Business Growth is a word that comes to the mind of every business owner in the world.
The word how can I grow my business and let more people know about it or how can I grow my business and increase the revenue generated?
Before we dive deeper into how you can grow your business let’s look at its definition of it:
Business Growth is a stage a successful organization or business enterprise reaches the point where they are supposed to expand or expansion is needed for them to generate more revenue.
Business growth is a function of the business lifecycle, the growth in the industry trends, and the business owner’s desire for equity value creation.
Having known the definition of business growth, let’s take a look at the steps to help you grow your business and move it forward to the next level.
Steps And Strategies To Grow a Successful Business.
1. Capital
Every business organizations in the world need capital to succeed, be it a small, medium, or large organization.
Your capital and the method used to effectively utilize will depend if your business will move forward or become stagnant.
Business capital is one of the most important for every organization that wants to succeed.
If you are just starting out and don’t have enough capital to start your business, let’s take a look at ways you can easily raise capital to help you move your business forward.
How To Raise Capital For Business Growth
i. Crowdfunding:
Crowding as defined by Wikipedia is the practice of funding a project by raising a small amount of money from a large number of people. Part of the people can be your family, friends, strangers, friends of friends, and many more.
There are a lot of online websites which can be used for crowding but the most popular of them which are gofundme and kickstarter.
ii. Apply For A Loan:
If you can’t do crowdfunding, taking a loan is also a good option to get started. Getting along might not be good for some businesses because of the interest that is accustomed to it but it is one of the best ways to get capital to start a business.
If properly planned your loan can turn to a good loan and bring in profit for you.
You can read this article from Nav.com to know how easily you can a loan and start your business.
2. Be well Organized
A good organization that wants to grow and outrank its competitors will be well organized from the beginning of the business. If you are well organized from the beginning you will be able to achieve a lot quicker because you have pointed out the lists of things to be done and how they can be done.
This is essential because it will be difficult for you to forget important tasks and make it easier for you to complete important tasks that are essential and beneficial to your business growth.
A well-organized business ensures an effective role-job fit for every employee. It brings together various departments to establish coordination which leads to the unification of efforts.
Organizing your business will also increase your productivity, and revenue, and reduce your profit risk.
IMPORTANCE OF BUSINESS ORGANIZING
- It Promotes Business Administration Efficiency:
Organizing your business will help you govern the work of the various departments by highlighting their work activities and their relationships in the structure of your organization.
- It saves Time:
Organizing your business will also help you to save time by setting a timeline for what you are doing, or outsourcing some of your jobs to a professional if necessary while you focus on other important business goals.
To get this done better you will need to have a planner or digital alerts on your mobile phone that will keep you focused.
- It increases Business Growth and Expansion:
When your organization's resources are effectively utilized and there is a proper division of departmental work among your employee, you will be able to multiply your organization's strength and take on more productive activities.
3. Competitor Analyses
For your company to succeed, you will need to identify and evaluate your competitors. There are many things your competitors might be doing that you will need to learn from and do better than them for your business to grow.
You will also need to conduct SWOT (Strength, Weakness, Opportunity, and Threat) analyses to assess your business's current position among its competitors to avoid failure.
Let’s go into the details of the 4 analyses And How It Will Help Your Business
- Strengths:
Have you asked yourself what your organization is really good at? That is called your strength. It is your strength because it makes you stand out from your competitors.
It is the advantage you have over other competitors and the wider economy at large.
The strength of your organization is an essential and important part of your organization, this should make you think deeply about it.
What do you do better than your competitors in the market? What value does your business drive? What is your value proposition? Identify and analyze the value proposition of your company and make sure it is added to your organization's strength.
You should also think from another angle as to what your competitors might see as your strength. The “what” is the proof that you get sales before them.
Key Note: The aspect of your organization that gives you an advantage should be seen as your strength. E.g, if you are into an eCommerce business and all your competitors in the same niche are able to offer fast delivery to their customers then you should be able to deliver quality products and offer them free delivery, it is a necessity to have a standout value.
- Weakness:
Every business has a weakness, take a good look at your organization's weakness.
The lack of identifying your organization's weakness will stop your organization from growing and reaching its potential.
They are always areas you will need to improve on for your company to move forward and become competitive in your niche.
Weakness is like strength, every organization has it, and this should make you focus on a lot of things in your organization.
Think deeply about what your organization is not good at or things you are not doing better and you could improve on it.
It is also advisable to imagine the rest of your competitors seeing you.
Ask yourself if they notice any weakness in your organization that you are not aware of.
If your competitor is doing better than you in your niche then it is high time you do weakness analyses to examine the reasons you are lacking behind them.
- Opportunities:
These are the external opportunities that arise from outside of your organization, it is an opening for something positive to happen, but this is an opening you will need to claim yourself.
This opening comes about as a development in the market you serve.
If you are smart enough to spot and make use of opportunities that come around your business, your business will be able to grow, compete and dominate in your market.
Think deeply about the good opportunities that can be spotted easily because any small advantages you have over your competitor can increase your business growth.
The most important aspect of seeking opportunities for your business is to be fully aware of government policies.
You should be aware of changes in government policies that have a huge positive impact on your business.
