16 Growth Opportunities for your business: I am 100% sure that these tips are really effective for entrepreneurs, new business owners, small business owners, and professionals to grow their business without stress.
Business growth depends on many things such as product quality, market demand, business model scalability, production and distribution speed, and the use of information technologies. Itâs important to find a sustainable balance when business is small. It can be with one product, service, marketing channel and production process and demand, and supply.
Itâs easy for bigger companies and a group of people to expand but difficult for small businesses. To grow a business, you have to stand on something that is balanced in the market. I mean you actually making the money and now want to expand the business, want to grow profit, and looking to automate. And in this article, you will get the practical methods and tips to grow your small business faster and stronger.
1. Build a growth-oriented mindset:
To grow your small business, first, you have to build a growth mindset in yourself. You should have to make a commitment that each day in the morning, you will think to grow your business.
Once you become committed to growth and success, you will be able to identify and create opportunities for growth in your business.
It can be anything for your business that can work to grow such as the use of online marketing, eCommerce, online collaboration, remote hiring, and technologies.
It will work. Itâs because until you donât think and plan to grow yourself and your business, you will never get ideas or never able to identify, capture the opportunities.
Like youâre reading this post, it shows that you want to grow the business. But do you do it daily? Do you think daily to reach your goals?
If you want to grow your business then make it a habit to think and take the actions to grow your business. It will build a growth-oriented mindset. It will speed up your thinking, make you energetic, creative, and enthusiastic. And thatâs what is important to grow your business.
2. Trust, but donâtâ depend on others for success:
Itâs important to trust team members, partners, and your plan to grow the business. But it doesnât mean you just overly dependent on it. After the first success in small business, it gives a sense of pride, thatâs good. You have worked hard to achieve it. You deserve appreciation and pride.
But remember, to grow from this position to the next position, you again have to work with the team or have to work the same ways as you worked so far with little improvement. And this time youâre more experienced.
If you become a boss and now think that your team will think to grow, and take actions to make your business profitable then itâs a mistake. You have to lead the team. You have to inspire them by leading with examples. You have to build the same growth-oriented mindset in them that is in you.
Not only that you also have to manage and communicate with them effectively. You have to collaborate with them like a team member without thinking about your position or designation. It will build a strong collaborative and inspiring culture. And that culture will brings new ideas, opportunities to grow your business.
Donâtâ forget, you also have to provide them modern business management, production, marketing, and distribution tools.
When your communication, actions, and plans become equally growth-oriented then your success is sure.
But for that, you have to behave and work as a team member and have to work more than others, without becoming a boss or thinking youâre the owner.
Think: Which one is best? Boss of 10 people in a small city or a leader of 2000 team members worldwide. Both are the best as per your thinking and condition. But think big and thrive. No one is stopping you.
3. Focus on one thing, product, service until itâs not become most profitable or generating income:
Switching between projects, works, products, services is important sometimes. But not when you donât have a bank balance, profit, and consistently growing income.
Your first goal as a small business owner, to focus and invest more effort and time on the one product/services that have higher chances of growth and will make your business profitable.
It can take 2-3 days to think and plan. But after thorough research and data analysis, you will actually able to see the real opportunities.
It might look risky, scary but thatâs the adventure of running a business.
Remember, youâre not doing business to settle like a fixed salary employee. Youâre doing it for the consistent growth of your personal, professional life. So thatâs the way to enlarge and explore creativity in business and career.
4. Update your business and technical skills:
Understand how the market is growing. What are the trends and what customer is actually looking for? And how you can provide them that.
Update your business skills by learning from just medium companies, business leaders. Get some technical knowledge and help, especially in online business communication tools, team management, and collaboration applications. Understand and learn the uses of the internet and technology in business.
When you update your technical and business skills, you will get ideas, you will find new ways to reduce cost, you will find the ways to automate and market or promote business.
For that you can learn business books, you can join business and marketing events. You can join leadership training programs. And there are various free and paid ways to improve your business skills, thinking, technical, and leadership skills on the internet. But to grow you have to commit to learning.
