They say that all growth depends upon activity. “There is no development physically or intellectually without effort and effort means work.” It’s true, although sometimes a little bit of luck can help, as well as being well-prepared for what your challenges can bring.
If you want your small business to grow bigger but don’t know where to start, it’s important to choose your goal first. But how to get where you want from where you are now?
Here are tips to grow your small business
1. Focus on Customers
From the perspective of an employer, the purpose of business often means profit, but from the perspective of a customer, it means being loyal and satisfied. So how are you going to make that happen?
Firstly, by listening to your customers and being involved in their buying experience. Any feedback from them can be beneficial if taken in a professional manner.
Customer Service
Did you have an experience of cancelling your order because the customer service was awful? Or do you know someone who did that? If the answer is yes – that’s not strange and unusual at all! Customer service speaks in the name of the brand, and each customer wants to feel appreciated.
The Important thing is to analyze your current customer service and, if needed, start educating yourself and your team. In some cases, just responding to customers emails, voice mails, tweets, and comments can be enough
Customers feedback
The fact that 30% of people will take reviews as the key when judging local businesses should be more than enough reason to raise the importance of your customers’ feedback.
Ask them for their opinion, feedbacks, reviews, and testimonials. You can even share their thoughts with your other audience on social media. It will help you:
- Understand them better,
- Make a stronger relationship with them,
- Do better marketing in the future.
2. Get Organized
Organization by itself doesn’t mean success. But there is no successful business without great organization. And that means not only sorting stacks of papers on your desk or documents in your computers. Organization involves creating systems and procedures for each part of your business.
Business platforms
There are lots of tools that can help you manage your business and organize your team. You can do a small research and see which one fits your needs best. We suggest TimeMaker. It can be used for project management, CRM, inventory tracking, event and campaign management, human resources, time billing…
This software platform has a lot of purposes in many different industries such as advertising, education, government, non-profits, restaurants.
And while you don’t need programming skills to use it, it’s definitely not an enterprise level tool designed for thousands of users. That’s why you should consider FileMaker Training. Later on, it will:
- Save you time and money
- Help you build custom solutions
- Improve your team’s communication and coordination
- Help you keep it all in one place.
If you don’t see it as a good fit for you, read about other solutions that can help you with financial and general management, online marketing and keeping detailed records. Knowing where your business stands at each point gives you time to create strategies and overcome futures challenges.
3. Invest in digital marketing
It doesn’t matter if your marketing strategy includes adding your business to Google My Business, building your website, or running social media campaigns, you must look at the bigger picture and be ready to make some serious efforts. Results might not come as soon as you are expecting them and studies show that you will start seeing results in about 6 to 9 months.
For the beginning, be patient and:
- Be active on social media
- Run online campaigns
- Invest in SEO.
Think about your customers – once again
Which social media platform they usually use? What are their habits?
For most small businesses, Facebook is still one of the greatest tools. So, if you don’t have one – make your Facebook profile, keep posting interesting and relevant content a few times a week and don’t overwhelm your followers with promotions. It’s more important to keep them engaged and to find the best way to interact with them.
Keep in mind that although Facebook ads can be beneficial for a small business, if your company has a physical location, search engine rankings are even more important. Claiming your business online with Google My Business will let you adjust how it appears in search results, maps, location, etc. Given that today’s customers are impatient and curious, you want to make sure that they find your company easily.
4. Be creative!
And that means: think outside the box and look up for innovative solutions! Always search for new ways to improve your business and make it stand out from the competitors.
Stay focused on achieving short-term goals, be consistent and don’t run like it’s a sprint. They say it’s the marathon, so place your efforts wisely, and embrace changes all along the road.
Hi Vineet,
Thanks for the article! Investing in digital marketing is very important these days. It is one of the best and cost-effective ways to improve your brand trust, online visibility and sales.
Again, Thank you and more power! 🙂
I couldn’t agree more with the tips you shared, most specially in investing in digital marketing. It’s pretty obvious that internet nowadays are dominant. Thank you for sharing this.
Thank you for breaking this down so well, Vineet! You have written down the most valuable tips for starting a small business that some people often ignore. I couldn’t agree more with what you mentioned here, particularly, about the relevance of digital marketing to succeed. Most of the times, business owners underestimate the power of this approach and hesitate to use it. Also, it is paramount to get things done and organised, especially the documentation and legal processes with the help of trusted lawyers, the right way — the first time. Keep posting! Cheers!