How to develop business growth strategies for your company or small business

It’s one thing to build a company. Then you have to keep finding sustainable ways to grow and expand your business. As we all know, without growth, your business won’t increase in value or may not even survive.

But where do you begin?

The first thing you need to do is get serious. Having a strong work ethic, a good business idea and a can-do attitude are great. But none of these things alone will sustain your business or company.  

What you need is to develop and implement some effective business growth strategies.

What's a business growth strategy?

A business growth strategy is a plan designed to help your business grow. And no two plans will be the same. Depending on your business, industry and perhaps even your business exit plan, your business growth strategy might include things like:

• increasing sales and revenue
• expanding your customer base
• opening up more sites or locations 
• expanding or developing more products
• creating multiple streams of income.

No matter what strategies you use, they must be measurable, specific and designed to deliver lasting growth. In other words, they must be SMART strategies.

SMART Goals

If you’ve ever done any kind of marketing strategy or goal setting, you know what SMART goals are. The great thing is they can be applied to any type of growth strategy – big, small or somewhere in between.

Just to remind you, SMART stands for:

• Specific
• Measurable 
• Attainable
• Realistic
• Timely

For example, you might want to double your business within three years. That’s a great longer term goal but what happens in the meantime? Maybe choose something more realistic and timelier, like increasing sales by 10 percent within the next six months. That way, you’ve set a small goal and can reassess at six months to see if you’re on track for your three year goal.

What makes your business different?

Find out what makes you different to your competitors, this is also known as a value proposition. Why do your customers come to you rather than a similar business down the street? You need to be honest here.

The Aussie ‘supermarkets wars’ are a perfect example.

Woolworths are the fresh food people.

Coles are cheaper and keep prices down.

IGA are local people.

And ALDI. Well ALDI just keeps on marching to the beat of their own very successful drum with their Good Different proposition.  

When you know what your own value proposition is, embrace it and use it to attract more customers and new business.

Get to know your customers

Do you know what your customers need? Have their needs changed, perhaps due to a certain pandemic? Look at the services or products they’re buying from you, then look at if you can offer better value, or provide more of what they want. 

Other than number crunching, the best way to get to know your customers is to engage with them. Find out where they hang out on social media, ask for feedback. 

Once you’ve gathered all the intel, it’s worth taking a little bit of time to design a persona for your ideal target market. Include details like where they live, what their income is, do they have kids etc. The more you can create a persona that feels like a real person to you, the easier it will be to consider them when making decisions in your business. When you figure out who your perfect customer is you can then sell directly to them.

It's all about customer service

Businesses can no longer get away with average customer service. Customers are looking for an experience and want to be delighted and surprised. If that doesn’t happen, they’ll take their business elsewhere.

Did you know there’s entire online video channels devoted to product unboxing? If you’re selling physical products, a few pieces of tissue paper, a cute sticker and personalised thank you card could mean thousands of extra views on social media. This of course translates to thousands of potential new customers. 

Everybody loves a smiling face or voice and a ‘free gift with purchase’ is popular for a reason. Your happy customers will talk about you and direct their friends, families and social networks in your direction. 

Love the one you're with

While it’s great fun getting out there and finding new customers, don’t forget the ones already supporting your business. Offer special deals via email or newsletter subscriptions. Set up a rewards system or loyalty card. Free shipping if they spend a certain amount of dollars. Allow existing customers sneak peeks and exclusive pre-sale options. 

Every business owner knows it’s more expensive bringing in new business rather than keeping existing customers happy, loyal and buying from you. 

Networking

Networking in the 21^st century is anything you want it to be. While the old networking rules still apply, the way you use them is completely up to you. 

Networking can be physically getting out into your local community or becoming involved with your specific industry. 

Or it can be jumping online and creating content for all the social media platforms your customers hang out in. And the beauty of social media is you also get to check out what your competitors are doing and how it's working for them.

Networking, like customer service, is all about building relationships.

Analyse your results

Don’t forget to analyse your results. Whether it’s in the form of feedback, customer surveys, advertising or just watching the comments on your social media accounts. Take note of everything, The good, the bad and the ugly. Because this is the information and data that tells the story of just how well (or not) your business growth strategies are working for you. 

Bring in the experts

If you’re doing all the things and analysing all the results but still not sure where to move next, maybe you need to chat with an expert. Kelly+Partners offer a range of services to suit your business needs.

Whether it’s digging deeper into your business or company, planning for the future or even connecting you with our own network of business specialists, we’re here to help you be better off.