Ultimately, every small business owner wants their business to grow and expand. But how do you grow your small business? What are the best small business scaling tips to grow your business beyond its current state?
Small Business Scaling Tips
There are many ways small businesses can grow and expand. Here are eight effective small business scaling tips you can use to successfully grow your business, broken down into four sectors.
Conduct useful market research
Most large companies have carved out their own corner of the market. Pepsi-Cola, for example, lost out to Coca-Cola in the soft drink market until it split the market and focused on a fun-loving, youthful-looking demographic. Many Pepsi ads today are demographically targeting pop stars and other young status symbols, which has helped it grow into a heavyweight Coke company. Likewise, Red Bull drinks energy drinks in front of a young, adventurous crowd (its own segment of the market) and even owns a Formula One racing team.
Segment the market for growth
You can also carve new corners of the market to grow and expand your business. Search the Internet with market research and contact your local Chamber of Commerce to identify viable consumers you can target. Narrow down who your main competitors are, who they serve, what they offer and where they lack services. This allows you to focus on and grow your business by cutting out some of the larger markets and focusing on those markets.
Develop a solid marketing plan
Expanding your small business usually requires a significant investment of time and money, so you need to have a marketing plan in place in advance. A marketing plan will help you stay on schedule for expansion and spend your marketing resources wisely and appropriately.
In general, a good marketing plan goes from understanding your target market to understanding where you are competitively in that market and how to get there, to how to achieve your expansion goals within a specific period of time.
Check out the templates small businesses can use to develop a solid marketing plan and more small business expansion tips.
Funding for Small Business Expansion
Funding for Expansion
Analyze your financial situation to ensure you have enough funds to start your Business expansion efforts and support ongoing expansion expenses, such as new employee retention costs. If you need financial assistance, apply for funding from the U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA). SBA is committed to supporting the success of small businesses and developing a variety of financial programs that meet the diverse needs of small businesses.
Other options you may need to get a small business loan to support your expansion goals include credit unions, banks and professional lenders such as OnDeck and National Funding, which provide loans for working capital, Kabbage, which works with online retailers, and market lenders like Biz2Credit. Avoid common rookie small business loan mistakes as a marketing budget is an essential factor in nurturing your overall endeavor.
Diversification of product and/or service offerings
Adapt an existing product or service to appeal to a new consumer group or user identification. Or you can add and sell a new product or service. This will open up new areas for you to expand your business in new directions. Diversification protects your existing customer base, creates multiple streams of income to fill seasonal lows and, of course, increases sales and profit margins.
Common ways for businesses to diversify include importing or exporting their own or others’ products, selling complementary services, or starting consulting services. For example, Certified Professional Accountants may provide consulting or financial planning services to business executives. You may need to open other locations for new (and existing) markets.
Partner with others and get help to expand.
Connect with other brands and businesses
Partnering with other brands will help you scale your business faster. For example, let’s say a company manufactures a new technology golf ball that provides great control on the greens. There are no manufacturing facilities, distribution channels or other parts of the golf ball supply chain. You can survive on your own, but if you connect to the community around you, you will really thrive.
In this case, you can connect them to the golf ball supply chain by contacting a branch of an established golf ball company, such as Bridgestone or another professional ball manufacturer that has good customer acquisition, distribution or marketing channels. Every time you sell a golf ball, you’ll have to pay your partner a portion of the proceeds, but you’ll be building your own brand awareness and affinity in the process. It’s all about strengths and weaknesses.
Maintain a competitive advantage using new technologies
Technological changes can make or break a business’s expansion goals. For example, upgrading business facilities with advanced technology can increase efficiency and expand operations. However, when the industry says that the last resort to detect where technology is going is to adopt modern accounting software, it can erode your foundation.
So, keep up with the latest technology and decide which type of technology is right for your business. Don’t forget to dedicate a part of your business to meeting the needs of “early adopters.”
Engage your consumers and get additional direction and guidance.
Social media networks to increase brand awareness
Social media is an invaluable tool for communicating with consumers and increasing brand awareness. For example, a web design company can engage users by responding to their tweets, and fans who follow the company on Twitter can see the tweets. If your tweets are interesting and helpful, others will follow your company and grow your fan base.
Similarly, small businesses can post videos of satisfied customers to YouTube and Periscope, tag them with searchable keywords, and link the videos to their business website. You can also post company events, new product lines, special offers and promotions on Facebook and other social networks.
Merger with another market or acquisition of another company in the market
Perhaps the most aggressive growth and expansion strategy is to buy a company that makes a product related to yours. We’ve seen a lot of tech companies like Facebook, Google, and Amazon continuing to acquire small businesses lately. Vonage, a long-familiar brand in VoIP services, has embarked on an acquisition campaign that will allow it to expand into the Unified Communications-as-a-Service (UCaa) market, position itself as a market leader, and increase its revenue margin. If you can’t acquire another business, you can arrange a merger. If you rock it, this can be a very smart move.
However, before a merger or business acquisition, it is important to observe due diligence and consult sources such as stakeholders, mentors, business associations and other books and magazines. It will help you get important guidance and guidance before moving on.