The only thing that you need while using technology, tools, methods is to just keep yourself focused on growth. And when youâre focused you donât hesitate to implement the business growth ideas, tips of experts, and industry leaders.
5. (Plan-B) Work part-time on another source of income or personal project:
Customer priorities change according to the season, technology, time, situation, and economy. If you have spare time, and you have an idea to grow or expand your income source, then do that in your 20% of the time.
It can be a blog, a YouTube channel, another line of product, another business part-time.
But be careful, while doing it. Itâs because it can distract you from the main goals.
In the long run, it can benefit you. And even it can provide financial backup. But the success of anything depends on your skillset and mindset. So, work on side projects part-time, if you have time, or have another hobby that you want to explore. Take it easy and grow with peace.
6. Donât take too many business responsibilities and liabilities:
Business Responsibilities and liabilities are part of the business. That makes a business successful. But it can also make a business fail if youâre taking too many responsibilities and liabilities.
Responsibilities that contribute to growth:
- Deliver high-quality services/products to clients.
- Paying dealers, distributors, and retailers on time.
- Paying salary and incentives consistently.
- Setting and aching the goals.
- Promotion of deserving candidates.
- Employees’ leadership and technical skills development.
- Identification of growth opportunities and planning to capture them.
- Faster and smooth execution.
- Controls on the expenses.
- Risk-taking and management abilities.
- Effective communication, project management, and collaboration with employees.
- Own skills development.
- Time Management
The above responsibilities make you a leading entrepreneur. If you work on the above things periodically then it will contribute to leadership development, product development, speed of execution, collaboration, innovation, and more sales.
Responsibilities that make you negative, exhausted, and frustrated:
- Work on the project/product/service/support in which you and your team are skilled and expert.
- Promise only those things to customers that you can deliver.
- Donât think that everything negative or wrong around your atmosphere is because of you.
- Donât think, itâs your responsibility to control everything. You can control, whatâs in your hand. If the customer buys, good. But if donât buys them then itâs good too, you can try again.
- Donât waste time training people with the wrong mindset. Itâs not your responsibility to change their mindset. Let them go. Hire someone who is there with a growth mindset.
Liabilities that contribute to the growth of business and provide higher returns:
- Investment in modern technologies and machinery to improve production.
- Team-building, training, and value improvement activities.
- Investment of efforts, money, and time in selling and marketing such as the use of pay per click for quick sells, social media advertising for personalized communication with the customer, email marketing, sales funnels, content marketing, and discount pop-ups on the website.
- Purchase of own property than paying rent.
- Addition of own new units, direct creation or collection of raw materials instead of paying for other parties.
- Use of cloud computing (SaaS, IaaS, PaaS), cloud storage, artificial intelligence, chatbots, and online business communication tools to reduce the infrastructure cost, automate business, and improvement in decision making.
- Investment in your own learning, team skills, and expertise development.
- Use of co-working space
- Hiring freelancers.
- Online interview, video conferencing, online meeting.
- Video recording, documentation of the business process that becomes easy to follow others after a one-time investment.
- Investment of time and money on taking business consultancy services.
Liabilities that impact the growth negatively:
- Taking the workplace on high rent. Make sure youâre saving or investing more than paying rent. Rent is also an investment but if itâs less than your savings. Itâs very important while youâre small.
- Registration of business into a private limited company, or any other high registration, while youâre still under development and looking for more customers.
- Use of low-quality equipment, low configuration, and old technologies.
- Too fast hiring of people without building and identification of the profit-making process.
- Investment in own luxuries without investment in the business.
- Use of tools that is too costly, instead of looking for alternatives.
- Investment in big brands services or higher prices, when they can be available by other less priced or less branded people.
Remember, everything that youâre doing in the business is not directly connected to the profit and acquisition. You have to identify which cost is important and what can be converted into assets.
For example, if youâre paying $1000 to run a $100 income product or services, then you have to think seriously about this. There might be a solution in $50 that can work similarly to that tool.
7. Take a calculated risk and be fearless:
Itâs important to be fearless to grow a small business. You have to stand and fight for your product and services. And you have to improve and prove that youâre better than the available options in the market.
