How Do I Grow My Business?

This is a question that seems increasingly difficult in today's competitive marketplace. It may seem hard to accomplish but really isn't.

You just need to take your marketing and business development activities to the Next Level.

Is this a challenging time for your closely held business? Are your customers more sophisticated and price sensitive? Do they expect your products and services to be delivered faster, cheaper and more conveniently (and they have no qualms about switching to competitors)?

At the same time, does your company seem to have lost the momentum you had in the early years of your business? Have you recognized that while you have had some banner years, you find it increasingly more difficult to repeat the feat year in and year out? Are you unsure how to increase growth beyond the status quo?

More and more this scenario describes business owners like you. This inability to sustain growth for any appreciable length of time is a common trait of closely held businesses, but it doesn't have to be like that for your business.

Most often, much of the problem stems from the business owner falling into the rut of “doing it, doing it, and doing it” – that is, they become too involved in operating their business and don’t spend enough time “working ON their company.” Does this describe you?

When you started your business, you probably spent hours figuring ways to make your business grow, on getting more customers, on developing systems to help you maximize your limited resources. In other words, working ON your business. But as time went on, slowly you got sucked into the “crisis of the urgent.” You started to manage the business and lost that entrepreneurial spirit.

The solution: free up time to focus your attention on delivering more value to your customers, on building the internal systems that will lead to competitive advantage, and start working ON your business again.

The first step to getting back that spirit and to create sustainable growth and to focus on what’s important. That is, on the Building Blocks of Growth.

This 13 Step Crash Course outlines the techniques we use at Next Level to achieve our clients’ goals.

The answers to these questions come down to down to two basic functions you must do correctly:

1. communicate well with your customers and
2. discover their needs and complaints.

If you want to grow your business, you must start by keeping your current base of customers. In a multi-industry study by the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School of Business, researchers found that companies who manage to reduce their customer attrition by only 5 to 10 percent actually increased their profits by 25 to 75 percent, depending on the industry.

In other words, how do you sell existing products/services to new customers? Some possible methods to increase the base of targeted customers include developing strategic partnerships and bundling products together in ways that might appeal to new customers.

How do you get existing customers to buy more often? Some possible methods include decreasing the package quantity of your product into smaller sizes, make special offers, or provide accessories that encourage more frequent purchases.

In other words, how do you get the customer to spend a little more each time they buy from you?

Notice that we didn’t say, “raise prices.”  That is but one possibility to get more money from your customers on every transaction.  Some possible methods include offering volume discounts, extending “buy three get one free” offers, bundling products together, or raising prices.

Examples of appropriate strategies include extending or modifying existing products or services to fill gaps, licensing complementary products from outside sources, or developing new product lines.

Some methods include upgrades, new features, new colors, etc.

Ideas include adding new channels of delivery such as the Internet or direct marketing. In addition, ask your team to find new ways to modify the existing delivery system to save time and money. Don’t be afraid to partner with outside vendors.

Some ideas include utilizing the Internet to better communicate, integrating the entire company through a digital network system, or installing more sophisticated customer services systems. Look at everything. Map out all your systems. Determine which ones add value and which ones cause bottlenecks and problems.

Expansion might mean going global. It might mean creating new sales offices or it might mean adding more sales people to improve the penetration strategy of each existing territory.

What skills, knowledge and processes do you possess that might be a competitive advantage in other industries?

For example, a salt company expanding from its food product line to include salt for melting snow.

Some methods include buying a retail chain, buying a competitor, or distribution network.

By working ON your business, growth almost becomes inevitable. Relying on these Twelve Steps to Growth will revitalize your company and help you rediscover the energy you need to sustain growth year after year.

Are there other businesses that have the same or similar profiles of customers? Can you double your efforts to reach more customers by working together? The concept is called Leverage Strategies.

An example, might illustrate this concept more clearly. A retail movie rental business and a pizza delivery service in town have the same prospective customer base. There is a natural correlation between the two products/services, as many families will choose to purchase a pizza and watch movies at home.

If the movie rental business distributed coupons for pizzas to its customers and the pizza company did the same to its customers, both businesses would reach more potential customers. By leveraging they accomplish more.

What You Will Need:

It may take several years to properly execute each of these steps properly. Bad news is that once you finish, you start right back and do it again. This should become a continuous process and as such will require significant time allotted to its success by those in top management and in marketing functions.

You will need to budget initially for the time and expenditures to develop each step in the process. You may also need to spend more significant money should you discover opportunities to innovate and develop new markets.

You will need to measure your results so you can better manage your activities in this area. You can’t manage what you don’t measure.

You will need a strong champion to in top management to make sure the initiatives get the support they need and to ensure the latest crisis doesn’t distract the company or that it returns to the status quo.

You will need patience. Getting more revenue in the door won’t happen over night. It can but that is not the norm. You must have faith that the ideas you execute will payoff.

1. Top Management Champion
2. Proper Funding
3. Allocated Time and People Resources
4. Good Data On Customers, Markets, Products/Services & Company Expertise
5. Broad Involvement & Buy-In By Those Involved in Sales & Marketing
6. Creative Thinkers
7. Execution & Measurement Systems