How To Grow A Small Business - 10 Scaling Strategies

10 Ways To Grow A Small Business

1. Know your customers 

It sounds so obvious but one of the top ways for small business owners and established owners to grow a small business and make more money is to know their customers inside and out. Customers are demanding a more personal and tailored experience when dealing with your product or service, and if you can't give it to them they will vote with their feet and go to a competitor that can. To ensure that you are able to continue to provide that level of service and tailor it along the way as your customers' needs change, it's best to run a quarterly survey, user reviews, or direct customer service communications so that you can get honest feedback. Take note of consistent grievances amongst your customer-base and use those to launch new features, make internal adjustments, or any number of fixes.

2. Focus on customer service 

Top notch customer service can mean the difference between customers who are loyal to your business and high customer churn. You need to constantly be upping your game to create a stand out customer service and treat your customers like kings and queens, especially if your business is operating in a commodity or saturated market. By focusing on customer service and continuously striving to provide exceptional experiences, you can build a strong reputation, increase customer loyalty, and drive business growth. Remember that satisfied customers are more likely to become brand advocates and refer others to your business, which can lead to further expansion and success.

3. Extend value from current customers

Pretty much any business has heard the term that it is cheaper to retain customers than to go out get new customers to sign up. Great customer relationship management means keeping those loyal customers that you have onside. You’ve built credibility with them meaning they’re more likely to purchase from you again or even pay more for additional services and new products. And for those that do purchase again and again, it pays to reward them with a customer loyalty program.

Extending value from current customers is a powerful strategy for business growth. By maximizing the lifetime value of your existing customer base, you can increase revenue, build customer loyalty, and benefit from positive word-of-mouth referrals. By extending value from your current customers, you can increase customer retention, drive repeat business, and benefit from positive referrals. Remember to always prioritize the customer experience, personalize interactions, and actively engage with your customers to foster long-term loyalty and growth.

4. Leverage social media

Unless businesses want to commit business suicide and have their business owner's limit a business's growth, you need to be on social media and using effective social media platforms to milk the heck out of it. Leveraging social media can be a powerful strategy to grow your business. With the widespread use of social platforms, you can reach a large audience, engage with potential customers, build brand awareness, and drive traffic to your products or services. Remember that building a strong presence on social media takes time and consistency. Be patient, engage authentically with your audience, and provide value through your content. By leveraging social media effectively, you can grow your business, expand your reach, and connect with customers in meaningful ways..

5. Grow your team

If you want to expand your business you need to grow your team, especially your sales team if you are relying on inbound marketing to grow your customer base. Growing your team is essential for scaling and expanding your business. A talented and motivated team can help drive innovation, improve efficiency, and handle increased workload. Growing your team requires careful planning, attracting top talent, fostering a positive work culture, and investing in their development. By building a strong and capable team, you can drive business growth, improve operational efficiency, and position your company for success.

6. Showcase your expertise

Showcasing your expertise is a powerful way to grow your business and establish yourself as a thought leader in your industry. By positioning yourself as an expert, you can attract new customers, build credibility, and differentiate yourself from competitors. Remember that showcasing your expertise is an ongoing effort. Consistency, quality content, and active engagement are key to establishing yourself as an authority in your industry. By effectively showcasing your expertise, you can attract new customers, build trust, and grow your business.

7. Support your community

Supporting your community is not only a noble endeavor but can also help grow your business. By giving back and being actively involved in your community, you can build strong relationships, enhance your brand reputation, and attract loyal customers. Remember that genuine community support goes beyond just promotional benefits. It is about building meaningful connections, making a positive difference, and contributing to the well-being of your community. By supporting your community, you can cultivate a loyal customer base, enhance your brand reputation, and foster long-term business growth.

8. Network

Utilizing your network effectively can be instrumental in growing your business. Your network consists of contacts, connections, and relationships you've built over time. Remember that networking is about building genuine connections and mutually beneficial relationships. Approach your network with an attitude of giving and supporting others. By leveraging your network effectively, you can gain access to new business opportunities, collaborative partnerships, and valuable resources that contribute to your business growth.

9. Develop additional income streams

Developing additional income streams can diversify your revenue sources and contribute to the growth of your business. Remember to consider the scalability, profitability, and alignment with your core business when developing additional income streams. Diversifying your revenue sources can reduce risks and help your business thrive in different market conditions, contributing to sustained growth over time.

10. Measure and iterate

Measuring and iterating are essential components of growing a business. By continuously monitoring your performance, analyzing data, and making iterative improvements, you can optimize your strategies, products, and processes. Remember that measuring and iterating is an ongoing process. Regularly review and adjust your strategies, products, and processes based on data and customer feedback. By consistently optimizing your business through measurement and iteration, you can drive growth, increase efficiency, and stay ahead in a dynamic market.

