10 Different Ways to Grow Your Small Business
When it comes to ensuring the growth and development of a small or midsize business, the best way to keep the proverbial goose and golden eggs on your front is by executing certain efficacious strategies. So, whether you own a small business or just manage a department, here are ten effective strategies to ensure a long term business growth. Take a look.
1. Be goal oriented
The growth and development of any small business begins with focusing on the quality and targeted goals. A goal oriented strategy will also take you and your employees off the superfluous misalignment and goof-ups.
2. Ask your peers
Sharing and taking experience from other entrepreneurs on a regular basis will bestow you with untouched business knowledge. When you will be in a crucial business crisis, these experiences will later on take you off the ledge.
3. Take advantages of social networking tools and online media
To attract traffic and make others acquainted with your existence in the international market, make use of blogs, websites, twitter or facebook. Awash your digital market space with effective and attractive videos and blogs. This will eventually drive more companies to your business and will help you carve your niche among your target audience. Remember, promotion of your business and services is the key to success.
4. Hire effective employees
More than half of your business success is dependent on how effective your employees are. Don’t hire people that have an executive position in their former company; look for doers that could achieve targets within the provided deadlines.
5. Don’t sweat the small financial loss
Of course, any sort of financial setback harshly affects the morale of the business. But, rather lamenting your failures and losing your cool over your employees, examine what went wrong. Take a scrutinized look at your forecast sales and cash flow, and work accordingly.
6. Centralize on the long run
Instead of investing all your time and resource in the shorter purposes look into the bigger picture. You would not want to have something that only comes handy and meaningful in short run. That’s why, reassure yourself that your hard earned money is working for you and is continuously renewed in the process.
7. Plan a backup door
Look beyond the certain target audience. Business which particularly manufactures products in-house can pitch in with other smaller firms, if it allows you to gain a larger order. Don’t give a second thought if you are not making expected profit as long as your business is supported with a few good market opportunities.
8. Make long-term partnership with firms that could expand in near future
To avoid any under-delivered promises, you need to research for companies that can scale with your business potential. Find out which firm holds the possibility of making it big in near future, and try to establish a healthy relationship with its employees.
9. Don’t fall in the same stream
To get an edge over your competitors, you need to do something innovative and experimental. This will rev up your sales and eventually your business development.
10. Re-analyze your business
Once you have noticed that your plan is falling into the place, don’t just sit down and relax. Rather, run with the flow and find out the next emerging possibilities for your business. After all, achieving one success doesn’t define your business prospects.
With a small business comes limited resources; therefore, effectively planning your business strategies is the only best way to ensure the growth and financial stability of your firm. Just, keep these aforementioned points in mind to persuade your small business in the line of successful companies.
About the author: Diana Maria is a blogger by profession. She loves writing on technology. Beside this she is fond of autos. Recently an article on Motorola DEFY plus attracted her attention. These days she is busy in writing an article on chicken pox treatment.
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Essential Tools for Scaling Your Start-Up
So you’ve built your idea into a real deal company, made it through the grind and finally making some cash. The question is can you continue to grow; can you scale? A vital part of scaling your business will be using the right tools to handle more and continue working as you grow.
CRM
A big piece of making a scalable business is having insight into your sales and marketing activities, this is where CRM comes in. Without a system to manage your sale process and measure marketing activities impact on leads and sales you are essentially working in the dark. The biggest keys in sales and marketing are measurement to see what works and what doesn’t. A good CRM system can be invaluable in helping to get to your business goals since it solves 2 major problems that happen in growing startups: data fragmentation and boosting productivity.
When it comes to selection, there are a number of solutions available including Salesforce.com, Sugar and Leads360. Depending on what your business is, the nature of your sales cycle and the technical capabilities of your team your choice will be different. In general Salesforce.com would probably be the best defacto solutions because of its ability scale from very small all the way to enterprise levels with very little need for implementation other than training. Salesforce also has the advantage of the most heavily integrated with other business applications via its massive AppExchange. That being said, given your situation you really need define, in detail, what your main requirements are given your sales process to pick the solution that best fits you. For some help I would recommend checking out this great piece that goes into much more detail from CRMbuyer on CRM for the Small Business (it says for small business but can work for anyone).
Document Management
While it may not seem vital to your business, the documents and records you have are incredibly valuable. The edge in business today is the ability to collect, retrieve and analyze your business data better, faster and more efficient than the competition. A document management system is really vital to getting most out of the documents and the processes associated with them. While in their infancy these systems were little more than a paper conversion system but nowadays they do a whole heck of a lot more. Beyond having advanced indexing to let you retrieve vital information in seconds, the best system provide insight into what steps in document processes are inefficient as well as providing valuable info on what the workload for many of your departments are.
