When you’re running a business, One thing you have to think about constantly is growth. Even if you don’t have ambitions to become the next Jeff Bezos, it’s important. In the world of business, you need to run just to stand still, and if you’re not identifying opportunities and areas you could grow into, even as a small business, you risk being outcompeted. If someone else spots those opportunities and reaps the rewards because you weren’t paying attention, they could starve you of custom and revenue, even if you’re both small businesses operating at a similar scale.
Today we’re going to take a look at different ways you can grow your business, how you can plan for it and who can help you.
Different Ways to Grow
There is no one set way businesses grow: you have many options. You can try to increase custom by spreading the word of your offering better, further or more efficiently, you increase the range of products or services to offer to bring in customers with different needs or you can spread geographically, accessing more revenue by opening premises in new locations with untapped markets.
Most businesses employ a blend of tactics planned to fit their needs: big retail stores might march across the country opening branches in every town, while a smaller more specialist operation might maintain a single physical location as a prestige or heritage offering while dramatically growing their reach with online sales.
Planning for Growth
It’s important to make growth a part of your plan from the beginning, as this allows you to ensure you grow sustainably and in line with what you want for your business: offering more and more online sales when you don’t actually want to be a digital retailer and deal with the specific challenges it brings is something to avoid (or at least think carefully about) rather than rushing quickly into an opportunity without thought.
It can also ensure you’re growing sustainably: build in specific tests to ensure your business is stable and ready to expand before you jump into the breach. Trying to open in a new physical location if you don’t have enough investment or capital, and are still facing challenges in your initial market could put paid to your whole business!
Getting Help
There are services which it’s well worth seeking out to make sure you’re making the most of opportunities to grow your business.There’s a thriving growth consulting industry that can provide experts in spotting opportunities and taking advantage of them, but it’s also worth falling back on your existing support network of financial advisors, lawyers and even marketers who can all help ensure you’re set up to grow sustainably, in a healthy way for your business.
