Growing a small business is such a big, exciting step, but without a clear understanding of what you need to do, it can be all too easy to make missteps and cause more issues for yourself in the long run. How you grow depends entirely on how you are gaining traction, after all, and what opportunities are available to you, specifically. You could expand by selling more or by expanding your product range or your service area.
Before you get bigger, you first need to clean up. Then you need to ensure your business has the tools that allow for easy expansion, and finally, you need an effective marketing strategy to increase attention and customers along with your efforts:
1. Start with an Audit
To fix anything, you first need to know how it is broken and why it broke in the first place. If you fix it with the same inherent issue, then it will only be a matter of time before it breaks again, especially if you put increased strain on it like you would by expanding your business. This applies to your website and to your business operations. You can hire an SEO agency to look at and recommend improvements for your website, but you will need a business consultant to have a look at your business structure as a whole.
2. Upgrade Your Systems and Data Space
When you expand, you open up increased traffic, sales, and processes. You need an integrated backend system that can communicate together, and most importantly, is flexible. There are many excellent cloud-based management programs available that fit the bill. As it is based in the cloud, you pay only for the space you use and can decrease or increase the storage space as necessary. Just remember to choose compatible management programs so that you can start using automation in your everyday business operations.
3. Know Your Legal Obligations
As you expand, your legal obligations will also change. If you are not sure what these legal changes will be, ensure that is something that your business consultant can advise you on; otherwise, schedule a meeting with a lawyer who specializes in this type of law. The last thing you want is to be audited by the IRS and be told there are issues.
4. Invest in Professional Marketing Services
Being ready to expand is the first step, but actually growing is another matter entirely. If you are lucky and your product has gone somewhat viral, or alternatively, you find a popular stockiest, then you are well on your way. Even in these instances, however, you will still want to continue to advertise your business. In fact, you will want to invest in marketing even more if you have that sort of momentum. Don’t trial and error such an important period of your business’s timeline, either, and instead find the perfect marketing agency for your brand. They should have a collaborative outreach approach and also offer stunning designs with on-time budgets to help you capitalize attention towards your expansion.
5. Always Be Ready to Capitalize on the Moment
Your business needs to be ready to expand before you actually expand. That is how you position yourself perfectly to take advantage of every bit of interest that comes your way. Perhaps an influencer buys your product, or a big magazine writes about your brand. By being ready to expand, you can market hard and bring in a mass influx of new customers.
Being ready means that you’re able to showcase your work at a short notice, in person. It’s easy to do this online, but if you’re trying to sell your products or services in person it can be a lot harder. You need to be able to present previous successes and examples of your current work. For example, if you’re selling certain products of a range it’s good to be able to show high-quality images of them or even hand over a high-quality image pack. You can even invest in bulk photo books so that you’ve got multiple books at hand and you’re able to hand these out to potential buyers
