You’ve been in your entrepreneurial journey for a little while, of course, your goal is to grow quickly and turn a good profit. Business owners can be an impatient bunch and we all want fast growth, so it’s vital to utilise proven business strategies to achieve results.
You want to see the rewards of all your hard work. Who doesn’t? Like many good things in life growing your business takes time though. But, with a good growth strategy, you can speed up the process and develop your dream company.
Manage your time profitably:
Your time is a valuable resource don’t waste it.
It needs to be used profitably and being sales focused is the way to start. According to Siimon Reynolds, new businesses should be spending around 80% of your day on sales, established businesses should be spending 30% of your day on the sales process or connecting with customers. Thomas Watson, founder of IBM was right when he stated, “nothing happens until somebody sells something.” However, this process isn’t all about closing the deal. You are connecting with your customers and finding out what their pain points are. This is a valuable opportunity to provide them with a product or service that solves their specific problems. Do this well, and you will earn a loyal customer base and referrals swiftly.
Delegate:
If you want to grow you must be comfortable with delegating.
It can be tempting to control every aspect of your business. However, you only have so many hours in a day. Delegating is the best way to use your time wisely and focus on your strengths within your business. To do this well, you have to hire the right team. Employees are your most expensive and profitable asset. You don’t want to hire people who are simply there to collect a paycheck. You want a team that takes pride in their work and adds value to the business. Carefully consider what type of person would fit into your company culture. Then come up with a job description. Figure out your strengths and weaknesses too. Delegate the tasks you are weak in and hone in on your strengths.
You don’t always have to hire a team in house either. Sometimes it makes more sense to hire an external team of experts to manage specialist sections of your business. Financial account keeping (bookkeepers and accountants) and marketing (like eSense) are two good examples where this often makes more sense to hire an external team.
You don’t have to reinvent the wheel:
When it comes to marketing your business, you don’t have to reinvent the wheel. Especially if you are looking to grow your company quickly. Focus on tried and true revenue sources such as a great website, loyalty benefits, and whatever other marketing strategies have proven effective in your industry. There is no guarantee that everything will work it may take some trial and error. Once you have a few marketing streams running you can begin A/B testing to see which methods are the most profitable for you.
Check your costs:
If you want to grow quickly the last thing you need is waste and unnecessary risk. Any business has an element of risk associated with it. You can’t say for sure if the new marketing plan will work or if customers will be receptive to your new product line. However, there are ways to reduce risk and costs. Make sure you are getting the best deal with your vendors. If you find someone who is less expensive and just as good don’t be afraid to switch or see if your current vendor will price match. Don’t spend too much money on new advertising that has not proven itself successful. You want most of your marketing to go toward methods that have worked for you.
On the other hand if you aren’t ready to invest in growth you will stay exactly where you are (or even go backwards).
In relation to marketing, the general rule of thumb for established businesses is to spend 5% of your gross revenue on marketing to maintain your current revenue and 10-15% of gross revenue to grow. For early stage business the %’s are higher. Of course every business is different, but this gives you a general idea of where you should be looking.
Embrace social media:
Advertising via social media channels is affordable and effective. You can place ads on various social media outlets and gain traction with your social media activity. This does not mean you have to spend all day on it though. There are several social media schedulers that will post your tweets or Facebook messages at the optimal time. You schedule the all your posts into a calendar and they are automatically sent at the right time. Social media advertising is a great way to cut your advertising budget down and experience growth.
A word of caution on this though – social media sites prefer content added by humans so your reach may not be as good if you automate this.
Invest in your professional development:
According to Christian Lanng, CEO of Tradeshift “A startup’s ability to invest in itself [helps] accelerate growth…”If you invest in your business development early, you have a greater chance of growing rapidly.
When it comes to earning customers and turning a profit the faster the better. We strive to do that every day for our customers. At eSense, our team of experts evaluates your business to create a solutions that will increase revenue and reduce your workload. Contact us today to see how it works.
