Starting a business is hard. It takes courage, planning, dedication, and serious investment of your time, money, and energy. Once your business is off the ground, it can be tempting to sit back and relax. Don’t fall into this trap.
The key to business success is to always be improving and looking to take your business up a level. Here is a useful guide to help you do just that.
Reach More Customers
Your business is never going to expand unless you attract new customers. It’s as simple as that. Therefore, it is crucial to always be thinking about how to attract and reach new customers.
Put together a picture of your existing customers. Who are they? What are they like? What do they have in common? Create an image of them as individuals and as a group. Perhaps they are primarily young men who live alone, with a secondary group of single young women.
Whatever your main customer demographic is like, think about how to attract more of the same group and how to access a different demographic. Would older men or married men also use your service or product? If yes, they need to be targeted differently.
Retain Your Existing Customers
Another element to consider is how you could be more successfully retaining customers and ensuring that they buy from you again. This could be as simple as sending customers on your mailing list a discount voucher, but it could also be something more substantial, such as improving your corporate social responsibility (CSR). Studies have shown that customers care about CSR and are more likely to become repeat customers if you engage in socially responsible activities. Try a few options and see what difference it makes.
Optimize Your Supply Chain
If your business is well into the swing of things, it’s easy to think that your processes are working well and that you don’t need to adjust them. This is a critical mistake that could be costing you growth and causing waste.
Supply Velocity offers supply chain consulting services to help you assess your supply chain process, reduce waste, and implement improvements. You could cut unnecessary stages from your supply chain and increase its efficiency by saving on delivery times, transportation costs, inventory availability, and facility costs. Optimizing your supply chain will impact the whole business and can help you take it to the next level.
Consider Expanding Your Range
Whether you sell a product or provide a service, a big way to take your business into a new sphere is to expand what you offer. Can you add another line of products or a new service? Ideally, these new offerings would work well alongside what you already do. For example, if you sell artisanal cheeses, why not also offer a range of crackers or chutneys? Or, if you provide a copywriting service, you could also offer proofreading and editing.
Complementary goods and services are a great way to attract new customers and get more out of the customers you already have. Just make sure you’re ready to do this — you don’t want to offer something you can’t deliver to a high standard.
Whenever and however you want to take your business to the next level, you should do so mindfully and with plenty of forethought. You’ll need heavier investment, and as with all areas of business, it will involve risk. If you make the right moves at the right time, though, you could be in for great success.
By James Daniels
Bio: James Daniels is a freelance writer, business enthusiast, a bit of a tech buff, and an overall geek. He is also an avid reader, who can while away hours reading and knowing about the latest gadgets and tech, whilst offering views and opinions on these topics.