Last updated on April 6th, 2024 at 02:07 am
In the current era, it’s an era of innovation and ideas. Everyone wants to explore their potential and earn from that. This new way of thinking has given rise to many new businesses and it created an era of entrepreneurs. Not only just because of new and innovative ideas, many people have started their business because they don’t want to be in a job.
While keeping this idea in mind, I’ve written this article about growing a business. It has become an essential need now. People need to know what they must have for Growing a Business. So, as a Master in Business Administration student, I thought I could help these new businesses with some tips about Growing a Business.
The ideas and tips given below are not only useful for new and small businesses, they are established way, and are also helpful for intermediate size of business. Although you should bear this in mind that these methods won’t just give a massive boost immediately, it’s a slow process and you have to be patient for results.
Now, lets move to the main part, The tips for Growing a Business :
10 Tips for Growing a Business
Market Research
Are you new to the business field? Or are you trying to grow your existing business? Despite that, Market Research is the first thing you must do.
As a businessman, you should be aware of the market condition and needs. What is the market price? What segment is interested in the product that you are offering? What expectations do the customers have from your product? These are the questions that market research answers.
Based on this data, you can choose what product you want to deal with, or what improvements you have to do in your goods or services. Such data driven decisions really help for Growing a Business.
And keep this in mind, Market research is a continuous process, you have to keep doing it despite the growth of your business.
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Source of Supply
The very first and basic tip for Growing a Business is to select the ideal supplier. When you are to purchase your material from the supplier, you must have a clear idea on what type of product you want to provide to your customer.
Do you want to provide quality and expensive goods or Affordable products? Depending on your aim, you should select your supplier.
Along with the aim, you have to make sure you check as many suppliers as possible so you would be aware about the market price, quality and service of each supplier. This will give you more choices of suppliers to select from.
According to your business’s location, your requirement, your budget, your capacity, you should choose a supplier that can provide you the goods for a price and quality that is acceptable.
Build a Perfect Team
Employees are the lifeblood of any business. If you have a strong team that expertise in their, then successfully growing a business is a matter of time.
If you have a small team, but everyone is an expert in their field, it is great news. Because these experts have knowledge of their field and they can use that knowledge to the businesses advantage. Even in the case of a big team, you need experienced, motivated, innovative team members, bear this in mind when making a team.
In a business, everyone plays a different role. You must identify these roles, what knowledge they would need and based on that you should hire that perfect candidate.
With time, as the business starts picking up, you will need new employees, even at that time, you have to use the same criteria. Based on your requirement about the job, you should give the job description, this will make it easier and you will have a pool of qualified applicants.
Uniqueness
This idea is not only for Growing a Business but is also used by the established business entities. What is the unique strength of your product or service? Is it the quality? Is it the feel of using the product? The affordable price range? The variety? The ambience? Display it in front of the world.
This is a Business era, there’s only one thing that can separate your business from others, that is your unique strength. This unique factor will be the reason why you make your sales. Market research can be the best way to capture that unique point for your business.
For example, take Apple. Apple makes iPhones and Macs, there are several other companies that sell similar products. And make no mistake, the competitors also provide excellent products. But why is Apple taken into consideration more often? What’s something that Apple offers that attracts customers? Its Simplicity and Status. It’s an abstract idea, but they offer a sophisticated feel to the user.
Marketing Tactics
For Growing a Business anywhere, you have to use effective marketing methods. Nowadays, your best bet is Social media marketing. From kids to elders, you will find that everyone constantly uses social media sites. From a business point of view, you have to use this as an advantage.
First, identity what is your market segment? Make sure you have your campaigns ready according to your segments interests. Then time to use the social media promotion methods. Nowadays, social media provides a business promotion service, where they promise to deliver your Advertisement to a certain number of people depending on the plan you choose.
Along With these social media plans, your simple posts can have a certain reach as well, you just have to be aware about what tags to use and what keywords are being researched. You can easily learn about this part online. Social media can become your free marketing site.
