Do you want your small business to stay small? It’s absolutely fine if the answer to that question is yes. Smaller businesses do have their advantages, even in the ultra competitive and technologically driven 21st century. A smaller business is more agile than its unwieldy larger competitors. It can offer its owner greater work life balance and allow them to spend more time focusing on honing the skills they’ve spent a lifetime building and doing what they love most. But if you have growth on your mind and the fire of ambition in your heart, it’s still important to scale your growth strategically so that it doesn’t trip over it’s own feet.
Scaling your business is a lot like playing a video game. As your progress from level to level, you face new challenges as well as some old ones just in greater magnitude. You must upgrade your tools even as your skills naturally evolve. So long as you can keep your head and manage the learning curve, success can be yours. But to master your business growth you’ll need to overcome these gatekeepers first. Think of them as your end-level bosses.
Your competitors
Your competitors are like the generic enemies one faces in a video game. They’re a persistent threat that’s constantly learning and becoming more ferocious in their attacks on your business; poaching your customers, stealing your ideas and striving to over-leap you on those all important search engine rankings. In order to stay one step ahead of them you’ll need to do some learning of your own. Embrace competitor analysis tools whatever the size and scope of your business from Wordtree Amazon Keyword Tool for Amazon marketplace sellers to any of these solutions. Ongoing competitor analysis will enable you to stay one step ahead of the competition by finding out what advantages they may have over you and finding creative ways to close the gap between you.
Your customers
In order to facilitate lasting growth, you need to perform a tricky balancing act with customers. You need to take steps to retain existing customers and reward their loyalty while also doing everything you can to solicit business from new customers. An elegant way to kill two birds with one stone is by implementing a rewards system similar to Uber’s which rewards customers with free rides if they refer their friends, family or colleagues to the service.
Your employees
Your employees’ hard work, ideas and outstanding customer service skills can be the factor that takes your business to new heights. But if they aren’t well remunerated for their efforts, given regular training or opportunities for professional growth, the skills and professionalism they bring to the table can atrophy, causing serious bottlenecking for your business’ growth. Nurture them, however, and they won’t let you down.
Yourself
Finally, perhaps the biggest obstacle you’ll need to overcome is yourself. You’ll need to push past complacency, fatigue, creative blocks and distraction on a daily basis. Bringing your A game to work every day is among the biggest challenges that you’ll face as an entrepreneur, but it’s one that will never stop rewarding you when you can overcome it!
Are you strategic about growing your business? Share some of your own ideas and obstacles by leaving a comment below!