5 Ways To Grow An Online Business

1. Create a mobile friendly look

Creating a mobile-friendly look is crucial for growing an online business since a significant portion of web traffic comes from mobile devices. By creating a mobile-friendly look for your online business, you enhance user experience, increase engagement, and improve conversion rates. Prioritize the mobile experience to capture the growing number of mobile users and drive business growth in today's mobile-centric world.

2. Use social media effectively

Using social media effectively is crucial for growing an online business as it allows you to reach a large audience, engage with potential customers, and build brand awareness. Consistency, authenticity, and providing value to your audience are key to successful social media growth. Adapt your strategy based on analytics and evolving trends, and always focus on building meaningful connections with your followers. By effectively utilizing social media, you can increase brand visibility, engage with your target audience, and drive growth for your online business. So, you need to make proper corporate use, which requires targeted actions. If you are ready to plan or organize a Social Media Marketing campaign, there are some tips to make it gain greater traction with your target audience. Create communities around popular hashtags, update ad content regularly and remarket it, create call buttons that bring new potential customers, and add themes to your social media campaigns.

3. Use SEO to improve your rankings

Search Engine Optimization is essential for any kind of business. If you are not on the first page you are dead in the water. Customers have a short attention span and if they can't find you, they won't want to give you their custom. There are many ways to improve your SEO rankings, one of the top ones is to create videos. Latest stats indicate that users will dedicate 100 minutes a day watching videos on the internet. The other way is to create backlinks. First page search results get extra 5% -14,5% more links from new sites each month.

4. Take advantage of free marketing tools

Taking advantage of free marketing tools can be highly beneficial for growing an online business, especially for small businesses or those with limited budgets. When using free marketing tools, keep in mind their limitations and potential upgrade options as your business grows. Evaluate your needs, experiment with different tools, and determine which ones provide the most value for your specific business goals. Combine these tools with a solid marketing strategy and consistent effort to effectively grow your online business.

5. Network with complimentary businesses

A great use of your time and effort is to network and spend time attending networking events. Forming a symbiotic relationship with another business can offer excellent rewards. One of which is getting your brand in front of consumers who may not know it exists yet.

Conclusion 

Growing a new business or an existing successful business takes a number of actions that form a chain to success, provided of course that they are followed in the right sequence. You can't put the cart in front of the horse, so it pays to know how to go through the stages in a proven chronological order. Growing a business requires you creating a strategy to find and retain customers, taking advantage of free marketing tools to grow an online presence and dramatically improve SEO rankings, and use tools and influencers build a better social media presence. Growing a business does take time, but there are proven ways to reduce the time. You just need the right know-how. 

Building and growing a successful business or having small business leaders start a business requires a great deal of know-how and it doesn't happen overnight.

Much can be learned on the job, which can be a school of hard knocks and setbacks, but as has been proven time and time again, when it comes to the growth of your business, or discovering ways to grow your business, earning an MBA or BBA from a world-class university such as Nexford can help you develop all of the skills required to grow the business and realize true business expansion to put it on the global map.

Looking to grow a small business?

Consider an MBA in global business, an MBA in ecommerce, or a BBA in supply chain management. A good place to start is an online BBA program, or an online MBA program at Nexford University. 

Growing a small business takes various skills that are extremely important to compete with the big boys. However, other soft and hard skills are also needed. Discover how you can acquire the most in-demand skills with our free report, and open the doors to creating a successful small business. Download the free report today!

FAQs

What makes a business grow faster?

Several factors can contribute to the faster growth of a business. A clear value proposition, market demand, innovation and differentiation, effective marketing and branding, a scalable business model, a strong customer focus, strategic partnerships and collaborations, effective leadership, continuous learning and adaptation, access to capital, and effective use of technology.

The combination of those factors and their specific implementation will vary depending on the nature of your business and industry. It's important to analyze your business's unique context, market conditions, and customer preferences to determine the most effective strategies for accelerating growth.

How to attract new customers and retain existing ones?

In all businesses across all sectors it is absolutely imperative that companies retain their existing customers, especially as you consider that according to Forbes, gaining a new customer can cost five to seven times more than the amount to retain an existing one. It is a balancing act though because without attracting new customers you will stagnate and not be able to grow the business. Indeed maintains that there are 10 common marketing strategies companies can use to reach more customers, encourage repeat business and build brand loyalty. These are leverage social media, start a blog, maximize SEO, create a call to action, engage influencers, build a mailing list, create an affiliate program, engage customers with chat, host webinars, and develop customer personas.