Out of the more advanced systems available docSTAR is one to check out. Similar to the way Saleforce operates, docSTAR has an advantage in that it can scale with nearly any size business. If you’re still pretty small you can go with their more basic option that’s cloud based, but they can easily transition you to their more advanced system that includes all sorts of goodys including a thing called PackageWorks that provides detailed data on all your document processes.
Customer/User Feedback Systems
Growing a source of feedback from customers is extremely important to know how to improve your product/business and continue to grow. These aren’t really one tool but a variety to continue to measure and refine.
Web Analytics
Know what and how people are interacting with your website; Sounds simple but a ton of people in non web centric startups don’t focus on this awesome (free) data! Using Google Analytics you can learn a lot about what’s working and how/if buzz is growing around your business. I could write a whole post on Google Analytics but if you’re serious about learning it check out this Google Analytics Guide (props to Slingshot SEO).
Feedback Surveys
Too often startups rely on instinctual gut feelings to determine product or service offerings and changes…if you’re trying to scale, stop doing it. Start getting qualitative feedback from your user base and actually know what’s working and what’s not. Survey.io is an awesome tool to use that helps you understand your most passionate customers. The survey questions from the system revolves around emotion “How would you feel if you could no longer use [your product/service]” and have only 4 options ranging from very disappointed to no longer using. If you can get to over 40% of users reporting “very disappointed” then you are on your way to building a scalable business. The 40% benchmark was determined across hundreds of startups, those who were above 40% were generally able to continue their growth, and those who were under tend to struggle.
Scaling isn’t the finish line
Now that you’ve got some tools you should be looking at to scale your business it’s important to point out that once you get some traction, scaling isn’t the end of the road. There is still much work to be done to really make your business continue to grow; you’ll need to go into executive mode and rely more on data. Use some of these tools and the transition should be a bit easier.
About the Author
Gerad Hoyt is an online marketing strategist who specializes working with start-up clients. Currently Gerad is working with Pre Employment Testing software provider Chequed.com.
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Reach Success: 5 Easy Ways to Increase Your Clientele
Establishing a solid customer-base is crucial for any start up or small business owner—after all, without any customers/clients, you make no money and without any money your small business will crash and burn. While hiring a strong marketing team can help you acquire a good number of costumers, this route can be pretty expensive. And naturally with any small business owner, funds are tight. But there are few things you can do on your own to help build your number of customers that is relatively cheap or even better, free. To learn how you can increase your clientele and help ensure the success of your business, continue reading below.
1. Do Research
First and foremost you need to get in touch with the needs of your target audience. You could be selling the most innovative product or service known to man but if you don’t know how to appeal and relate to your target audience’s wants and needs, your campaign may fall flat. For example, could your audience be hesitant about taking a chance on you because they are hard up for cash? If this is the case you need to directly state how your product or service is beneficial to your customer despite their economic hardship, which leads us to out next tip—
2. Offer Exclusive Deals
The truth of the matter is that consumers are always looking for a good bargain, especially now (during the holidays). To appeal to the masses, offer some discounts and exclusive deals to new customers or offer a promotional limited time-only offer to people already on your email list serve for example. You can offer an immediate discount or a next-purchase discount, you can offer a 2-for-1 deal, offer free shipping and handling, or even offer a free consultation or an introductory class. The goal is to find a way to persuade new costumers to try your product or service because the deal is irresistible (and of course superior than your competitors.)
3. Get on the Social Media Map
This is crucial. If you do not know how to use popular social media sites like Facebook, Twitter and Google+ to self-market your business it’s time you learn now. Right now. The power of social medial isn’t going to dwindle anytime soon and these free tools are a great way to reach your target audience and establish your brand free of cost. In fact, even those that refused to give-in to social media in the past will be jumping on the bandwagon come the New Year. According to statistics, 40 % of surveyed small business owners said they finally plan on using social media in 2012.
4. Be Mobile and Tablet Compatible
If you’ve created a website or blog to get your name out there that’s a great start but it isn’t enough—it’s the age of the smartphone and the tablet and consumers must be able to access your website/blog through these devices. Your site has to be compatible. While some platforms will automatically convert, others do not and you may need to download a special plug-in like WpTap to make your blog compatible. And you’re going to want to make your site convert. After all, some experts predict smartphones and tablets will replace the laptop one day and since the latest figures say one-third of the U.S. population owns a smartphone and uses it for its remote mobile access, you don’t want to risk missing out on a pool of smartphone/tablet- using costumers.
