All businesses start with an idea and a well fleshed-out business plan. Then, after launching, they continue to evolve and shift with societal demands. Eventually, for companies with strong leadership and powerful execution, there comes a need to expand. Unfortunately, there isn’t a rulebook on how to grow a business, which means everyone achieves their goals differently. However, by taking a look at other business journeys, we can learn and put a plan together. Fortunately for you, we’ve done the hard work and gathered together nine business growth ideas, which you can read about below.
Quality Management
Scaling a business is tough, and you will need a strong management team on hand to succeed. When choosing management talent, their qualities are essential, as this is what investors will look for. Your team will need relevant experience, and a combination of strategic and dynamic approaches. Further, your team need the ability to nurture social media personality, expand sales teams, and hire additional talent. If you’ve got cracks in your management team, your business growth will start to suffer, and you may lose investors.
Further Study
The business landscape is constantly shifting, which is why studying is essential. If you’ve got budding management in your team, you can pay for them to complete an online master’s in business analytics at Aston University. Investing in a business analytics expert will help your business grow, as converting big data into presentable formats will help you to secure investors and direct the company.
Master Marketing
Digital marketing is your best friend when it comes to expanding a business, but you need to understand how it works. As a business leader, you need to have a thorough understanding of how digital marketing works, even if you’ve hired a marketer. Becoming a master in marketing will help you secure investors because you’ll be able to discuss the direction in which your company is headed.
Use Digital Platforms
If your start-up is a bricks-and-mortar business, you need to embrace the digital world to grow. There is a wealth of online tools out there to support your business’s growth including:
● Sprout Social. There are over 4.5 billion social media users worldwide, and Sprout Social will help you access your audience.
● SendGrid. Email marketing has the largest ROI than any other method, and SendGrid can help you launch an effective campaign.
● Clearscope. Writing quality content is important but it needs to be optimised for the SERPs, which is where Clearscope comes in.
● Optimizely. Pulling new leads onto your landing page is great, but you need it to succeed. Optimizely will help you improve your page through a no-code interface, which means anyone can use it.
● Typeform. A great way to convert leads is through pop-ups, which is what Typeform specialises in.
The tools above will help you expand globally, and won’t cost you a fortune, which is essential when expanding a business.
Secure Funding
Your business won’t expand unless you have funding, which can be challenging to secure, especially in this economy. Therefore, you should attend talks and events, which are a great chance to network. Alternatively, depending on your industry, you may be able to find government grants and support. In some cases, you can find support with business tasks for free, which means you can use this cash on growth.
Set Strict Deadlines
If you assign expansion work and don’t set deadlines, you’re setting yourself up for failure. You need to move swiftly when you’re scaling up and setting strict deadlines will help to keep up the momentum. However, you will have lots of work to accomplish, and you need to keep up employee morale. Therefore, you should break down work into manageable chunks, which won’t appear so overwhelming.
Plan Carefully
When you started your business, you will have had a thorough business plan, and you’ll likely plan ahead periodically. The same principles apply when you’re expanding – you need to plan carefully for it. You need to consider management systems, skills, target markets, and governance. Before you jump into international territories, you can create a board to oversee the growth and ensure there’s an international representative present. The international rep will liaise with foreign governments and make sure your business conforms to all legislation. Further, if you have any issues, you won’t need to make expensive journeys to visit your business.
Onboard Quality Talent
There are too many business tasks to complete with a skeleton team, which means you need to onboard quality talent. Thanks to the work-from-home culture we have now, you can expand your searches worldwide, which means you’re not limited to locals. Although hiring is important, you need to be scrupulous during the interview process because it’s better to hire two excellent people than a team of average employees, which will cost you more.
Build a Positive Company Culture
You need employees to grow successfully, and you need them to work hard, which means you need to have them on your side. To do this, you need to further a positive company culture, which starts during the onboarding process. Speak to your current employees and find out what’s important to them and manage your perks accordingly. At the moment, one of the highest demands is the opportunity to work at home. In the Netherlands, it’s set to be the law that certain businesses need to offer the opportunity to work remotely.
Creating a positive culture goes further than having great perks. For example, you will need to demonstrate inclusivity and diversity, share company goals, nurture respect, practice zero tolerance, and recognise employee successes. Also, you need to recognise shifts in your workplace and be willing to revise policies accordingly.
Growing a company requires three main components including quality talent, knowing how to spend time, and generating urgency. If you can achieve this, you are more likely to gain funding, which will lead to further growth. To achieve your goals, make sure you write a solid plan and use the methods discussed above – your only limitation is you.
