Five Growth Strategies to implement in the new year
There's no wrong time to review your business plans, whether a new or established company has hit a roadblock. We will be covering five strategies to help you transform your business.
1 Create strategic partnerships
You'll notice the abundance of business opportunities around you if you let go of your tunnel vision. Moreover, you'll be amazed at the results you can achieve if you begin to view other businesses as assets, regardless of whether you hire a CFO or go it alone.
A strategic partnership should combine the strengths of both sides and create a mutually beneficial experience. An example is a partnership between an animal shelter and a party planning company to sponsor their events and encourage pet adoptions. A diagnostic service could also be partnered with an urgent care center to provide patients with the necessary care.
2 Be unique
Your top priority is to stand out from the crowd regarding business growth strategies. What does this mean in a business world with few truly innovative ideas? First, it is essential to understand why customers choose you and to create approaches that cater to their specific needs. Innovation will come when you work smarter instead of focusing on getting more customers.
A unique business could be defined as:
Solving a problem that no one else has solved
Find something that you are better at than everyone else is a key differentiator
Finding an underutilized business outlet
Use a different approach or focus on the masses
3 Don't copy your competitors
Stop copying other businesses if you are focusing on growth strategies. A small-business general store can't copy Walmart. The same applies to independent coffee shops that can't imitate Starbucks. Instead, consider what your general store can offer that Walmart cannot provide. To find your niche, you need to shift your thinking from the perspective of other businesses.
You don't think a mom-and-pop store can do better than Walmart. These are five ways to do it:
More items from local sources
Customer service at a higher level
Encourage a sense of community
Better quality control of their products
Partner with other local companies
4 Adaptability
It's all about being flexible in business. This is why growth strategy number three works well. You're not competing with other companies. Instead, you are adapting to your unique position. You must also learn to be comfortable with change to move with the market, not against it. In today's economic climate, inflation is testing businesses' adaptability. To stay afloat, you must adjust your budget, vendors, product choice, and other external factors.
Long-term success is more likely for a business that remains stuck in its ways and is unwilling to change processes or services. Although your system may have been in place 15 years ago, it is likely to be outdated now and needs to be updated. For example, thousands of businesses were shut down by the pandemic. As a result, they didn't offer new services such as online shopping, food delivery, and virtual customer support.
5 Honest self-reflection
This is the final piece of the puzzle. It's easy to become impatient and set unrealistic goals that are often impossible to achieve. To be successful, however, you must look at your business as it is.
You can start a SWOT analysis to get a complete picture of your business's position. If you still need to take Marketing 101, SWOT stands to Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats. While strengths and weaknesses are focused on your company's internal factors, and opportunities and threats focus on external factors that may affect your business, the latter analyzes how they might affect your business. So be honest and do your research about the external factors. This will enable you to assess your company and create a specific business plan with realistic goals.
Remember, a solid business plan requires a well-planned budget. Your future path will be clear if you separate facts and fiction from your business.
