Once you find some good small business opportunities and decide to start your own business, the most important thing is to understand how to grow your business and turn it into a successful business. Profit maximization is the goal of any business. So how do you grow?
Know Your customers
The basics of marketing and growing your business comes down to knowing and reaching your target audience. Pete Skyllas suggests that you engage with your customers.Find out what they love and don’t love. What do they want from you as a business? How can you do better? All of these are great places to start in growing your business.
Reward Loyalty
The costs of acquiring a new customer versus retaining a current one are about 5-8% higher depending on the field and other factors. Ensure your customers stay with you by offering excellent customer service and rewarding their loyalty. Studies show that current customers have a dramatic effect on overall sales and are more likely to “level up” or participate in new offerings.
Consider offering special deals to recurring customers, a membership program, or exclusive access to opportunities. Make sure you are providing reasons to stay with you.
Diversify
Consider adding similar products and services to create more revenue. These new offerings could build on already existing products and services, “completing the loop” for that activity versus having them go elsewhere. It could also allow you to break ground in a new area with your own unique spin on it.
Utilize customer feedback when diversifying options. If there is an area they are continually frustrated by or asking for, you could find an easy solution that already has supporting data.
Form Partnerships
Research similar companies, organizations, universities, etc. for potential partnerships. While they may be seen as competition if they are very similar in their offerings, you could also work together to fill slightly different needs of your customer base. If they are offering a product or service you were looking into adding at a price you can’t compete with, a partnership might be beneficial for both of you. Be creative and see what no one else is doing.
Give back to the community
Corporate social responsibility has become increasingly important for consumers in recent years. They want to know their money is working to make the world a better place, especially locally. Whether it’s sponsorships, donations, or employees volunteering, it provides a partnership in the community, and creates wonderful branding that will provide customers with another reason to buy your products instead of your competitors’.
Network
Networking with other companies will help you meet other professionals near and far. These events provide the opportunity to see what similar businesses are doing that you could utilize as well and open the door to potential partnerships.
Have the Right People
The right people will ensure time is used efficiently, opportunities are taken quickly, and that your customers’ needs are heard. Continually train them to help them rise within the company and learn how to make the company better. Competitive salaries and benefits are important, but professional development opportunities are another incentive for quality employees to stay because they feel the company values them and wants to invest in them.
Broadcom offers solutions for each of these areas, including Clarity for digital product management, Rally for agile management and value stream management, BlazeCT for shift left testing and DX Operational Intelligence for AIOps. Collectively, the products enable a BizOps approach that synthesizes data and provides insights based on those solutions.