How to measure business growth?

Measuring business growth involves assessing key performance indicators (KPIs) and using metrics to evaluate progress over time. These can be identifying relevant KPIs, setting benchmarks and targets, tracking financial metrics, analyzing customer-related metrics, assessing marketing and sales performance, monitoring operational efficiency, utilizing analytics tools, conducting regular performance reviews, and benchmarking against industry peers. Regularly measuring business growth provides a comprehensive understanding of your business's performance, helps identify areas for improvement, and supports strategic decision-making. Combine quantitative data with qualitative feedback to gain a holistic view of your business's growth trajectory.

What are the 4 main growth strategies?

The four main growth strategies for small businesses are often referred to as the Ansoff Matrix. They are:

Market Penetration

This strategy focuses on increasing market share within existing markets or customer segments. It involves tactics such as aggressive marketing, pricing strategies, customer loyalty programs, or improving customer service to attract more customers from competitors or increase sales to existing customers.

Market Development

This strategy aims to expand into new markets or target new customer segments with existing products or services. It involves identifying untapped customer segments, geographic expansion, entering new distribution channels, or exploring new market niches. This strategy allows businesses to reach new customers and diversify their customer base.

Product Development

This strategy involves developing and introducing new products or services to existing markets or customer segments. It focuses on expanding the product or service line to meet the evolving needs and preferences of customers. Businesses can innovate, improve existing products, or introduce new variations to capture additional market share and drive growth.

Diversification

This strategy involves entering new markets or developing new products that are unrelated to the current business. It can be categorized into two types: related diversification (expanding into new products or services that are related or complementary to the existing business) and unrelated diversification (entering entirely new industries or markets). Diversification carries higher risks but can open up new revenue streams and reduce dependence on a single market.

It's important to note that these growth strategies are not mutually exclusive, and businesses can implement a combination of strategies based on their unique circumstances and goals. It's also essential to conduct thorough market research, assess risks, and develop a solid execution plan when implementing these growth strategies.

What are the stages of business growth?

Business growth can be categorized into several stages, commonly known as the business growth lifecycle. While the specific stages may vary based on industry and individual circumstances, the following are commonly recognized stages:

Seed Stage

This is the initial stage of a business, where the idea is conceptualized, and the business is launched. Entrepreneurs focus on market research, validating the concept, and developing a business plan. Funding is typically obtained through personal savings, friends and family, or early-stage investors.

Startup Stage

In this stage, the business moves from the idea phase to execution. The focus is on product development, market entry, and establishing a customer base. Startups often face high levels of uncertainty, limited resources, and a strong emphasis on product-market fit. Funding may come from angel investors, crowdfunding, or grants.

Growth Stage

At this stage, the business experiences rapid expansion and increasing revenue. The focus shifts to scaling operations, attracting a larger customer base, and building brand awareness. Businesses may need to invest in hiring additional staff, expanding infrastructure, or optimizing processes to meet growing demand. Funding options can include venture capital, bank loans, or government programs.

Expansion Stage

In this stage, the business seeks to enter new markets, diversify its product or service offerings, or expand geographically. Strategic partnerships, mergers, acquisitions, or franchising may be considered to accelerate growth. Funding options may include additional equity financing, debt financing, or reinvested profits.

Maturity Stage

At this stage, the business has achieved a stable market position, and growth slows down. The focus shifts to maintaining market share, optimizing operations, and sustaining profitability. Businesses may explore strategies such as product differentiation, entering new customer segments, or enhancing customer loyalty. Funding may come from retained earnings or debt financing.

Decline or Renewal Stage

In this stage, businesses face the risk of declining sales, market saturation, or changing customer preferences. Some businesses may experience a decline, while others may undergo renewal by reinventing themselves or pivoting into new markets or industries. Funding options may involve divestment, strategic partnerships, or seeking external investors.

It's important to note that not all businesses will progress through each stage linearly, and some may face challenges or experience setbacks along the way. The duration of each stage can also vary widely, depending on the industry, market conditions, and business strategies employed. Successful businesses continuously adapt, innovate, and reinvent themselves to navigate through these stages and achieve sustained growth.

Looking to grow a small business?

Consider an MBA in global business, an MBA in ecommerce, or a BBA in supply chain management. A good place to start is an online BBA program, or an online MBA program at Nexford University. 

Growing a small business takes various skills that are extremely important to compete with the big boys. However, other soft and hard skills are also needed. Discover how you can acquire the most in-demand skills with our free report, and open the doors to creating a successful small business. Download the free report today!