Being an entrepreneur might be very rewarding, but it is equally daunting. There is no secret ingredient to grow your business rapidly, and no matter how hard you try, you will never achieve the results overnight. Running a successful business is not easy. It requires a concoction of multiple values, practices, and ideals, and even if you do all things right, you might still not get there.
In the world of business, nothing is guaranteed. Yes, you may predict the trajectory of your company’s growth with resources available, but it might still be wrong, owing to the countless factors that your business may get affected by. Take the example of the past year 2020 – who could have predicted that a global pandemic would shatter the prospects of millions of businesses across the world?
As the owner of a growing business, you will have to juggle various business departments starting from finances, human resources, operations, planning to market, and sales. Even if you hire the best of the staff, you will still need to oversee everything. The ultimate liability to boost your business rests on you, and for that, you must pay attention to every little detail.
Here’s what you can do to make your business grow
If your business growth has reached a plateau, don’t worry; we’ve got your back. Take your business to the next level by following these six simple tips.
1. Improve visibility
One of the basic yet crucial reasons your business isn’t yielding more incredible results is that you don’t have an extensive customer base. If your products or services cannot reach out to a fair number of people, you won’t even find buyers for them.
The first step to fix this is to improve your visibility. Restructure your marketing team, have them come up with new ideas, and don’t hesitate to go out of the box. Go big with your advertisements. Buy add space on popular social media apps like Facebook and Instagram.
Don’t forget to create a well-made user-friendly website for your business. This will contribute significantly to your online presence. Also, interact better with your customers and stay updated by creating a business account on social media platforms. Consumers are more likely to share your business with their friends when your company has an account on major online platforms.
2. Focus on your employees
Sometimes you need to look on the inside to come up with the correct answer instead of fixing all the external factors around you. Your employees are your company’s human assets, and you need to manage them well. More than 50% of CEOs believe that the work culture affects productivity, creativity, profitability, company value, and growth rate. Ensure that your employees are satisfied and keep coming back every day to a job they enjoy doing.
Employee engagement and wellness is the key to a successful business. Make sure that you treat your employees with kindness and that their grievances are attended to. A study by the Harvard Business Review states that 63% of employees are more satisfied with their jobs when they feel employers treat them with respect.
Ensure that your employees understand correctly the work assigned to them to have effective results for your business. Hold extensive one-on-one meetings, or group meetings, if they are working from home. Record and store your online meetings with the help of an online video camera recorder for everyone in your office to stay updated and use for future reference.
3. Focus on your existing customer base
The debate of customer acquisition versus customer retention is a long-standing one. Although many people may advise you to do otherwise, you must focus on your existing customer base rather than trying to acquire new customers desperately. According to a study by Marketing Metrics, you have a good 60% to 70% chance of selling your product to an existing customer. In comparison, the chances of a new customer buying from you are only about 5% to 20%.
It may seem reasonable to attract more customers, but it frequently costs more to bring in new customers than the profit you extract out of them, for they may be one-time buyers. Businesses that ignore their loyal, active customers in favor of seeking out new ones risk losing out on the customers who are likely to spend more and ultimately compromise on their profit margin.
The goal should be to create loyal customers out of first-time buyers and then, over time, convert these loyal ones into advocates for your company. Do this by offering lucrative loyalty and membership programs for those who come back to buy from you.
4. Be flexible in your approach
When you’re running a business, you never know what’s coming next. You need to be prepared for every adverse emergency situation and face them head-on. One characteristic that many successful startups share is the ability to respond quickly to erratic market changes. A study conducted by the Manpower Group claims that around 74% of businesses in the United States have restructured themselves for better functioning.
When your business is met with an unprecedented challenge, make your way out of it by being flexible in the way you operate your business. Also, be ready to explore new ways to manage your business, and if needed, take suggestions from the people who work for you. They likely know your business inside out.
5. Value customer experiences
Your customer’s perception of your company or what they take back from their shopping experience is crucial for your company to become successful. If you deliver quality products and services, customers will be quick to appreciate you, but if you mess up even in the slightest possible way, the word will get around even faster. Such is the power of customer experience on your company’s reputation.
You need to compete on customer service if you want to stand out—and win the right to charge higher rates than your competitors. Make your customers fall in love with not only your product but also the process of doing business with you.
Understand who your customers are and what their expectations are out of you by taking regular customer feedback. Set up an efficient customer relationships phone system for office toll look into this matter
6. Stay updated with your finances
To have a happier result, you must first understand your company’s financial health. Financial management is crucial for this and ideally doing so through a business checking account (Ex: Chase) and accounting software (Ex: Quickbooks). It’s essential to keep records of your company’s debt to know what options you have for the future. Staying updated with your numbers lets you have a reality check.
Monitoring and managing your massive cash flows is essential to making investments or operational decisions for your company. When you’re paying attention to your finances, you can even save up on several aspects and generate more wealth for your company.
With financial management, you can be prepared to tackle recession, depression, a boom, or any economic crisis. Financial management even lets you plan out your long-term goals by assessing the resources available to you.
It can be challenging to keep your business afloat through difficult times and make it thrive, but it is possible if you are committed to putting in the extra work.
