Growing a business is not easy.The success of your business will depend hugely on the efforts you put behind it. You need to look at the big picture, growth is a marathon rather than a sprint.
The challenging part is that there is no written-in-stone rule for growing a business; what works for others will probably not work for you.It doesn’t happen overnight, but it doesn’t take forever. There are several steps you can take to place your business on the right track for successful growth.
While growing takes time, effort, and a lot of sacrifices, in the end, the rewards will be enormous, and you will see your efforts were worth it.We have asked businesses as well as looked at our own and came up with 15 proven ways to grow your business in the shortest time possible.
- Get on Online
Every business needs to be online. Why? On average people spend six hours on the internet every day. And 36% of online users prefer to deal with businesses online.Having a great website is the best way to grow as a business; you will need three things to get online:
- Content management systems
- Domain name
- Hosting account
For any business, big or small, I highly recommend WordPress. It is the best website builder (content management systems) on the market and currently supporting over 31% of all websites on the web.
When purchasing a domain name, I recommend NameCheap. Most people use GoDaddy, but they charge very high fees compared to NameCheap especially after your first year. And NameCheap has excellent support. I can’t speak any higher of them, they are great.
Hosting is a tricky one. I recommend WP-Engine. However, it’s the most expensive, the reason?
It’s the quickest and best hosting provider in the world. If you want to take your business seriously, use them. Having a website that loads seconds faster is great for ranking in the search engines and for the user experience.
Different hosting companies price their services differently, with different plans. You will have to decide what plan works best for you, but for a personal blog, you should go with the lowest priced plan they have. Another point to note is that there are two types of WordPress. 99.9% of the time you hear someone mentioning WordPress, they are talking about WordPress.org and not WordPress.com.
- Build a Powerful Sales Funnel
After setting up your website, you need to start telling your customers that you have an online store by creating awareness.It is the quickest way to grow your online presence and business as a whole.Many companies ignore the power of sales funnels. This is a mistake because funnels help automate your business, freeing up your time to generate new leads to help you grow.
This will, of course, involve front-end work, but nothing a web developer can’t do with a few bucks.
Play around with different concepts to see which funnel works for your business.It can be as simple as an email marketing automation when somebody signs up to your list.
- Broaden The Scope Of Your Products
Having a wide range of product options will ensure your customers don’t look elsewhere for complementary items.Identify which products or services you can provide that would satisfy the needs of the customers, and how you can price them in line with the market.
The best way to find new products is by doing market research and interact with your customers. Say you’re selling a Facebook course ask your existing customers what course they would like next?
Additionally, you can ask for their inputs and insights on existing products; This will help you improve the product or services you already provide.
- Make It Easier For Users To Contact You
If you want your website to generate lots of leads and conversions, you need your contact information on your home page. And make sure it’s visible.
The reason? 76% of online searchers end in a phone call.
Pro tip: Make the phone numbers clickable, and then mobile searchers can quickly contact you from their devices.
- Increase Sales
Ideally, all the methods in this list will help you boost your sales volume, but they have other different objectives.To increase sales, you need to do in-depth market research to identify how you can price your products.
Doing market research will help you segment your potential customers into age, gender, geographic, and purchase patterns.
With these insights, you can devise plans to meet the requirements of all the customers in your segment by providing products suitable to them.
- Try New Markets
Many people have different views on how to do this. Some think it’s better to target only customers, while others believe targeting only the market is the way to go.
These are two approaches to the same face. To conquer the market, you need first to target the customer.
Finding what your customers needs and wants is the initial strides towards growing your business. Venturing into new markets will require you to invest a little bit in advertising.
Facebook does a great job with a lookalike audience and takes a lot of the guesswork out of finding customers.
- Make Use Of The Customer Management System
The customer management system will help you with things like transaction tracking, sales and marketing, and bookkeeping.
If you want to grow, utilise a customer management system. There is a wide pool to choose from luckily, depending on your industry.
Some of the most commonly used across the industry include SalesForce, QuickBooks, InfusionSoft, and many more.
- Keep An Eye On Your Competition
Researching your competitor is an integral part of growing your business.You need to know what they are offering to customers, their ad copy, website design, and sales funnel.Bonus: check facebook ads hereInsider knowledge of your competitors’ strategies will help you can find ads that have had success and emulate them.
There are plenty of platforms you can use to research your competition. The most popular softwares are Similar Web, AdBeat, and SEMRush.
- Merge With Other Businesses
This is a divide and conquer approach, and will give you the quickest way to expand and grow.It is useful in countless ways, such as access to a large market, funding, and skilful employees.The best way I have ever seen this done is by referrals, say your an SEO company then people will ask about web development or vice-versa. Find another company and refer each other work.
- Leverage Social Media
Social media platforms are the best places to look for traffic to boost your sales. Set up your company profile and start sharing your products with customers regularly.Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube, and others have a total of 2.77 billion active users.So leveraging social media to drive traffic to your website is another way to grow your business.
- Create a customer loyalty program
Build a customer loyalty program to keep increasing sales and retain existing customers.It can cost you three times more to obtain new customers than it selling your product to an already existing customer.
- Take Part In Social Responsibility
Improve the image of your business through social responsibility. Your business should be more than just making profits.Connect emotionally to the society that spends money on your business.
- Set Goals
Your business needs to have ‘soul’ and purpose to grow. Without goals, there is no way you will be able to know if your business is improving.When you set milestones for your business, you will know the direction your business is going. It is also one of the common ways to measure success.
- Train Your Team
Having a quality, skilful team is another way to grow your business.It doesn’t just stop at hiring the ‘A’ players. You need to put in place programs to foster the professional development of your team.Professional development will give your staff something bigger than working for your company. They will be motivated as well as develop a sense of purpose.
- Attend Networking Forums
This is an excellent way to network with other business owners in your industry.You will find people who have been in your situation before to give you valuable advice.Networking events can also provide you with an opportunity to meet new customers or even investors.
leverage
You may have noticed a lot of the ways to grow, include automation that’s because automation is leveraging time.When you don’t have to spend time bookkeeping or making sure your systems are working, you can spend that time focusing on growth.What was your favourite tip? What’s your growth hacks? Let me know down below