How to expand your business in four steps.
One of the ways to financial freedom in this contemporary time is to be an entrepreneur. Being an entrepreneur means having a business or business with the hope of making profits.
As a business owner, there are benefits you enjoy that a non-business owner might not. Such include; arranging life and work balances, pride of ownership, pursuing your passion and building a limitless source of earning.
However, these benefits are not automatic to business owners; they are mostly enjoyed by entrepreneurs who grow and expand businesses. A growing business starts from small-scale to medium or multi-national companies. Examples are found in apple (they started in a garage), amazon, etc.
Most firms, in reality, struggle to expand or even survive; according to statistics, approximately 20% of enterprises fail in the first year, 30% in the second year, 50% by the end of the fifth year, and just about 30% survive by the end of the decade.
This data can be improved if firms can thrive and adhere to certain recognized business growth principles. This article identifies sure steps to expanding your business.
4 Steps to expand your Business
Make Customers your top Priority
In running your business understand that customers are kings, All goods and services must be produced to satisfy their preferences. Customers have the potential to move a business from a small scale to a large scale enterprise.
The success of any business lies in its ability to satisfy the need of its consumers as at when due. A business that will expand must pay careful attention to its customer’s needs and the dynamics in their preferences.
Satisfied customers are free sources of advertisement for the business; in like manner, disgruntled customers can easily bring a business down with its bad remarks to others, especially in the social media era.
Focusing on the customers will include dedicating to producing quality products without compromise, treating your customers with respect, listening to their complaints and adjusting, generally maintaining an appreciable human relationship with the customers.
Every business that makes its customer’s priority enjoys more sales, profits, and good public relations; otherwise, they can easily switch over to competitors. The loyalty of consumers lies with whichever businesses satisfy their needs.
Marketing
This relates to strategies employed at creating awareness and ensuring the availability of products to the consumers. Without proper awareness about the quality, benefits and availability of the product of a business, It will be difficult for the business to thrive in the 21st century. Proper marketing drives sales and sales profits.
With more awareness comes more customers and more customers come expansion. A business that will grow must leverage social media platforms to improve the quality, benefits, and availability of its products. Facebook and Instagram ads can be explored, alongside the use of skits, social media influencers, among others.
In its marketing strategy, a business must also aptly apply the 4Ps of marketing. First, a business must fix a competitive price for its product – a competitive price is not too low nor too high in the market. If it is too low, it might be considered inferior to its competitors, and if it is too high, it might scare consumers away.
The next is the business’s product: The business must present a high quality and competitive product in the market. In the same vein, the business must ensure its products are easily assessable, to be available at the right time and the right place.
Finally, have sophisticated promotional packages, like discount sales, giveaways, and aggressive advertisements should be employed.
Plough back profits
A business that will expand must be disciplined. It must learn to sacrifice immediate consumption or pleasure for the organic objective of the business. One of the challenging factors in the business world is access to finance and a business can overcome this challenge by learning to return part of its profit to the business.
Re-investing part of the profit made in the business helps a business increase in size and stocks, which consequently brings more profit into the business through an increase in the number of stocks available for sales.
Diversify and be ahead of the competition
The business world is dynamic as consumers need changes rapidly. A business that will expand must learn to study the market and be ahead of the competition in this competitive world.
For instance, a business that specializes in producing typewriters will be out of the market by now if it refuses to upgrade to producing printers or computers. In the modern age, products easily become obsolete due to unbelievable acceleration in innovation and invention.
Diversifying the product base of a business is therefore very important to stay in business or even expand.
