Proven Ways to Grow Your Business

Learning how to grow your business isn’t just a worthy goal; growing your business is often a necessity for your business’s survival and your economic well-being.

What can you do to get your business beyond the bare sustenance level? What can you do to turn it into the income-generating powerhouse you envision?

Try one of more of these growth strategies. All have been successfully used by other businesses and, with some planning and investment, will work for you.

• Penetrate your existing market

When you think about how to grow your business, the first thing that probably comes to mind is getting new customers. But the customers you already have are your best bet for increasing your sales; it’s easier and more cost-effective to get people who are already buying from you to buy more than to find new customers and persuade them to buy from you.

• Ask for referrals

That’s not to say that getting new customers is a bad approach. One of the easiest ways to do this is to ask your current customers for referrals. But notice the verb. Having good products and great customer service and just assuming that your customers are passing the word about your business isn’t going to do much to increase your customer base; you have to actively seek referrals.

During or after every job or sale, ask your satisfied customer if he knows anyone else who would be interested in your products or services.

• Innovate your product or service

Discovering and promoting new uses for your products or services is a great way to both get existing customers to buy more and attract new customers. There’s also a high chance that someone already sells or provides same product/service that you do, when you innovate, you’re able to stay ahead of competition.

• Extend your market reach

There are several ways of growing your business by making your product or service available to a new pool of customers.

The most obvious is to open stores in new locations, such as opening a store or kiosk in a new town. New locations can also be virtual, such as a website with an online store. Another approach is to extend your reach through advertising.

Once you’ve identified a new market, you might advertise in select media that targets that market. If your new market consists of a younger demographic, you may want to use social media for advertising,

• Conquer a niche market

Remember the analogy of the big fish in the small pond? That’s essentially how this strategy for growing your business works. The niche market is the pond; a narrowly defined group of customers. Think of them as a subset whose needs are not being met and concentrate on meeting those unmet needs.

A school, for instance, might specialize in creche while a caterer might focus on cooking for just office staff.

• Contain your costs

Surprised? Bear in mind that when we’re talking about growing your business, we’re actually talking about growing your business’s bottom line. And the difference between pre-tax and post-tax money can make this a very effective growth strategy.

There are two main approaches to cutting costs; liquidating your “loser” products and improving your inventory turnover.