It’s a common goal for business owners to want to grow their business. Every company starts as a startup, even if you have capital and investors behind you. That business needs to grow and develop before it can become something massive.
Whether you have goals to be as big as Apple or you simply want a business that can sustain itself and support your family, growth is the way to get there. So here are a few tips to work through the potential obstacles and transform a side hustle into a competitive business.
A Word of Caution
First things first, while you might want to grow your business quickly, it’s important to be careful of growing too quickly. Rapid booms are exciting in the meantime and can generate a lot of business, but they can be a pitfall.
If your business expands too quickly, it can become bloated. Think about a plant that shoots up too tall without strengthening its roots and stem. It might look impressively tall, but it’s leggy and unproductive and eventually it will have to be trimmed back or it will die.
The key is steady growth. Rather than rapidly hiring whoever comes along and stretching your infrastructure to meet certain demands that might not be permanent, grow steadily and build your foundations as you go. This way, you can sustain the growth rather than risking a collapse.
Great Marketing
In order to grow, your business needs money. In order to get money, your business needs customers. In order to get customers, you need to market your business. It doesn’t matter how big or small your business is or even what industry you’re in, marketing is the key to good business growth.
Every marketing strategy needs to start with market research. You need to learn about the market that you’re in, as well as the other businesses in the area. You might find that you have direct competitors that could crowd the market and make it harder to grow.
In this case, consider shifting to a niche that isn’t being filled. You could market to different people who would still be interested in your product, or you could even consider moving to another market entirely.
You also need to learn about the people you’re selling to. Who would be interested in your product and how can you market to them?
A targeted marketing strategy is bound to be more effective than a generic one. So, if you build fences for a living, find a fence builder marketing service to help, and so on for other niches.
Go Online
Local businesses are great and an important part of local communities, but they are limited. If you want to grow past your local market, it’s a good idea to go online. If you offer a service that is limited to a specific area, growth might be slower but it’s still possible.
But if you sell a product or offer a service that can be achieved remotely, you could potentially go global. This massively increases your potential market and your potential for growth. An eCommerce website can sell to people all over the world.
Of course, online growth means more than just setting up a website and calling it a day. You should also take advantage of social media and regularly update your website and social media accounts.
Use marketing techniques to make your website more popular and make sure that it’s designed effectively.
Hiring More People
When growing your business, you will need to grow your team. This means hiring more employees and, ideally, finding the right people for the job.
The first step is to define the role you need someone to fill. Employees can either reduce your workload by helping you with projects and taking on projects of their own, or they can shore up different skills and allow you to build a more varied team.
This means looking for people who are qualified for different roles and who can work together as a team. You don’t need clones with all of the same skills, you need people who can add to the projects you’re working on.
This will allow you to expand what you can do and how much you can do. It also means you can focus on things you’re more passionate about and skilled at, rather than having to run an entire business by yourself. Don’t be afraid to outsource some tasks to other people as well, such as accounting or legal work.
