Growth is important for your business, but it’s just as important that you do it the right way. Grow too quickly or in the wrong direction and you could lose all the momentum you’ve created. The tips below can help you expand your business in a way that’s smart and balanced between overly cautious and too risky.
Have a Plan
It’s surprising how many businesses start expanding without a plan. This happens when you are reactive rather than proactive. Of course, growth often happens in response to demand. If you have more customers than you can manage, you may need to move to a larger space or hire more staff. However, you should have a vision of where your business is going and how you will continue to fulfill your mission statement. Some of this comes down to your initial planning when you first open the business, but you also need to be prepared to pivot and set new goals as things change.
Attend to Your Fleet
If a fleet is part of your business or is going to be as you grow, it’s critical that you have the right technology to track your vehicles and ensure that your drivers are operating safely and you are keeping costs down as much as possible. Included in this should be a tachograph, which offers live status and allows you to ensure that your fleet remains compliant. Tracking technology can also help to reduce the amount of paperwork that your drivers are required to do.
Talk to People
What do your customers want? What do your employees want? Finding out can help you determine the direction that you need to go in and what new processes or equipment you may need. Another common error of businesses is expanding in a direction that customers aren’t interested in. There’s no point in introducing a new product line or a service that has no demand. Top-down efforts at improvements can also cause problems for employees sometimes if they are made by executives who do not understand the daily tasks of workers and where their challenges lie. Getting input from all shareholders gives you more of the insight you need to grow the right way.
Consider a Loyalty Program
Depending on the nature of your business, consider a loyalty program. This can help you track your most loyal customers and better understand their behaviors and what motivates them. These can also be among the most valuable customers that you retain since they are usually the ones who also tend to spend the most. If you tend to work closely with a smaller number of clients and a loyalty program does not fit your business, consider whether there are other ways you could reward your best clients. Maybe you could offer bulk discounts or particular services only to them.
Build Your Customer Base
Instead of or in addition to a loyalty program, you could look at how to increase the number of clients or customers you have. Depending on the nature of your business, an email newsletter, a strong digital marketing campaign or a more traditional approach to advertising might be an appropriate strategy.