We are talking about Growing a Business, that’s why I’ve only added affordable ideas. One of the other marketing techniques is ‘word of mouth’. This is basically where people gossip about your business, it’s completely dependent on the quality or affordability of your business.
If you have enough capital to invest in heavy promotional tactics, that’s when you can go for nationally broadcasting channels.
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Attracting Customer
The base for Growing a Business is to get more and more customers. I know that there’s a saying that we should focus on the existing customer base first before attractive new customers. But the fact is, attracting new customers is more important than catering to just the old base. That being said, retaining the old customer is just as important.
Suppose you have a customer base of 500 people. This is your listing base and are the regular customers. The thing is, you have already captured this part of the market. For the business to grow further, you need to expand your base. That’s the only proven way for Growing a Business.
You can use several marketing tactics and social media marketing platforms to attract customers to your business. The only way to grow your business is to attract new customers, and you should use your uniqueness to attract them.
Be Aware about the Competition
One of the easiest ways to know updates regarding your market is to be aware about the competition. The competitors work in the same market that you do, this is why you should be aware of their strengths and weaknesses, because those are the points you have to utilize.
Why are the customers attracted to their business and now yours? What is it that the competition has and you don’t? This is the question which will be answered when you research the competition’s strengths.
Next up is the weaknesses the competition possesses. What is something that competitors fail to provide to their customer base? What is that factor that their customers desire and they are not able to provide it? Study these factors. Because for Growing a Business, you not only have to focus on yourself, but also know about what the competitors are doing. This way, you can capture more markets by exploiting the weaknesses of competition and adapting to their strengths.
Corporate Social Responsibility
Another one of the strong beneficial factors for Growing a Business are CSR practices. CSR practices are usually done when the business has been settled down and doing quite well for itself. But, Doing CSR practices also has its own benefits. It attracts more customers.
Corporate Social Responsibilities are practices that businesses do to pay for the damage they do to nature due to their business. It also helps to build a good image in the society. A business that helps to store nature back will always have a good image in customers’ eyes.
In current times, people chose to support businesses that provide something to the society. That is why, when they learn that a business practices CSR activities, they are more likely to shift to that business so as to contribute to societal development indirectly.
Corporate Social Responsibility not only helps the society to become a better place, but also helps in Growing a Business.
Business Audits
By business audits, I don’t mean a financial audit about the assets of the business, what I mean is evaluating the performance of the business.
A business’s performance can be evaluated by setting up certain KPIs which will help you accurately measure how much of your targets are being accomplished and what progress the business is making. These KPIs could be the number of sales, the profit generated, new acquired customers, etc.
When Growing a Business, one must constantly check on how much progress has been made, if the work is being done accordingly, and if there is any problem, it can be countered easily. It will only be possible if the business aspects are being constantly evaluated.
Forecasting Trends
Growing a Business to a successful level takes certain skill and knowledge, this is where forecasting comes in. Forecasting helps a business to be prepared for any upcoming change in technology, political factor, social or any any other type of factor.
External factors such as economical, social, cultural, technological and political factors can change anytime, but these factors don’t change in a moment’s notice. There is some discussion over it, some talks and news about the possible changes, you have to be aware about everything so to predict what new changes could happen in future. This helps you prepare the business for such events and changes so there won’t be any adverse effects and you can take advantage of the situation.
I believe that business isn’t down, you just weren’t prepared for the changes.
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FAQs
What are the 4 growth strategies?
The main 4 growth strategies for a business are product strategy, Place Strategy, pricing strategy and promotional strategy. Several sub categories are discussed under these strategies.
What are the stages of the product life cycle?
There are 4 stages in a business cycle. They are Initiating phase, growth phase, maturity phase and then decline phase.
Final words
In this Entrepreneurial era, people have the idea to start a business, but they lack the knowledge to handle and manage the business. Due to such reasons, It’s not simple growing a business. So these are the 10 tips for such upcoming entrepreneurs to help them in growing their business.
I hope this article about the Tip for Growing a Business was helpful for you. If you have any queries or suggestions, let me know in the comment box.