Jumpstart Your Business Growth
Growth is important for any business, big or small. And if you are not growing, you are either stagnant or on your path to shutting your business down.
When you look at your business, you need to be able to see the different ways you are expanding. Whether it’s a matter of sales, cash flow, the number of products you offer, or the human labor you have, customer acquisition,etc. Is your business expanding it’s numbers or are you stalled on the same numbers?
When your business is stalled or on a plateau, you have stopped doing the things that assure business growth. Or, on the other hand, the things you have been doing are no longer working to move you to the next level.
What causes businesses to plateau in growth?
There are so many common factors that can be attributed to a plateaued business growth. These factors may not be similar to every business, thus, you need to assess your own business to see where the problem is.
Business Model
Most businesses face a growth plateau because of their business model.
If your business model is not inclined to scaling then it is possible that you will face stall points. When you face these stall points you face a drop in profits.
As a business owner, it’s important to always remember that the market is always evolving. This is due to changing customer demographics, needs, and desires.
Also, factors in economic, global, and social terms, e.g during the Covid-19 Pandemic. Other factors such as innovations of technology bring significant changes in the market. Near home factors too such as your competitor strengths and weaknesses affect the market too.
And as the market evolves, your business model needs to be able to evolve and adapt to stay competitive.
You need to develop your business model to keep up with your customers’ needs. This is by reassessing:
- Your value proposition for customers.
- The business’ administrative and organizational practices.
- Your human, financial, physical and intellectual resources.
Lack of people
Human labor is very crucial for business growth.
As a small business for example, you might find it hard employing workers probably due to budget constraints. But, one lack of enough manpower in your business to run the different business operations efficiently can lead to a growth plateau. On the other hand, having the wrong team is more costly to you and your business.
It is important to either replace or increase your team of staff. You risk the loss of productivity, resources, time, and quality without recruiting the right workers. You need responsible employees with the skills and experience to help you level up.
It is also important to have the right number of employees. Over-staffing raises your overhead costs for no reason.
On the other hand, if you under-staff, but your business needs more people, you face resource constraints. And such constraints lead to bad customer experience and this in turn affects your business growth.
Money
A business cannot grow without money. Almost everything associated with business growth needs money. You need a budget for marketing and generating sales. Your monthly costs such as your utilities and loans need money too. If you have a team, they need their salaries too.
You need money to process your automated services to serve your customers better. Emergencies come up and your business needs to cover for such.
You are vulnerable to market growth restrictions without money.
A saturated market
Maybe you are in a saturated market. And it’s hard to stay focused and competitive in such a market. This is especially true for small businesses in saturated markets.
A saturated market results from over expansion by the businesses in the market and a high competition.
Operating a business in a saturated market eventually leads to a significant decline in business results.
Your marketing strategy is not working
Every business owner knows that marketing is vital. Marketing drives in sales for your business. It brings about more awareness and brand recognition to your business. Marketing brings in more leads, conversions and profits.
However, outdated marketing tactics can hurt your business growth in today’s market.
Some tactics may not work the way they did in the past anymore. And, if you’re using one of them, since it has taken the company to this stage, the ability to grow and scale in the long run may be negatively affected.
Back to growth
Your business should have nowhere else to go but up. And going up will take you some work, money, time and so much more.
Reevaluating your business model
If it’s been a while since you’ve reassessed your business model, then it’s a good time to do so now. A proper analysis will let you know what works and what doesn’t. It will also help you recognise the impacts of shifts or improvements in:
- Your business market
- Needs from your customers
- Your available resources
- Your working Team
Remember to look at your scalability or flexibility as a business. Maybe you have not designed your business to scale up – your business model does not accommodate a scale up. And this means you need and must pivot for change.
Reevaluating your business model will make it easier to find new ways to scale up. Whether it’s your communication and support, distribution, sales, manufacturing and delivery processes for improved customer on-boarding.
Proper money management
You have definitely heard that many businesses fail due to issues that crop up from bad cash flow. And without effective money management, your business may hit a growth plateau.
Don’t underestimate the significance of tracking your money, expenses, and tax obligations by maintaining financial records.
Always pay attention to your cash flow in particular. Avoid unnecessary spending by regularly analysing your business expenses. Consider cutting down costs of expenses that won’t affect your production, delivery, and customer service.
Just look for ways to save up money that would be directed to growing your business.
Differentiate your product from your competitor’s
Market saturation shows there is a demand for whatever product you bring to the market. But, there are hundreds of businesses bringing a similar or same product. And this fact means that your product has to stand out to remain competitive and grow.
Come up with different approaches in your business operations.
Learn about your prospects,and customers’ preferences and needs.Find a way to distinguish your goods or services or to improve your goods or services in order to better satisfy them.
Let your customers and prospects know the value of buying your products and/or working with you.
Also, get to understand your buyer’s journey.
Understand the buyer’s journey
Most sale cycles go wrong because they are not in sync with the buyer’s journey.
Find out what the buyer is going through and what they need. What are their concerns? How do they make choices?
You can make better decisions about what marketing tactics to put in place once you do that.
Use marketing that supports sales
Your marketing needs to support your sales.
Use marketing tactics and platforms that help you build relationships of trust and loyalty with your prospects and your customers. Use social media platforms and consider Content marketing tactics.
Also, don’t forget your existing customers while trying too hard to reach new customers. Consider retargeting and remarketing to your existing customers.
It’s more profitable to sell to your existing customer base when you come up with a new product. Your marketing costs are considerably lower and your sales cycle is considerably shorter. It’s more cash, straight from what you had.
Final Thoughts…
It’s challenging to be in a business growth plateau. However challenging it is, this can be an opportunity for change and a U-turn for your business.