You have to take an uncommon business decision to surprise the market and competitors. It can be a 50% discount for the customer in the coming week, it can be a $10000 investment on PPC ads. It can be the use of remote employees. It can be the use of co-working space. It can be a new product launch. It can be to make your product/services free for 1 month. It can be the integration of Artificial intelligence in your business application to automate the business.
Whatever decision you can make, you have to take it fearlessly. And have to be confident that you will cover if something wrong happens. You can use the data analysis or analytics tool, reports making, or backup decisions with data.
But to take such calculated risks you have to extremely focused, aware, balanced, cool to manage risk. For that, itâs important that you understand your business, customers, market, competition, demands, supply, your team, and the production process.
You can use your website data analytics (I hope you have), google trends, latest news related to your business, survey forms, pop-up for testing, third party communication with your team, and many other technical and leadership tricks.
It looks risky to move or get up from your current position. Everyone feels happy and safe in the chair. But when they have to come to the stage to inspire team members or to present the project then it makes them nervous. Itâs always uncomfortable to climb the mountains, the same it happens in business.
But safe is also risky.
When youâre small itâs easy to grow and take the risk. The risk youâre taking is small. Itâs big when you think itâs big.
Remember, donât be overconfident. Test the idea for a few days, work on it, feel that and then launch it.
Whatever you have today, is because of your risk-taking abilities and passion for success in the past. Now, why youâre changing your mindset.
Be brave my friend. Be committed to stand, no matter how many times you fall in the race.
8. Donât hesitate to help your customer and team me, members:
Sometimes your mood is not to help or reply to the customer and thatâs ok, it happens. But you have to balance yourself, product, support. Itâs your responsibility to help your customer, they need you, youâre the expert.
No matter they are paying enough or not. But you have to help them. Youâre in the business because of customers. You have to think about them. Even if they donât know, what to do next, you have to inspire them or plan for them to become successful in their business.
Itâs hard work?
No, itâs not.
If want to grow as a business leader or entrepreneur, then you never feel it as a burden. Do your karma with your best efforts and let the future decide what you will get or whatnot.
Similar to this, you also have to help your team members when they find difficulties. You have to teach and guide them. You have to align them on the right track in which your business goals are.
Donât think anything. Just think to grow. Capture and call the opportunities they are waiting for your calls.
9. Communicate effectively:
Communication is the main key to the growth and profitability of your small business. The way you communicate about your services, products with your customers, you will impact them positively and negatively. Through effective business communication and tools, you can promote, sell more.
Effective business communication increases the trust of your customers on you and your brand. Thatâs why effective communication skills are really important in business, marketing, and selling activities.
Not only that, your communication with your team members, impact their productivity. If you communicate softly, sweetly with love and care, they will trust more and get inspired to work with you. Even if sometimes youâre paying them less, they will still keep working for you. Communication builds or breaks relationships.
So, if you want to grow the business, you have to improve your communication skills. Communicate respectfully even with your peon, donât underestimate the power of love, trust, respect if you really want to grow and want to become a successful and respectful entrepreneur.
10. Give more to the customer than expected:
Do you like it when you get something extra that you havenât expected?
You like it. And it will be liked by most people.
So, surprise your clients with a little extra, creative that becomes memorable for the customers. And it will inspire them to come back.
Such as you can do the following things:
- A warm welcome that makes them happy.
- An extraordinary and fast service.
- Bonus or discounts.
- Free next business plan or steps after your work completion.
- Cashback
11. Be creative in business promotion and marketing:
Be simple and straight while marketing your products and services. Be clear, what your product, how it will help them. Thatâs it. Even show them proof if needed. But let them ask while selling. If you canât say or donât know anything then donât say or promise.
Bonus:Â Explore the imagination. Let them imagine how your products will be going to change their life.
For example:Â If youâre selling a weight loss product. Say, or use the similar tagline âWant to look beautiful again in the selfies then try our weight loss medicineâ.
Just try and train your staff to sell in 3 to 5 seconds. And if customers are interested, they will always learn more.
