Business growth strategies help keep your company on course and meet its goals
As a business owner, you have to wear many hats as you keep your company running smoothly. However, there is one hat you shouldn’t be wearing.
You may feel like you have a good grip on how to meet your financial targets, but do you know the best way to get there?
This is where a business growth strategy comes in.
A business growth strategy isn’t just a simple plan for getting from point A to point B—it’s what helps keep your company from veering off course.
A business growth strategy is a plan that you use to make sure your business stays on course and meets its goals
What exactly is a business growth strategy?
A road map outlines what you want to accomplish, how you’re going to complete it, and when you will achieve it
Let’s say your company is on track to reach $5 million in revenue this year
How do you break that down into smaller, more easily achievable milestones? What needs to be done first?
Business growth strategies help keep your company on course and meet its goals
Successful companies are most often the ones with a plan
A business growth strategy is your plan
One you can use to improve your company’s direction.
How can a business growth strategy help?
Many businesses don’t grow because they lack the clarity that is provided in a business growth strategy
A business growth strategy helps you look at all aspects of your business—or even work with multiple departments—to make sure your goals and the company’s goals are aligned
In simple words, A business growth strategy is a plan that you use to make sure your business stays on course and meets its goals
It’s okay to have short-term and long-term goals as long as they are realistic.
It is vital to monitor the business environment and adjust accordingly constantly.
Business growth strategies should be flexible enough to change with trends and market fluctuations while keeping true to your mission statement and core values.
Business development needs a strategic plan where all goals, initiatives and planning gets documented, accessible across the organization and easy for everyone involved in day-to-day processes of developing new products or services to access when needed.
The more effectively you can communicate this strategy through documentation, task assignments, training sessions, etc., the better chances your company meets its long-term business goals.
How to write a business growth plan.
You can learn from many examples when documenting your own company’s strategy.
You could enter at a high level or in detail, or even take an Agile approach, which creates the framework for decision-making while reducing risks associated with changes.
None of these approaches is wrong.
Even high-level business strategy documents create a framework for decision-making and reducing risk.
First, decide on what approach you want to take.
Then, follow the steps below to develop your business plan.
- Define short- and long-term goals
- Choose your targeted area of growth.
- Conduct market and industry research.
- Plan your course of action.
- Determine your growth tools and requirements.
- Execute your plan.
Define short- and long-term goals
Document the goals you aim to achieve in the next five years.
Learn more about the documentation of the goal with our recent blog
The 30-60-90-Day Business Plan: The Key to Success
5 Reasons Why A Business Plan Is Important
These can be both small and large, either specific or general – but they all have one thing in common: They need some direction so that progress towards them will eventually result in success!
Goals can be small and large and can be either specific (increase revenue by 20%) or general (increase brand awareness).
Here are some examples:
- Increasing product offerings
- An increase of 35% in organic site traffic
- Establish a second store
- Expansion into new markets
- Set up an affiliate program
- Increasing sales by 15%
At this point, all goals should be considered and documented. Eventually, you’ll decide which goals are worth pursuing.
Choose your targeted area of growth.
It’s great that you want to grow your business, but what do you want to grow?
Focus your business growth plan on specific growth areas.
The following are joint strategic growth initiatives:
- Increase in employee headcount
- Expansion of current office, retail, and warehouse space
- Addition of new locations or branches of your business
- Expansion into new regions, areas, cities, or countries
- Addition of new products and services
- Expanding purchase locations (i.e. selling in new stores or launching an online store)
- Growth in revenue and profit
- Development of customer base and customer acquisition rate
Your growth plan may encompass more than one of the initiatives outlined above, which makes sense — the best growth doesn’t happen in a vacuum.
For example, growing your unit sales will result in a change in revenue — and possibly additional locations and headcount to support the increased sales.
Conduct market and industry research
After choosing what to grow, the next step is to justify why and how.
This can be done by conducting research on industry trends or exploring current/potential customer feedback to determine if there’s room for growth within this area of interest.
Conducting surveys with existing customers may help identify areas needing more assistance.
At the same time, focus groups allow insight into consumers’ needs from different demographics like genders or choices.
The knowledge gathered here could shape expectations about timelines when planning out the budget and the ultimate goal – which might not necessarily include financial incentives but other motivators.
Plan your course action
It’s essential to have a plan if you want your business to grow. You need to know where you’re heading and how you’re going to get there.
That means setting some goals, outlining the steps you’ll need to take, and creating a timeline for accomplishing them.
Of course, things rarely go according to plan. But having a roadmap gives you a framework to work within, allowing you to make adjustments as needed.
This action plan should contain a list of action items, deadlines, teams or persons responsible, and resources for attaining your growth goal.
So don’t be afraid to start planning for 2022 today!
Determine your growth tools and requirements.
You’re almost done!
One last step before implementing your plan is determining any requirements that may need to be fulfilled.
These are specific resources that will help you reach the goals more quickly and with greater accuracy, such as:
Funding: Your business may need a capital investment or an internal budget allocation to run the project.
Tools & Software: Nowadays, technological resources are needed to expedite and/or gain insights from the growth process.
Services: Growth may be better achieved with the help of consultants or subject matter experts.
Common Business Growth Strategies:
Before conclusion, I will share some common growth strategies to consider when expanding your business.
– Increase Sales (or “Sell more”). Focus on doing things that will bring in new customers or increase the business’ market share.
You can do this by increasing brand awareness, improving delivery service to make life easier for your current customers and launching promotions (and making sure you communicate with them well).
This is done through advertising campaigns that cost money but could increase profits if they attract enough new business.
– Reduce costs (or “Cut Costs”). Businesses need to keep their overheads low; otherwise, it’s challenging to maintain a healthy profit margin.
Look at ways of reducing spending overall or looking where certain areas are being used so there may be some savings.
-Develop creative marketing campaigns. The tone of voice is usually the first thing that people notice. When writing, keep in mind your readers’ feelings about what you are saying.
Be descriptive and give examples if necessary to visualize the story or information instead of only reading it.
Business is tricky, and the path to success often means sacrificing many things.
This is where a business growth strategy comes in.
A business growth strategy isn’t just a simple plan for getting from point A to point B—it’s what helps keep your company from veering off course and meeting its goals.
Contact us today for more information on developing a successful growth strategy for your company.
With the help of our experts, you’ll be able to put together a plan that will steer your business in the right direction and help you meet your financial targets.