5 Tips for Growing a Small Business
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How can you turn a simple home business into a worldwide brand?
Well, most would agree that the hardest part of getting a new business started is to lift it off the ground. These days, even small businesses are starting to look past the local field and into the world beyond. Reaching the rest of the world is a great way to build up a strong customer base, but how can it be achieved?
Look no further as we find out the five best tips for growing a small business in today’s world.
1. Establish Your Brand on Social Media
With billions of people on the Internet these days, one of the first steps to gaining popularity is to have a presence on social media. Establishing your brand to a prospective audience can go a long way. One of the pros of using social media platforms is the wide user bases each platform has, usually hosting a considerable fraction of the world’s population. Social media networks also try to promote pages to people based on their interests, which makes it more likely for a user to stumble across your business on social media than it is for someone to just chance upon your business’s website out in the middle of nowhere. The sharing feature on social media also accounts for a large amount of Internet traffic, and can help to widen your customer base more than word of mouth in some cases, since you are now dealing with a public audience rather than a local one.
Nowadays, social media works in tandem with deals and discounts for its users. Incorporating slashed prices and freebies into your products can really help to sell your brand better, as well as convince more people to spread the word about your business. Fortunately, there are numerous ways you can go about this. While some business like to offer a discount if their customers share their page on social media, others like to offer freebies or deals for every friend that a customer refers.
2. Pick Up a New Language
Globalisation has brought the world closer together. These days, even small businesses can expect to deal with customers from all over the world – and most do in fact, as the overseas population makes for an attractive market. However, to do business effectively with foreign people, it is a great advantage to speak their language.
Why? you may wonder. Most people around the world can understand English. Even basic English should be a good enough medium to communicate on, right?
Well, although most people are able to communicate in English, most who do not speak the language natively would still be more comfortable communicating in their own language. Speaking their language can help to prevent misconceptions and foster stronger corporate relations when your customers realise that you have learned their language, such as learn Mandarin just so that you can communicate with them. Besides, it is almost always better for a business owner to accommodate the client, than for the client to accommodate the business owner. Additionally, learning a new language can also teach you about the culture of those people, enabling better mutual understanding especially if you plan to communicate with them a lot.
Of course, nobody would expect a business owner to learn every language in the world. To choose which language you should start with, have a look at your target audience and your main customers. You may find that most of them come from a certain region or are of a certain age group that may not speak English much. As such, you can then turn your language-learning efforts towards the appropriate audience.
3. Focus on One Product
Multinational companies may have a plethora of resources at their disposal for developing new products. However, small businesses are usually not so fortunate. Short of having an angel investor supply you with unlimited funds, small businesses may typically find themselves stretched tight for finances, time and manpower. When that happens, have a look at your business model and see if you are spreading yourself too thin. Are you splitting your resources between two (or more) completely different products? Is one product unintentionally siphoning the resources off another?
Larger companies may be able to pull off the “multiple products” stunt, but for a small business that is tight on resources, every little bit of research, money, time or manpower delegated to another task is another missed chance at making your best product better. If you often find that you are hard pressed for resources to keep up multiple products or services, you may want to consider cutting down to just one flagship product and make it the very best in the market. Go deep first, rather than wide – and then use the revenue you earn from that one product to develop the next once you are comfortable enough to afford it.
4. Outsourcing is Your Friend
Is your business still struggling with time and resource management? Try outsourcing things you don’t absolutely need to do yourself. For example, you could try hiring a professional marketer to sell your brand, or a web developer to build your company’s website. While hiring an external professional may cost more upfront than if you or your team did the job internally, it usually ends up saving you a great deal more time, which can then be put to better use for processes that you personally need to oversee.
The bottom line is that if something needs to be done and it is not a main selling point of your business, you can probably outsource it and spend your time doing more meaningful things. Many businesses outsource at least one aspect, even large companies, simply because it is the productive way to go rather than working 20 hours a day on something that is not under your expertise.
5. Aim for the Untapped Market
Many people would be familiar with the cliché of going where no one has gone before. However, this aspect is dynamic in the business world as the trends keep shifting, especially with the risks of setting up a business. It can be tempting to try to mimic an existing product that is doing well in the hopes that that is where the current market is situated at. However, throwing your business straight into a fierce competition will only increase the risks and decrease the chance of success.
Instead, try doing some research and look at where there is a need for a product. The best situation will be where there is either none or a few existing solutions that have room for improvement. By scouring the “blue oceans” and being the first mover or a smart follower, the chances of your product catching on will be higher since it offers something that nobody else can.
Conclusion
These are just some of the methods of growing a small business. Hopefully, you have gained some insights into creating a successful enterprise. Out of these tips, which do you think is the most important? Do you know of any other solutions not covered in this article? We would love to hear them!
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