5. Hire Ambassadors
Lastly you can hire someone to utilize the traditional “word-of-mouth” marketing technique by hiring someone closely related to your target audience. For example, if you created a product that is specifically tailored to college-aged students, then you can hire a few students at the campus nearest to you and get them to tell their friends and other students how great your products or service is. You wouldn’t have to pay them much (or you could offer free merchandise instead for example), but it’s a great way to dig in deeper and go straight to the source.
Of course these aren’t the only things you can do to expand your costumer-base, but it’s a start. Do some research and investigate all of the other resources that are available to you to ensure that you find costumers and keep them coming back.
About the Author: This guest post is contributed by Katheryn Rivas, who writes for online universities blog. She welcomes your comments at her email Id: katherynrivas87@gmail.com.
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Built to Last – How to Grow Your Business by Hiring Leaders
All businesses need leaders on their staff, but small businesses need leaders even more. Why? If you are the entrepreneur who started the business, imagine yourself as the go-to person for all questions.
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Imagine yourself having to be the person who develops new procedures. Imagine yourself as the person who answers all the difficult, thorny questions that may come up.
If you have to provide all the leadership in the organization yourself, when will you have time to run your business – much less expand it? I suspect that you have other responsibilities on your plate besides supervising employees. What you need is a self-supervising employee who can discern when something needs to be done, and take the initiative to do it. Moreover, that person needs to care about the business and have the judgment, background, and intelligence to be able to make good decisions based on the information that is available – even if a question comes up that was not covered during employee training. What you need is a leader.
How can you find a leader if you are currently going through the hiring process? Look for the following signs of leadership:
Signs of Leadership in Lower Level Positions:
Continuing one’s own education. Not all industries require their leaders to have advanced degrees or certifications in order to advance, but many do. When you meet a job candidate who is attending school or pursuing a professional certification, or who has recently finished a degree program, take note of it. By continuing his or her education so aggressively, such a job candidate is showing not only that he or she can handle the stress and pressure of working and attending school simultaneously, but is planning to advance in their career by pursuing additional credentials. In other words, this person is ambitious and determined to take the initiative, rather than wait for promotions to be handed out at regular intervals.
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Working off the clock. The hallmark of an employee who lacks ambition is working straight nine to five hours, arriving right on time and leaving right on time, and taking no interest in the industry outside of work. Someone who aspires to be a leader in the industry, however, will go out and find activities to participate in that are related to it. You might find a job candidate who also does volunteer work for a community organization, for example. Or you might find an employee who likes to come to work early in order to have time to read the newspaper and browse through business websites.
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Positive energy. I find that leaders tend to be very energetic people with their fingers in lots of pies (figuratively speaking). They take a keen interest in many different areas, not all of which will be work-related. Leaders often, but not always, like to make time to exercise. It seems as though they have an inherent need to be constantly busy doing something. If you come across a job candidate who does a lot of volunteer work, or runs marathons, or who spends a lot of time on a time-consuming hobby, consider that person a potential leader – even if none of those activities are connected with the job in question. They are all signs of energy, and energetic employees are employees who help businesses to expand.
Signs of Leadership in Upper Level Positions:
Publications, conferences, trade shows, and public talks. Leaders in an industry will take a keen interest in the industry, taking the time to educate themselves further about special topics. Eventually, continuing education plus ongoing experience makes an interested party into something more – an expert. An expert without any leadership potential or ambition might stop there, but an expert who really wants to make a difference in the industry will take the initiative to help to develop the industry further, by sharing knowledge and engaging in a collective discussion of topics that are of interest. There are several ways to do this. For example, one might share knowledge by writing articles and submitting them to industry publications, or by participating in public talks, panels, and workshops at conferences and trade shows.
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Mentoring. A true leader does not climb the ladder of success alone, but reaches out a hand to help others to ascend as well. Try to find out if the job candidates you are considering have ever mentored their coworkers or supervisees. Mentoring could mean giving regular advice and encouragement, or helping a coworker to find ways to network in the industry by introducing them to others in the industry, or by inviting them to join professional groups. A mentor might also take time to help a supervisee develop new skills, either by teaching those skills directly or by providing a supervisee with the chance to work on promising projects. Ask about mentoring in your interview. Leaders don’t mentor accidentally – they know they are doing it and are often quite proud of their mentees.
