In times of uncertainty, instead of looking at ways to ‘grow your business’, many business owners make the fatal mistake of either doing nothing, or shrinking their operations. Perhaps the thinking for the latter strategy is that by saving money now there may be spare cash in times of need.
In my experience, the worst thing you can do is nothing. You cannot be like the proverbial bunny staring into the headlights and hope you don’t get run over. Doing nothing most likely means your business is shrinking and dying. There is no such thing as consolidating a position in business. Either you strive to go forward, change your methods, your approaches, your delivery, or it’s just a matter of time before natural decay will erode your business and you will be forced to close your doors.
I believe strong leaders are made in hard or uncertain times. So, get out your pen and be ready to jot down ideas on how you can grow your business.
If you’ve read my previous articles, then perhaps you’ll recall that across 2 in particular, I explained there are four strategic ways to grow your business. To summarise, these are:
1) Increase your customers or client numbers
2) Get your customers to buy more frequently
3) Get more customers to spend more money per transaction
4) Reduce attrition – keep hold of your customers for longer
Essentially these are the WHAT. They are important as they set the targets the business must achieve in a given period of time. This strategy is important.
Each of these then have sub-strategies and there are dozens of them! Let’s call them techniques because they provide the HOW element to getting the job done. These are essential because they lead to ACTION. Without action, NOTHING happens.
OK, you should be ready and excited to take notes and get your ideas together. These ideas are designed to be a starting point. This article has NOT been written to simply provide intellectual entertainment, but instead give you proven information to help you make changes for the long term good of your business and the people who you employ.
Sub-strategies 1-10: ‘Increase Your Customer or Client Numbers’
1) Drive more traffic to your website. Make use of industry related forums, social media, video, business directories (including your local Yell directory of course) etc. I’m assuming here you have a decent website to send people to, if not I strongly suggest you invest in one!
2) Review your website to understand what may be missing. What do potential customers need or want that may not be clear? Alternatively, what may be present that is stopping these people from making a purchase or an enquiry. How well does your website flow? Is there a clear course of action to take for a prospect to take?
3) Review your sales and marketing funnel to ensure you have a sound and simple path which allows a prospect to become a customer. How are you currently capturing prospect contact details? How do you then follow up? If its not up to scratch, fix it.
4) Improve the effectiveness of your current advertising/marketing methods by reviewing, tweaking and testing, again & again.
5) Test different places to advertise. Where do your target market spend their money/congregate? Are there any events you can attend, exhibit or be a guest speaker at? Are there any publications you can appear in?
6) Create and test stronger offers that be more appealing to your target market.
7) Create cross sells, up-sells and down sells so that you always have a second offer to your prospects if they reject the first offer.
8) Systemise your referral process and test different referral systems to find the best methods for you and your customers.
9) Create strong joint ventures and/or affiliates
10) Host a free or low cost seminar / webinar / conference to attract prospects and provide great information.
In the part 2 of this article, the focus will shift to strategy #2 – getting your customers to buy more frequently. I appreciate ther relvancy of this will depend on the type of your business and the products/services you sell. I look forward to sharing this next set of sub-stragtegies with you.
[bctt tweet=”30 Sub-Strategies To Grow Your Business – Part 1″ username=”yellbusiness”]
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