To take your small startup to the next business epoch requires the owner to line up an awful lot of ducks. It’s a real balancing act to look in the rear view mirror to ensure that current business performance is humming nicely, while also looking forward to embrace new growth opportunities. With this article we examine ten crucial SME growth tips…
1. Zero In On Your Target Niche. To grow your business and sales requires a steadfast commitment to tap into your key markets. Take a look at where you are right now and examine ways by which you may be able to narrow your focus to reach and appeal to your ideal customers. When looking to grow, be ruthless in determining which target clients your business growth is aimed at, and how best to tap into them.
2. Always Promote Your USP. Really, there’s usually very little difference between similar brands and companies aside from a warm and appealing USP. Your USP is your brands biggest strength – it’s what segregates your widget from the hundreds of others in the marketplace. To grow your business, your USP must evolve and stay a step ahead of the competition.
3. Delegate. Know any FTSE companies that are one man bands? The art of delegation is crucial in helping a business to grow. Good delegation involves hiring the right people to do the right tasks at the right time.
4. Embrace Every Efficiency Going. A growth business is one that understands the need to continually process efficiencies. This can take a wide myriad of forms, from hammering down better deals with suppliers (cost efficiencies) to thumping out bottlenecks (operational efficiencies) to embracing new online technology and systems to grab all the low hanging fruits that ecommerce has to offer (technological efficiencies).
5. Get Social. Social marketing is just about compulsory in the digital age we live in. The right social marketing techniques can help grow and promote your brand, and help create a more vibrant spark between you and your customers.
6. Become Client Oriented. It’s very difficult to grow a company unless everyone within the organization has the interests of clients at heart. A company that has a good product plus a strong customer oriented ethos is likely to foster repeat custom and a lot of good word of mouth.
7. Market Harder And Smarter. For any company to grow it needs to have a highly robust and effective marketing plan. Growth relies upon a constant flux of new customers – something that can only ever really be achieved by reaching the right people at the right time. If there’s one budget that may need a bit more oomph for growth focused companies…it’s this one.
8. Weigh Up Risk Vs Reward. Growth always has an element of risk attached. Most companies will need to leverage either their cash reserves or some level of external gearing in order to facilitate their growth plans.
9. You Will Meet A Tall Dark (Or Fair) Stranger. One of the best ways to grow is to sell your products abroad. This can be especially potent if you have an exciting new product or service that has wide global appeal.
10. Don’t Settle Within A Comfort Zone. This goes for you and every person who works in the company – growth always requires the corporate team to keep thinking of new and better ways to solve the same problem. Comfort zones and growth companies make for very strange bedfellows indeed.