Before we dive into seven ways to grow your business, it is important to ensure you have the following factors in place:
An annual business plan
These need to be held accountable by someone independent, such as an accountant, and should consist of the following factors:
- Your core purposes
- Your target customers
- The numbers you need to achieve to get what you want
- The main projects you need to put in place to achieve what you want – the individual actions you need to take to get each project across the line; who’s doing what, when, etc.
An annual budget
Once you have formed a business plan, you need to create a budget.
What numbers do you need to achieve to get what you want?
Start with what you want to have and then build from there – this is the high-level budget.
To achieve these numbers, you need to break them down into monthly targets and implement a month-by-month forecast every year.
If you need any help with learning how to create these forecasts, then do not hesitate to get in touch.
A measurement for your four-five most important KPIs
KPIs or Key Performance Indicators are the small numbers of things that will tell you if you are on or off track with your plan.
If you’re a manufacturer, your most important KPIs might be:
- Gross profit percentage
- Cost of rework
- Work in progress days
Whatever they are, you must capture and report them regularly and focus on a small number of KPIs, as the top four to five will drive most of your business improvement.
Growing your business
Increase customer retention rate
The first way to grow your business is to increase your customer retention rate.
Statistics show that it is six times easier and cheaper to make sales to existing customers than to new customers.
So, what are you doing to delight your customers and make them want to return to you? Do you know what your customers want? What is your current communication strategy with your customers?
You need to be following the FGG Principle – Find out what they want, Go get it and Give it to them!
Some customer retention strategies are as follows:
- Loyalty programme
- Ask customers what they want (survey them)
- Follow up with your customers after they’ve made a purchase
- Social activities
Generate more leads
The second way to grow your business is to generate more leads.
Do you know the difference between a suspect, a lead, a prospect, a customer, a loyal customer, and a raving advocate?
Do you have a Customer Relationship Management (CRM) system?
Is it up to date? How do you keep track of your leads to ensure they are followed up?
Some lead generation strategies are as follows:
- Attending events
- Networking
- Newsletters
- Strategic alliances
- Website
- Blogs
- Open days
Increase conversion rate
- Use a follow-up system
- Guarantees
- Sales training
- Proposals with options
Increase transaction frequency
- Newsletters
- Special offers
- Loyalty events – social / no obligations environment
- Using reminders
- Introducing VIP / membership cards
Increase transaction value
- Four for the price of three
- Discount for add-on sales
- Upselling
- Proposals with options
Reduce costs of sales / variable costs
- Supplier terms
- Early payment discount
- Reducing rework/wastage
- Better systems
- Record time/materials better
Reduce overheads
- List all APs and review them annually
- Better terms
- Phone
- Power
- Bank interest
- Computer support
We understand that this can be a lot to take in, so if you have any questions on how to grow your business to maximise and sustain profits, then please contact us.
In the meantime, if you missed our ‘Seven ways to grow your business’ webinar, watch now here.