Transforming your small business into a big business requires the vision that defines the definition of ‘big’. You must have a fair idea of what you want the company to become. And then eventually with the help of a good team and resilience, you can determine and execute the path that takes you towards your definition of a big business. These are the golden rules to growing your small business -
7 Golden Rules To Grow Into a Big Business
1. Have a vision
A vision is THE most fundamental thing to start your business with. The vision determines what your business is going to be about and where you want to drive it to. Your vision can be to be the biggest brand of eyewear. Or your vision can be to be the one-stop solution for education. Or you can have your vision oriented towards being a sustainable clothing brand.
Having a vision in place is extremely important as your business model and your marketing strategy completely depend on it. So if your vision talks about sustainability, then your marketing strategy would capture the emotions of giving back to mother earth in your potential customers.
2. Diversify
You can be successful, but you won’t experience much growth if you only focus on one product. Coca-Cola doesn’t just sell soda in red cans. It also sells juice, sports drinks, and bottled water. Apple manufactures computers, MP3 players, phones, and tablets. These are examples of major corporations that grew due in large part to the diversity of the products offered.
3. Expand
You have a goal and a diverse range of products and/or services. The next step to growing your small business is to expand. You will need capital to follow through with expansion, especially when it comes to financing. Lenders want to see growth in both the business’s revenues and net worth. Expansion most often involves opening new locations. You’ll start with a single new location in an area you’ve identified in your business plan as profitable and accessible.
4. Collaborate
Collaborations expose you to the audience of your competitors in the most friendly manner. This way you know the targeted audience is a potential buyer of your service and hence collaborations bring in a lot of exposure for creators and business owners. Similarly, by collaborating you build a culture of trust and positivity where your competitors become business partners and allies for you to make ventures and deals with. Therefore, seek positive opportunities with your rival industries and always build friendly relations.
5. Reflect and Revise
Business analytics, a data management solution and business intelligence subset, refers to the use of methodologies such as data mining, predictive analytics, and statistical analysis in order to analyze and transform data into useful information, identify and anticipate trends and outcomes, and ultimately make smarter, data-driven business decisions.
6. Marketing Strategy
The growth of your small business also depends on how you market your products and services. And the world of marketing has shifted from hoarding to the internet.
Bill Gross, the founder of Idealab, identified another aspect to be crucial for the success of a business. Like the timing.
According to Gross, the timing was equally determining in the factors to startup success. In this example, the timing means whether your business model is early, late, or right on time for the market.
As the market keeps on changing, the demand for various products and services changes drastically. Therefore, according to Gross, you must research well enough to know whether your idea is ahead of its time or if the market that exists today is ready to receive it.
Airbnb's idea was insane to investors. The thought of people renting their houses to strangers didn’t make sense. So many smart investors avoided it in the beginning.
What made the idea work was the timing. Airbnb came to be at the height of the recession. People needed ways of making money. Renting personal space to a stranger for extra income made sense.
Discussing your marketing strategy ahead, you must ensure to capture the right emotion in your potential customers. Take, for example, the brand Jeep that uses the tagline “More Than Just Words.” If you study their marketing strategy carefully, then you’ll notice that they invoke a sense of patriotism and have branded themselves around it. Similarly, an effective marketing strategy is based on the vision and what your target audience aspires to be.
7. Encourage a positive work environment
A positive work environment is not just a boon to the company but a big asset to the company in the longer run. It ensures that the employees come and go with utter positivity and have respect for the company in their hearts. Loyal employees are always a good company’s asset and a positive work environment ensures the same. Therefore, let's promote having a positive work environment as the most basic and must-have quality of a workspace.
The Conclusion
The first few years of your startup are going to be the testing years of your entrepreneurial journey. Not only will there be many lessons to learn and improve on but also hard times where you may feel like giving up. Sometimes external factors like society, personal life, family, and finances also lead a person to end their business venture and give up on their startup. But remember this before you start - Resilience is what will keep you going. Remember that you always have the choice - whether to continue or give up.
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