Growing your small business can be difficult if you don’t have the proper guidance. When it comes to making the right choices in the world of small business, it’s important to understand a few critical factors that will affect every aspect of your business.
Things like the quality of your product, your marketing, and your branding will play large roles, as will the structure of your sales funnel itself. Let’s take a look at six of the most useful tips for rapidly growing your small business.
1. Marketing Beats Quality
A lot of small businesses get too caught up focusing on the quality of their product, and in doing so, they waste resources producing products that have a much smaller profit margin than they should have. The truth is that having a high-quality product isn’t as important as having great marketing.
For example, when it comes to fast food, McDonald’s is the most iconic restaurant around despite having a decidedly mediocre product. How is this possible? It’s all because of their ultra-aggressive marketing campaigns and intense focus on branding. The lesson here is that you don’t need to have the best product around as long as you market it correctly.
2. Branding is Key
Speaking of branding, it is one of the most overlooked factors when it comes to growing a small business. Not having a brand identity can cripple a business’ growth, and prevent it from reaching the next level. Decide what you want your business to represent, then engage in strong branding campaigns using social media, and other forms of advertising.
3. Use Local SEO
If you’re run a small business that operates in a very specific geographical location, then you want to make sure that you’re using local SEO to drive relevant traffic to your online sales funnel, and ultimately, into your place of business.
Think of this situation as if you don’t target just your area when you use SEO, search engine optimization, you’ll be drawing in people from all over the country or even the entire world. This does you no good at all and is a waste of resources. Keep your SEO targeted to your geographical demographic instead.
4. Review Your Analytics
The data from your website, ads, and social media efforts all tell a story. By reviewing this data, you can find weak points in your business model, and fix them up. You can also identify what’s working best as well, and scale it up to give your business a boost.
5. Get Business Insurance
Many things can go wrong when you’re running a small business that could tank your entire enterprise if you aren’t insured. Remember when McDonald’s spilled hot coffee on that woman and got sued for millions of dollars? A small business won’t survive something like that without small business insurance. If you haven’t gotten business insurance, then you’re essentially sitting on a ticking time bomb. Don’t wait, get this taken care of before something goes wrong and undoes all of your hard work.
6. Set Concrete Goals
This one may sound obvious, but if you don’t bother to set concrete goals to strive for, then you can never judge how successful your business is, and whether or not your hard work is paying off. Having goals will provide you direction, purpose, and make you feel extra motivated when you achieve them.
Growing Your Small Business Starts with You
Growing a small business is all about taking the initiative, acting instead of reacting. Work towards your goals, and take the proper steps to improve your business every day. If you take the time to make your business the best it can be, it will reward you in the long run.