- Threats:
If anything has the potential to harm your business then it is a threat and should not be overlooked.
Threat could come from anywhere like supply in the market requirements, and supply chain problems.
It is important to anticipate the threats you face and it is more important you take action against those threats before your business becomes a victim and it hinders growth of your business.
4. Understanding Risks And Rewards Involved
A well-calculated risk will help your business grow and help you to avoid falling into bad debt.
All businesses in the world have their own risks but successful businesses are the ones that are well-calculated to avoid maximum risk.
Part of understanding risks is knowing the perfect time to start a business.
Starting any business will involve money, and most of the money you will invest in your business will come from your personal savings or loan.
Understanding the risks and rewards involved in your business will help you determine how far your business can go, and how much you are willing to sacrifice to build a successful business.
Lets’ take a look at the Risks that are involved while trying to build a successful business:
- Brand Strategy Risk:
As an entrepreneur, you need to know that building a successful business requires a comprehensive, well-detailed business plan.
Your company has a higher chance to succeed if you have a comprehensive brand strategy.
It is also part of the reality that things change, the economy changes without notifications and your best brand strategy might not be able to save your business from failing when that happens.
With brand strategy risk your business strategy will become less effective, and you will be unable to reach your goal.
The economic changes that might affect the strategy of your business could be due to pandemics, inflation, shifts in customer demand, powerful new competitor, government policies e.tc.
- Financial Risk:
Financial risk is a major factor to be considered. Financial risk is not only about the money you spent to keep the business moving.
It also involves the capital flowing in and out of your business, and the possibility of going bankrupt if the capital flowing in is less than the one flowing out.
Debt also increases your business's financial risk. Having a lot of debt is not good for the success of any business, particularly if the debt is a short-term debt that only gives you a small amount of time to pay up.
- Modus Operandi:
Your business mode of operation can also be a source of risk that is stopping your business from growing.
How do you operate your company? Do you have employees? How effective are they at carrying out their duty?
A failure in your company's day-to-day activities will have a negative impact on the growth, and bottom line of your company.
Now that I have mentioned the three major risks involved in building a successful business, let's look at the rewards:
i. Financial Reward: Although your business might not necessarily make you a billionaire, but there is no limit to the amount of money you can make if your business becomes successful.
ii. Ownership Reward: By starting a business, you create a new entity that requires your care and utmost attention.
Careful planning of your business will make it grow over time, it can also become a recognized company in your industry, community, province, or state.
If your business becomes successful over time, you will be able to sell it for a huge amount of money, or pass it to your children and increase generational wealth.
iii. Autonomy: Because it is your own business you have the right to make any decision that will benefit your company.
You can steer your company in any way that makes sense as long as it is within the law, and you can also develop a business model that will be profitable
iv. Creativity is Compulsory: As I said previously, every business will encounter problems, so will your own, but your creativity will determine how quickly you will get out of the various problems you will encounter.
Your creativity will also be able to give you the knowledge to see various opportunities in the problems and challenges you are facing.
With creativity, your business will gain more value and also have some advantages over your industry competitors.
Creativity is necessary for problem-solving, it will also enable you to find different opportunities to improve your business productivity.
The presence of creativity will enable you to see things from a different perspective, this will give you the leverage to use your imagination to come up with various innovative business approaches.
5. Provide Great Customer Relationship:
Customers are the lifeblood of every business, if you provide them with better service, they will always want to come back to you instead of going to your competitor.
Let them know that you greatly value them, and swiftly address any issue they might face.
Your business presence on social media channels will also allow you to listen to the pain point of your customers and how you can satisfy them.
A satisfied customer is a marketing tool for every business that wants to be successful because satisfied customers are likely to refer their friends, family, and colleagues to you if they are satisfied with your service.
Every successful business in the world has a social media account so make sure you make good use of it.
6. Customer Loyalty
If you consider the effort you will put into your marketing before you could get a single customer you would not want your customers to vanish after only a one-time purchase, you will want them to always come back to buy from you.
To do these you have to offer them discounts and promotions, don’t let your competitors offer them what you are supposed to offer them, they can easily go away from you to your competitors.
7. Personal Development
If you want to grow your business you have to grow yourself and your employees.
The success of your business will also depend on the quality of your employees, before your business can grow and be prosperous it is a necessity you build an effective team and give them a sense of purpose.
They should be happy with the work they are doing.
8. Have a Robust Online Presence:
Having a robust online presence means you should have all-around visibility of your business on all online platforms that are important to your business.
When you have a robust online presence your target customers will be encouraged to take the necessary action which will positively impact your business, like increasing your business bottom line.
A well-planned online strategy is characterized by your business gaining visibility on the first page of search engine results pages (SERPs) every time your target customers search on keyword queries that are related to your business.
It can also be about your frequent appearance on social media: like appearing on the news feed of your target customers on Facebook, Having an influencer-like personality on Twitter, or linkedln.
With a robust online presence and a well-planned online marketing campaign, you will gain the trust of your business target customers and increase your brand awareness.
Trust will add credibility to your online presence, and turn you into an authority in your industry.
It will also increase your marketing ROI because online customers gladly patronize their trusted brands.
Let’s look at the credibility factors of why you need to create a robust online presence: