4 Ways to Grow Your Business or Professional Practice

Transcript

Welcome to another video in our ‘Taking Care of Business’ series. In this video I’m going to examine the 4 Ways to Grow a Business which include:

❶ Increase the number of customers (of the type you want)

❷ Increase the number of times customers come back and buy from you

❸ Increase the average value of each sale you make and …

❹ Increase the effectiveness of each process in your business.
 

Let’s briefly look at each of these 4 methods starting with increasing your number of customers.Let me qualify that, you really want to win more of your ‘ideal’ type of customer which could mean your marketing targets a certain gender, age group, geographic location or level of household income.

To build a list of these potential customers you first need to identify where they ‘hang out’. It could be on social media or they might be part of a network or industry group. You then need a lead generation website that systematically attracts these types of visitors and nurtures them to sign up to one of your offers or newsletter. This lets you build a list of prospects and gives you permission to market to them as they move closer to becoming paying customers.

Typically these websites are full of quality, relevant content and contain lead magnets, calls to action, opt-in boxes and a range different offers. They should include a blog, videos, testimonials and links to your social media channels.

The next key to business growth is to get your customers to come back and buy from you more often. It makes good sense but a lot of business owners are focused on winning new customers and almost ignore their existing customers. Getting customers to buy again is really ‘low hanging fruit’ provided you have an up to date customer database and consider segregating your customers into groups based on their preferences and buying habits. Think about setting up a customer rewards or loyalty program to entice them back and do special mail outs and email offers tailored to each group.

The third way to grow your business is increase the average sale value. While the obvious solution is raise your prices that’s not always practical or possible. Consider an add-on sale and McDonalds simply ask their customers, “Would you like fries with that” to increase the average dollar sale value.  Another method is bundle your products or services together and McDonalds simply offer ‘meal deals’ that combine products to increase the average sale amount. Another option is to introduce a more expensive product to your range so customers have the option of buying the standard or deluxe model.

The fourth and final way to grow your business is improve your systems and processes. This step ties everything together because creating efficiencies means you can spend more time working on the business and implement the marketing strategies we have outlined in the 3 previous ways to grow your business.

For example, increasing the number of customers will depend on the effectiveness of your marketing processes. To generate more leads you might be tempted to ramp up your marketing spend but the problem might be you’re failing to convert your existing leads. To get your customers back more often you need to provide awesome service but if you’re sales staff aren’t delivering then the system will break down.

So, that’s a brief summary of the 4 Ways to Grow a Business. It sounds simple in theory and if you could increase each one of these four factors by just 10% the compound effect would be a staggering 46% increase in your revenue.

Finally, if you want more detailed information on how to grow your business make sure you visit our website and read the series of blogs we posted on this topic. Of course, if you’re looking to grow your business and your profits talk to one of our team members today.

Until next time…