Growing your business is essential to its survival. Some experts would say that business growth should be prioritized over revenue-generation in its infancy stage. However, the first year of most businesses tends to be a rough ride, which puts business growth targets at the backseat.
The first year of operations is a great time for business growth despite the fears of many entrepreneurs. It will take some careful planning, putting extra hours or taking out a personal loan for fair credit for expansion, but growth is indeed possible in the first year. Here’s how.
Table of Contents
Plan Strategically
Any successful endeavor starts with proper and careful planning. Your business is no different as you should plan strategically on how and where you plan to take your business. Here’s how to get started.
Your Vision- As a business owner, it is your task to define why your business exists and where you plan to take it in a few years. You need to identify your purpose, mission and core values.
Your Purpose pertains to why your company exists while your Mission is what you plan to achieve in your first to five years. The core values are how you believe you should get the work done.
List Your Business Priorities– This is the time to ponder on what you wish to accomplish in the first year of operations. You can opt to make goals and strategy quarterly. Make sure you evaluate your business at the end of each quarter to know how well you fared against what you have planned to accomplish.
Find the Right People and Organizational Culture
The employees are the backbone of any business organization including micro, small and medium enterprises. It is essential to find the right people for your business as you start your business. It is also important to share your vision for the business to your employees often so that you would all work together with a common goal in mind.
Take the time to know the applicants and determine if they are great for your business. As you grow and add hire more individuals, then prepare for the adjustment period where your employees will learn how to work as a team with more members.
Establish a business culture that you would like your business to be known for. Do you want your company to be customer-centric? Then, impress to your staff constantly the need to pay close attention to customers. Promote an organizational culture that’s in line with your identified core values.
Invest in Business Systems
If you find yourself doing many business-related tasks on your own or having the employees work for long hours regularly, then it may be time to take a look at your current operations. Chances are, you are limiting your growth potential by doing too many tasks at once or overburdening your staff.
Check which tasks can be replaced by solid business systems. You can outsource or automate some aspects of your operations. You also have the option to spend on systems like the e-commerce software or Customer Relation Management (CRM), which can help in streamlining tasks within the organization.
Build Your Online Assets
Online assets are the things that you own to help you communicate what your brand or company is about to your target market. These can be your website, blog or social media accounts. Any entrepreneur who’s serious about business growth will leverage these online assets.
According to experts, businesses that are starting to build their online presence from scratch should at the very least have a website or blog that has videos, or podcasts, regular Facebook updates, and email blasts to customers. This means securing a catchy domain name for the website and usernames in social media. Developing a content strategy is also a must.
Be Aggressive on Sales
You should focus on your sales if you’re serious about growing your business. Take to heart what Thomas Watson, found of IBM once said: “Nothing happens until somebody sells something.” Sales should be your and your employees’ priority.
It may sound crude to obsess and think of how much you’re selling every day but no business became successful without putting sales at the center of the business.
Set Your Eyes on Established Revenue Sources
Speaking of sales, you will need to focus all your attention on the existing sources of income. This means nurturing your relationship with core customers rather than spend so much effort on acquiring new ones.
You can entice present clients to keep coming back by implementing several programs such as a customer loyalty program, or referral rewards. There’s also the option of executing marketing strategies according to the past buying behaviors of your customers to gain more repeat business.
Business growth in the first year of operations is possible. Strategic planning, investing in the right people and systems, building an online presence and focusing on sales are all key in ensuring that there’s a measurable success for your business in its infancy stage.
Author’s Bio
Lidia Staron is a part of the Content and Marketing team at OpenLoans.com. She contributes articles about the role of finance in the strategic-planning process.
About Carson Derrow
