Simple Tips to Help you Grow your Business

Since starting our business in Q2 2021, we’ve spoken to literally hundreds of small business owners. During these conversations, we always ask what the main challenges are that they face in growing their business? Putting the pandemic aside, below are some of the most frequently raised issues.

????????Struggling to build awareness

????????More customers

????????More sales

????????Client dependence?

????????Lack of time/ time management?

????????Lack of experience and expertise

????????Trouble retaining staff

????????Fatigue

At a recent networking meeting I delivered a short presentation titled?Simple Tips to Help you Grow your Business, these tips are all focused on helping small business owners address the above challenges. Below are some of the points that I covered.

Planning

It’s been a real eye opener to see the number of small businesses that don’t take the time to build a plan for their financial year. They might have built a sales and margin plan with a budget behind it but beyond that there is often little to support that in terms of a marketing plan to help deliver the sales and margin goals for the year.?

It is vital to take the time to plan, to have a target to aim for and to build a plan of action to support the delivery of the overall sales targets. Not only does it keep you focused but if you engage your team in the building of the plan and tracking of performance it keeps them fully informed and contributing to the delivery of the plans and goals for the year.?

Once you have your plan, make sure that you are reviewing it regularly, at least monthly to track and monitor performance.?

80:20 Rule

As part of the planning process, its vital to understand what’s working and what’s not.?The 80-20 rule, also known as the Pareto Principle, is?an aphorism which asserts that 80% of outcomes (or outputs) result from 20% of all causes (or inputs) for any given event. In business, a goal of the 80-20 rule is to identify inputs that are potentially the most productive and make them the priority.

We encourage and work with our clients to help them spend some time working on their business, understanding what is truly working and driving positive results and conversely what’s not working. The aim is to identify opportunities for growth, to improve efficiency and areas for potential cost savings. On paper this sounds simple however it’s amazing how often small business owners don’t take the time to understand what’s making their business tick.

Consistent Actions

If you are someone who is constantly starting projects and then changing direction, you won’t build the momentum you require to grow your business. More likely than not, you’ll be running round in circles, you’ll soon be exhausted and with nothing to show for your efforts.??If you start things and then don’t finish, you won’t see any results.?

You need to be consistent to build momentum. This is another benefit of having a clear plan of action, it allows you to focus and everyone in your team to focus as they are clear what the business is trying to achieve. Take consistent action and watch your business steadily grow.??

Standing Out From The Crowd

Many businesses spend a lot of time & money, for example, creating a website, to attract prospects. But what the prospect sees are messages like “great service”, high quality, accreditations and a long list of all the things they do”.

Unfortunately, it’s all about (You) the supplier. And if you check your competitors, they probably use similar or the same messages. So you do very little to help your future customer to make a decision.

You need to work out and communicate what’s unique about your product or service, what makes it stand out from the crowd or was we term it, what is your Market Dominating Position.

To do this, you need to think about:

1)????The Problem You Solve

2)????The Solution or Results you Provide

3)????Why you are different to the competition

4)????A Compelling Offer

More from Loyal Customers

The people who are currently doing business with you are among the best resources you have for growing your business. A conversation with a few of this group, of your?Most Valued Customers?(MVCs), will give you a great insight into why they buy from you and help you to shape your Market Dominating Position. By understanding their business better, you may also unearth some opportunities to increase the level of business that you currently transact with them.

Depending on the nature of your business and the size of your customers, they may also be a great source of referrals or testimonials which you can use on your website or other marketing touchpoints. Referrals offer significantly higher customer and lifetime value as well as enhanced customer retention and likelihood to convert.?

Testimonials are a great way to demonstrate to potential customers the quality of your product or service, they are vital to capture the interest of those customers ready to buy now and the vast majority who are at an earlier stage in their journey and are simply gathering information to enable them to narrow down their choice of suppliers.?

Follow Up

One of the simplest but most overlooked strategies for growing your business it the Follow Up. Some widely quoted stats on this subject include the facts that:

????????60% customers say no 4 times before saying yes…?

????????80% SALES happen after 6 to 10 follow ups. Unfortunately, 44% of people give up after 1 follow-up.?

Remember that at any one point in time, approximately 1 to 5% of buyers are ready to place an order, meaning that anything between 95 and 99% of buyers are simply gathering information to help them make a decision. So if you are part of the group of 44% of people that give up after 1 follow up, you are potentially missing out on a significant growth opportunity for your business.

Networking

Despite the rapid acceleration of digital transformation that occurred in the early months of Lockdown, think about these four realities of business:

Some realities:

????????People do business with people they like and trust

????????Business does not just come in; it has to be gone after

????????People who don’t know you won’t refer you

Networking is about building long term hearts and minds relationships; it involves you getting out of your silo and comfort zone. It’s a way to build prestige, reputation, and trust which if you think of it are so vital if you are to build a business which people will feel comfortable referring their connections to. It is a long-term action which involves giving to the individual and getting back from the network

3 useful Networking questions to ask:

1. What can I do for you?

2. Who do you know who….?

3. If you were me, what would you do?

Networking has many benefits; it helps you to strengthen business connections and to ask for referrals and as we know, the power of referrals can be significant for a business of any size.??For more on The Power of Networking,?click here.

Ask for Help

Even the most organized and efficient owner-manager will eventually get overloaded and can’t be expected to be fully in control of what’s happening in their business. At that point, business growth will be limited by your own skills and expertise along with the limited number of hours in a day. It will be time to delegate and share more of the responsibility.?

Whether you choose to?expand your own in-house staff?or go outside for professional services and support, such of those of a business coach, making this investment in your business is both necessary and a good sign.??Ask for help and advice wherever you may find it. Join your local chamber of commerce and whatever business associations are appropriate for your company.

When delivering the presentation that I referred to at start of this article, I said to the audience that I hoped they would take away at least one point of interest which would help them with their business and the same hope applies to anyone who reads this.

I’d love to hear your comments and would welcome the opportunity to connect with you on LinkedIn.

PS:

For some other tips on how to grow your business without spending more on marketing,?Click Here?to download our Free Guide