It will improve your PPC CTR and conversion rate. You will get good results in various sales funnels, itâs best to practice creative headlines to capture the attention of the user.
But make sure your product does the same.
So, my overall point here is to be creative and unique in marketing. But be professional in production, distribution, team management so that you also get profit. And your profit is the way to grow your business.
Related:Â What is Blog used for? Uses of the blog in our daily life
12. Save money to invest in faster and effective tools/machinery:
Customers want products and services fast. They want a variety of designs, they want a quick return on the investment, they want high-quality products and great customer support as well, and many other business things. And this is important to grow the business else your competitor captures your customer before you.
If you have decided to fight the battle in the market then make sure you have the tools and skills to fight and win.
But what to do when youâre small? How to get or buy tools, machinery, computers, infrastructure?
Itâs possible, by saving money. Instead of spending on personal appearance and luxury, itâs best first to buy the tools that are demanding to repair and change.
Itâs because your computer and business communication tools helping you to earn money. And itâs important to grow the business, that you save money and invest wisely in the tool that will be really handy or effective to faster the speed of growth and productivity. And itâs important to improve the speed of production and distribution to make a profit.
And it can be when you save and spend your business income wisely on innovation and management.
Related:Â Importance of having a website for small business
13. Focus on the profit:
In business, you have to focus on many things. You have to focus on customer demands, you have to focus on value addition, you have to focus on team members, productivity, and distribution. But at the same time, you also focus on the profit.
If youâre not making a profit, youâre not doing business. Your business model has to be profitable. Even you make $2 per customer. But at least you make.
Yeah! it can look rude but itâs the truth. You canât grow without profit. If youâre just investing, investing without getting a return, then I donât know how long you can be in the market?
I donât mean you start to cheat people to make a profit. Just be aware of your cost, pricing, savings, and investments. And when youâre small donât sell or provide your services free, even for friends. Some people become friends, to get free services and knowledge from you. Be aware of such friends.
If youâre working on business loans or paying the operational cost from a bank secured or unsecured loans then itâs really important for you to manage your business finance effectively.
14. Spend your time in innovation than management
You can hire someone to manage your day to day internal and external business activities. You can automate many things in business with the help of information technology and team members. And it saves you time. And when you have time you will grow.
If youâre spending your maximum time in management and daily dealings then who will think to grow, who will plan new ideas, who will innovate, and who will lead your business.
If youâre able to pay or really want to grow then you have to pay some money to manage your work. If youâre spending $10000 for management then I am sure you will think and executing the plan to earn $100000 per month.
But yes, sometimes itâs important to save money. And itâs not bad if you work 3 hours extra each day. You want to become a successful entrepreneur. And 3 extra hours is nothing in front of your success and respect in the market.
15. Reduce operational cost:
Higher Operating cost is the biggest barrier to business growth. And it can be due to product pricing and too much investment in unproductive tools and tasks.
But to reduce it, you have to think, where you can save money. Can you save on rent? by using a co-working space or your home.
- Can you save by using cloud computing infrastructure than on-premises?
- Can you save on electricity, maintenance?
- Can you save on doing online marketing instead of traditional marketing?
- Can you save on doing content marketing instead of pay per click campaign?
- Can you save on unsubscribing from highly costly designing tools or collaboration apps?
Think, how many units are contributing to the profit. And what units are costing you more than profit.
Remove or turn off the things that have a higher cost, and use less costly solutions without compromising product/service quality.
16. Keep changing and updating your product/services:
Sometimes to grow sales and business. You have to make certain changes to your marketing and business strategy.
For example:
- Youâre missing some important features in your apps that attract and improve conversion rates.
- Might be your customer want the upgraded product. Itâs because now they are bored with the same things.
- Might be itâs great for you to build an online presence and try eCommerce.
- Might be time for you to use mobile marketing and advertising.
Remember, donât make all the changes in one day, always try to do smooth transitions in business.
Whatever is the change, one thing is clear you have to keep updating your product and services so that your customers remain interested in using your services. Customer interest in your product and services explore the growth opportunities for your business.