19 October 2021
By Roger Jones
roger@TheCork.ie
Photo by Razvan Chisu on Unsplash
The UK currently has over 5.8 million small businesses. Many of these –around 42 percent– fail because there’s no market demand for their products.
If you have confirmed your “proof of concept” and proven that your business and company is needed, then you have solved most of the problems that small business owners have to contend with. All that’s left is to scale that business.
While scaling a business is not easy, it can be done with the right strategies. There are multiple factors that typically affect your growth rate. If you’re looking for proven ideas that will help you grow your business, the tips that we’ll share here will help you.
Your Business Location
There are very few businesses that thrive on mystery and very low traffic –in fact, the fact that they’re not known is a selling point. Unless you have that kind of business, you need to get more people in the door. And to do that, your business should be in a high traffic location.
So, where’s your business located? Is there a lot of foot or eye traffic where your physical business or online store is situated? If not, then you need to fix that immediately.
If you’re currently located in a small town, maybe consider moving to or opening new outlets in bigger towns. While there may be more competition in bigger towns and cities, the reality is the number of individuals here more than make up for it.
Plus, if you have great products and customer service, it’s only a matter of time before your business gets really popular in town.
The Use of Relevant Technology
Some small business owners still do business the old way –with pen and paper. And if you’re satisfied with that, that’s fine –although if you’re reading this right now, it probably means that it’ not and you’re looking to expand.
Anyway, there’s a limit to what you can do in one day using archaic systems. This is why it’s imperative to seek out technologies that will help do the heavy lifting for repetitive tasks. For instance, there are payroll software that can automatically handle all your payroll issues.
The point is you can use and deploy these technologies to make doing business easier. Plus, you’ll be able to free up a lot of time that you can then use for other activities.
Your Company’s Capacity for Adapting to Changing Business Environments
With modern technology comes an increasingly rapid pace of doing business. This often leads to fast-changing business environments that require consistent adaptation. You have to stay on top of the ever-changing business climate if you want to grow your business.
Use and leverage good technologies to do that. Then, make sure to pay attention to new developments and insightful business trends. This way, even if you don’t implement all new trends, you’ll be able to find the worthwhile and relevant ones and discard the rest.
Willingness to Undertake New Innovations
Photo by Annie Spratt on Unsplash
Ten years ago, the smartphone was not ubiquitous. Only a few well-off individuals had these devices. And even then, they didn’t have so much computing power. These days, most people have so much computing power right in their palms. In fact, even pioneers like Bill Gates never expected this rate of technological evolution.
Yet, just because Bill Gates didn’t see the future doesn’t mean that it’s not happening. In the last ten years, many companies that were once global giants have shuttered their doors.
In some cases, these companies filed for bankruptcy. Examples include Research In Motion (makers of the blackberry), HTC, Sony Ericsson, Alcatel, and Sagem. These billion pound brands once towered above all others.
But they’re no longer operational because they didn’t innovate very quickly. If you want to avoid going into oblivion, then you’ve got to innovate and grow your business using the tools that are currently available to you. These incredibly powerful innovations will then lead to massive business profits and market leadership.
Access to Strategic Continuous Learning
Let’s be honest: there’s knowledge you don’t need right now. So, why should you spend time learning those irrelevant things instead of just focusing on the knowledge that you need? This is where a learning lifecycle platform can help.
It will help you acquire new knowledge that you can use in your current job. This completely eliminates the confusion and hesitation that comes with information overload and frees up your time and mind for only the most important things in your business.
More importantly, you’ll only learn what’s necessary. And there’s no better way to do this than by taking advantage of or setting up self-paced learning platforms that you and your employees can use.
Visionary Leadership
If your business will be around in 5-10 years, then you need to be a visionary leader. Granted that this is not an easy task, but you might as well do it, as the alternative is either bankruptcy or closed doors. And you don’t want that, do you?
Being a visionary leader will mean always looking ahead, monitoring industry trends, spotting unique problems, and deploying unique solutions to these problems.
If you do not, some other business will probably beat you to it and make a fortune in the process. So, why not just be the business that makes the fortune? This is a really good way to ensure business growth and advancement.
Effective Marketing Campaigns
How are you promoting your business? Are you using proven methods and channels that work and will last a long time? If you’re not, then you need to identify or come up with these methods.
The good news is every sector has marketing strategies and channels that work for them. Figure out yours. If you own an online business and are looking to corner a larger market share, consider ruing marketing campaigns on other platforms that you haven’t tried in the past.
For example, if you’ve been promoting your online store using Facebook ads, maybe try Google Ads in addition to your current marketing campaigns. This will open you up to new audiences who need your products or services.
