7 Powerful Growth Strategies to Double Your Business Revenue in a Year

"If you don't drive your business, you will be driven out of business."

- B.C. Forbes, Founder, Forbes

Starting a small business can be one of the biggest decisions of your life. It takes months, maybe years of planning to devise a winning idea, create an actionable plan, build a team, develop products, and launch a business. 

But now what?

86.3% of small business owners make less than $100,000 a year in income. What's the point of investing so much effort and resources into something for years and end up earning equal to an attorney or a doctor? 

Starting a business is difficult, but what is more challenging is growing it. The good news is that increasing sales and revenue is a fundamental process of strategic business growth. 

While it is easier said than done, these actionable growth strategies will help you scale your business to almost twice your existing revenue in a year. 

Have a flexible and agile pricing strategy

Pricing products, which once used to be a vague form of art, is a form of science now. Brands and marketers are becoming more dynamic, and your pricing strategy needs to be flexible and agile to sustain this ever-changing market scenario. Your pricing strategy develops the foundation with which you base your profit margins and revenue; therefore, it should be the primary focus of your business. 

Follow these tips for pricing your product effectively and accurately. 

• List your product's true costs, including materials, labor, overhead, and other hidden costs.
• Price higher than your initial estimation. 
• Analyze your customers
• Analyze your competitors to perform an honest comparison.
• Don't compete with the pricing of big stores.
• Come up with tiered pricing, and have a plan to increase prices gradually.
• Analyze your conversions, experiment, and change your pricing accordingly to come to a final price. 

Create well-defined goals

It is important to define your goals. Some may laugh at this proposal, as all businesses ultimately aim to acquire more customers and increase their sales and revenue. However, goals that might sound similar do not always yield the same results. For instance, increasing your sales does not always increase your revenue. Besides, promoting growth may demand some initial investment, which may not result in a revenue increase in the short term. 

Therefore, instead of having a bulk goal that states "increase company revenue from $100,000 in 2019 to $175,000 by 2020," try breaking it down into more general objectives and targets for product and sales teams. 

If your objective is to increase profits, you will need to look at certain Key Value Items (KVI) that could increase your profit margin by 4-6% in two to three months. If your business lacks such a structure, you may struggle with defining, executing, achieving, and tracking individual goals that lead to overall business success. 

Interact more with your customers

Consumers like being heard and are willing to converse with the retailers they buy from. Surveys, reviews, referrals, and more – a business can utilize a bunch of ways to communicate with its customers and hear about their experience. 

As a retailer, this puts you to the advantage. Your customers can direct you to more potential buyers via word of mouth marketing, which is a more genuine way of reaching your customers compared to traditional marketing practices. 

By deploying multiple avenues of communication with your consumers, you get an insight into the needs and preferences of your customers, which enables you to ensure positive customer experience, and therefore, an increase in traffic, sales, and revenue. 

Create personalized offers to give your customers a reason to purchase

Who does not like celebrations? Whether it is an important holiday like Christmas or more personal reasons, like birthdays or anniversaries, people like event-based shopping. Implementing this concept to your business can give you a surge in sales. 

Needless to say, the retail industry has created events like Cyber Monday and Black Friday to encourage customers to shop. Besides, several brands, companies, and retail stores have become more creative and created their own sales events to more sales and encourage their consumers to buy multiple items at a time. 

By personalizing offers, your business can stand out from your competitors and give your customers an incentive to buy from you. And believe it or not, many consumers are looking for a reason to buy. If you manage to provide them with a reason, you will see a spike in sales. 

Some suggestions for creating personalized sales events:

• Festivals
• Holidays
• Quarterly, Half-yearly, or Annual
• Birthdays (unique for each customer)

Embrace the concept of upselling and cross-selling

If you have worked as a sales rep before, you must have heard of these terms: upselling and cross-selling. While these concepts may sound conventional and less-relevant when it comes to selling online, utilizing them effectively is a great way to create an incentive for your customers. 

By getting creative and bundling the right products, you can encourage a customer to spend more than they were initially contemplating. For instance, if you sell electronics, bundling a smartphone with a pair of earphones can create an excellent offer for your customers.

Upselling is another useful way to increase your sales and revenue. Sometimes, customers know what they want, but they're not aware of any better available options. This concept is particularly applicable to electronics and apparel. By recommending them better, more expensive, and advanced products than what they are currently looking for can encourage them to pay more and get a better value for their money. 

Discover new distribution channels and marketing opportunities

Your business must have a tried and tested marketing strategy in place, including successful channels and advertising techniques. But, the realm of marketing has expanded beyond one's imagination, and most business owners simply don't realize it. In the near future, you will be able to utilize unique distribution channels and marketing opportunities to reach your audience and improve your figures. 

The key here is to be more agile in finding new channels but ensuring your current marketing strategy is not affected. If you have a few successful channels in place, continue with them but also conduct regular auditing to find new distribution channels and marketing opportunities for your business. 

Focus on building your brand

"Brand" is a powerful tool; it shapes how your products are perceived and impacts the sales and pricing of your product. Sadly, most business owners overlook the significance of branding. 

Customers are getting more conscious of a brand's character than ever before and are willing to pay a premium price for a credible retailer. 

There are a few ways to protect and improve your brand image. These include:

• Invest in virtual assets, such as a good-quality logo, graphic design, color palettes, etc. 
• Consider rebranding, especially if your branding tools seem outdated
• Build your brand values
• Make sure your website provides a placing user experience
• Focus on public relations (PR)

Final thoughts

Every business owner, regardless of the size and industry vertical of their business, wants to grow their business and increase the revenue generated. While generating more sales may seem like a challenging task, it is simple at the core and boils down to being innovative, understanding customer preferences, creating incentives, and using the available technology to your advantage.