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January 17, 2018 by Greg Underwood

How Can You Accelerate Early Growth in a New Business?

Source

Many new businesses experience initial growth that levels off once they begin to mature. The experience is not a new one nor is it isolated to the first few month or couple of years either. The peaks and troughs of growth haunt businesses because they must be managed by a succession of skilled managers along the business journey.

You don’t have to just sit and passively take it though. There are things you can do to stoke the fire of growth once more.

Look for Repeat Business

As a business gets busier, staff are pushed to the limit and find it difficult to cope. One of the things that tends to fall by the wayside is keeping up with existing customers and asking for that next order. There’s so much focus on finding new customers and securing their first order that the best fruit is left unpicked on the tree.

As the experts at access2knowledge.org will happily tell you, the least expensive and easiest way to increase sales is to mine your existing customers. When was the last time that a salesperson touched base with these customers? Do they feel considered or cared about? Are their business needs being fully met? Maintaining a solid business relationship with existing customers is smart, as they are the foundation it’s built upon.

What’s Already Effective with Your Marketing?

You may have already tried many different approaches to marketing in a “throw the paint against the wall and see what sticks,” approach. That’s all well and good, but now it’s time to stop trying everything you can think of and review what’s been working for you. If there hasn’t been any effective measurement of results, can this be examined retroactively, or is it something that can only be implemented going forward?

When you have a proper handle on what’s been working so far, ask yourself the question: Will this marketing method still work today, just like it has in the past? Sometimes, marketing approaches get overcooked and are no longer as effective. Are there some tweaks that can be applied based on what you’ve learned that will improve your results going forward, or is a completely new marketing plan going to be required to accelerate sales growth?

Local Only? Try Expanding Regionally

When you’re sensing that you’ve reached a saturation point with prospects in the local area, it’s time to expand carefully, further afield. You don’t have to start taking out full-page ads in a niche magazine, but certainly, you should begin creating a plan to offer your product or service to businesses or consumers outside of your normal catchment area. How will you go about doing this? What should your first steps be? Consider whether you can rank for local search terms in the areas you wish to target and dip a toe in the water there. Learn how customers in this area might want different things and adapt your offering where you can to meet that need.

Accelerating growth when it’s slowed down isn’t that difficult when you’re a newish business. There are plenty of areas to mine that either hasn’t been picked over yet or have been overlooked in the previous push for ever-faster growth. Sometimes, it helps to be more mindful of the best approach the second time around to help sustain the new growth pattern for longer.

January 17, 2018 by Greg Underwood

Strategic planning for your small business success this 2018

As we start 2018, it’s high time you reflect on the year that’s been and start planning so you can launch right and with minimal constraints. What’s important is to take note what you have in mind and write it down so you can easily hold yourself and your team accountable.

Involve key people.  If you work solo, then there’s only you who’s accountable. If your business has a team, then you need to get the right people involved so that they can feel a sense of ownership over the outcome of your plans. Even though they don’t have the final say, just having their concerns heard is enough. The meeting should include functions of HR, finance, operations, marketing and sales represented.

Start planning. After knowing the people involved in the planning, you must make sure that your time with them is well structured and that any data or market research necessary as input is gathered and assessed by all parties present ahead of time. Next, determine your agenda for the following day.

Step 1: Reflection. Understanding where you are right now is key to knowing where you’re going. You must confront brutal facts. Invite the team to give input so you can create an atmosphere of truth. Brutal facts may include the following:

  • Financial performance year-to-date up to 5 years back if available.
  • Updated competitor analysis
  • Market share analysis
  • Sales analysis
  • Consumer trends
  • Marketing performance
  • Operational performance
  • People analysis

If all of your team members are prepared, having read the background analysis, you can start debating and creating insights. What are your strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats? It’s SWOT time!

Step 2: Future planning. Now, this is the goal setting part of the plan and how far into the future you want is your choice. Setting around 1, 3 and 5 years is good as it will shape how you approach getting there.

Include revenue, profit, and market share in your goals. This could also be the time to refine or craft your vision for the type of business you want to be. Make your goals achievable by using S.M.A.R.T – Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant, and Timely. This framework lets you set out some elements of your course of action.

Step 3: Getting there. With specific goals ready, it’s time to determine the actions needed to get there. Taking the S.M.A.R.T. goals as the starting point, each person in the team should outline their plans for the functional areas they are in. The following must be determined:

  • Sales forecast. By month or quarter.
  • Marketing spends and strategy. Activities to get to desired market share and positioning.
  • Operational budget. Required new investments.
  • New services. Service another market segment. A new type of product/service offer.
  • People planning. How many staff is necessary. Training required. Recruitment and retention plan.

The need for online presence

Here’s a hard truth. Many business owners still don’t use or benefit from the power of business websites.

If you still don’t have one or are using a very old website, then it’s time for an upgrade. Include website to your competitor and SWOT analysis, then consult a web development company and accomplish domain name registration right away. Registering your domain means reserving your online business address or trade name. It’s a crucial step towards a successful web presence.

In summary, business planning will take time and effort to pull off. However, it pays off big when the entire organization understands the goals and priorities including the role they need to play to achieve them.

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