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A history of changing one’s work environment, as opposed to being changed by it. Employees with a lot of initiative and drive will often shape their own job responsibilities. During their tenure in their current positions, their job responsibilities will expand in many areas. These employees have an eye for efficiency and are open to trying new ways of doing things. Often they will find that they have more hours in their work day than their predecessors did, even though they are working the same hours, because they have found shortcuts and economies of scale to make the work go faster. Needless to say, people who have the ability to do this make very valuable members of your team, because they can literally increase the number of products or services that your business can offer in the same amount of time, without increasing the number of employees on your payroll.
Conclusion
You might not be enthusiastic about the idea of an employee changing the work environment or the job responsibilities for a position. After all, if you are an entrepreneur who started your own small business, you very likely have strong ideas about how the business should be run. I have to tell you that a leader
is someone who may challenge a few of your ideas. You may even have conflicts with this person from time to time. But that’s okay. In fact, you should welcome challenges and new ideas with open arms. Businesses are living, organic entities that have to continue to grow and change – or they will die. Hiring someone who pushes you to try something new may be the impetus your business needs in order to expand, grow, and thrive.
About the Author: Brendan Cruickshank (Vice President of Client Services) – Brendan is a veteran of the online job search and recruiting industry, having spent the past 8 years in senior client services roles with major sites like Juju.com and JobsInTheMoney.com. He is quoted regularly as an expert in employment and jobs trends in major media outlets like the Washington Post, US News & World Report, and Forbes and has spoken at recruiting industry events such as Onrec and Kennedy Information’s Corporate Recruiting Conference.
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Top Ten Ways To Grow A Business In A Recession
The following guest post is from Neil Belenkie, who lends his expertise on steps businesses can take to not only survive the recession, but thrive in it. Here’s his top 10 ways to grow your business during tough economic times.
1. Budget Responsibly
This is not the time for frivolous spending. 60 inch plasma tvs are not a priority, no matter how cool they would look in your foyer. Make absolutely certain that every dollar you spend is directly related to generating revenue for your business.
2. Make Knowledge-Based Decisions
Don’t use intuition when it is possible to use facts. It will take extra work, but when you have data to base your decisions on, not only can you measure the success of your decisions but you can remove the risk of uncertainty.
3. Be Strategic
Success is not luck. Think hard about why your customer would want your products or services. The marketplace has evolved, make sure that your message is relevant and that your communications resonate with your target audience.
4. Be Unique
Do not try to be all things to all people, be all things to a few people and they will all buy.
5. Innovate
You need to find new ways to make money. Create new applications for your existing products, find new customers who would benefit from your services, find new products that your existing customers will also need… Do not accept that what you’re currently doing is all that can be done.
6. Partnerships
Figure out exactly who your customers are and then think about where else they are purchasing their products or services. Approach the providers of these other products and services and create partnerships where you can refer customers back and forth between your businesses. Their company is not competitive to yours so it is in both of your best interests’ to make this work.
7. Plan Well
The marketplace has changed, is your business plan still relevant? Spend time analyzing how your customer’s need have changed and ask yourself if you have changed with them. If not, you need to make sure that you have a plan to bring your business up to date. If you are doing well, then make sure you have a plan for the next phase of this evolving marketplace. Stay ahead of the wave and the water will always be ripple free.
8. Invest in Low Risk ROI Opportunities.
Money is tight but that doesn’t mean that you can afford not to spend. Keep seeking out new business opportunities. With each opportunity, assess the investment versus the forecasted revenue and don’t be afraid to go after an opportunity when the numbers work.
9. Create Multiple Revenue Channels.
If you are only doing business through your store, you need to find new ways to access your customers. Start an online business where customers can purchase your products remotely. Hire sales representatives who can take your products to the customers instead of waiting for your customers to come to you. Find other companies to sell your products for you. More access to customers equals more sales.
10. Do it Now
Your business will not turn around on its own and every day passed is another day of lost revenue. Commit to making changes now.
Author Bio:
Neil has spent more than 15 years as a sales, marketing, and business development executive in multiple industries. He has served as a consultant with Ray & Berndtson Executive Search in Vancouver, and also co-hosted a radio show in Vancouver called “Grow Your Business”. Neil is active in the non-profit sector serving as a Board Member of the Vancouver Biennale.
Keep up with all that Neil is doing on his blog, This Spade is a Spade.
What do you think? Anything you would add/subtract from Neil’s list?
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