growing a business quickly. This entails offering a “lead magnet” where your website visitors are offered a free report or another item of value in return for giving you their name and contact information. (This is typically their email address).
Lead magnets will require you to have a sales funnel. Some companies can build and manage your email list for you. A few of these include:
- Aweber
- ConstantContact
- ConvertKit
- Drip
- GetResponse
Forming Strategic Partnerships
There is strength in numbers. This is why forming strategic partnerships can be beneficial. Partnering with the right companies can significantly affect how fast your business grows. It can also allow you to reach a wide range of potential customers quickly. The best companies to form strategic partnerships with offer products or services complementary to yours.
Leveraging Global Platforms
Leveraging global platforms like Amazon can also help your business grow because they have already reached saturation and may target the same customers you’re going after. Remember, if you want to catch a lot of fish, you must go where the fish already are.
Licensing Deals
Doing licensing deals is a great way to grow your business without too much effort. For example, if you have a product you can license to others and share revenue, that is an ideal strategy for growing your company quickly. In this case, bringing a popular or successful product to a company with a large footprint can help you achieve market saturation faster.
Considering a Franchise Model
You may consider franchising your business if it is already successful. While franchise costs can be high, they could significantly affect how quickly your company grows and expands into additional markets.
Diversifying Your Product or Service Offerings
You can also grow your business by diversifying your lineup of products or services. One example could be to provide items or offerings complimentary to what you already have. Another option is to identify new opportunities within your current niche. In doing so, ask yourself where else you can add value to your customers.
Building Passive Income Streams
Passive income streams can allow you to achieve financial freedom. This is because you don’t have to “trade hours for dollars” when you have passive income that arrives regularly, regardless of what you’re doing.
Acquiring Other Businesses
It could make sense to acquire other businesses to help your company grow. Some viable candidates here may include competitors or businesses in industries that complement yours. Therefore, look within your industry and at the competition to determine where there are potential opportunities.
Expanding Internationally
Depending on your business, you might consider expanding internationally to grow your company. While there would likely be costs involved, the profit potential with an international expansion could be substantial.
Creating Webinars
Given the vast reach of the Internet, more companies are using webinars (i.e., online seminars) to reach and educate potential new customers. A webinar involves the right approach and a compelling offer for the attendees. The attendees can typically tune in from any mobile device, such as a computer, smartphone, or tablet.
These events provide an easy and convenient way for people to tune in and learn about your product or service. Webinars can also offer an automated selling tool for quickly taking nearly any product or service to market and reaching a broad audience. The webinar medium is ideal for captivating an audience to clinch sales automatically.
Do You Have a Growth Strategy for Your Company?
To grow your company, you must have a solid strategy. This can provide you with a step-by-step plan for implementing the proper method(s) for growth at a pace you are comfortable following. Working with a business growth consultant can help you sort through the possibilities and then make a plan to forge ahead.