Business development is critical for any new entrepreneur, and a high-growth business is always the desire. High-growth comes in the form of increasing revenue, but with hundreds of business strategies at your disposal, where do you start?
First, understand that growth is an ongoing process that requires hard work, patience, and dedication. There is no quick trick to achieving immediate success, but there are ways to catapult your business on the high-growth fast-track.
As owners of three Chem-Dry franchises, spanning two counties – all launched over a 10-year time period – we’ve seen first-hand the secrets to driving a high-growth business. They lie in the tried-and-true basics that lead to sustained business performance. The below tips are meant to inspire business owners with simple to follow, tactical tips to accelerate strong and consistent growth.
1. Define Roles & Responsibilities, Then Set an Accountability Expectation
In order to drive a high-growth business, you must first set the foundation and build the infrastructure for desired growth. This begins with defining roles and responsibilities. To expect great results from a person in a specific role, you first must be clear about what is required of them. Division of labor and defined responsibilities will create order and structure for your business.
Remember, the key to accountability is setting clear expectations.
2. Establish Trust in your Community
Giving back and investing in the community means that you need to think beyond the services of your business. Invest time and go the extra mile to provide support at a hyper-local level. For example, we will clean church worship halls in our community at no cost. This does take some time and supplies, but the return has always been wonderful. Whether it’s the church requesting our services again or simply getting the word out in the community about our business, it’s a win-win.
Building the reputation of your small business through community involvement may be the most rewarding element of entrepreneurship as it brings a sense of identity and purpose to your business. It has become clear that business health is reliant on community trust and involvement.
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3. Prioritize Customer Service
Fast growth depends on making your current and potential customers happy with their experience. The business environment has changed and the way you service your customers must be elevated. While tech and innovation reign supreme in the post-pandemic era, we must not lose sight of human connection, emotion and empathy as it relates to the customer experience.
Personalizing the experience and becoming the hyper-local provider of choice can boost and strengthen that relationship. This might require diversifying services to meet consumer needs, re-training of team members, etc. Bottom line, prioritize and invest in customer service.
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4. Take Marketing Risks
Gone are the days when basic marketing strategies were all small business owners needed. When you fully deploy a robust marketing strategy, you can unlock significant avenues for organic growth that you can’t get any other way.
There are five areas to online marketing that a business owner should focuses on: Reviews, SEO, Pay-Per-Click (PPC), social media, and blogs.
- The more reviews you have, the more likely you’ll generate leads and jobs. Consumers will choose companies and brands based on reviews.
- SEO is a long-term marketing plan. It does not happen overnight but as Google/Bing sees your website being more trustworthy for cleaning services, it will rank you higher in the search que. Reviews will also help this ranking.
- PPC is the fastest way to generate leads; but it’s also the most costly. This is the best way to keep leads coming in and when you’re slow, increase your PPC budgets to get more leads and when your busy to reduce the budget.
- Social media helps you connect with your customer and helps to add trust to your SEO campaign.
- Blogging will be your most time-consuming type of marking. Blogs will help connect your website and social media sites together, which ultimately is helping your SEO. As A.I. becomes more prevalent, having answers in your blog for questions such as “who’s the best carpet cleaner” or “carpet cleaners near me” will help your website ranking. Its time consuming but worth it in the long run.
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5. Monitor Finances
It may seem obvious, but knowing and understating your finances is a must for sustained high-growth success. The numbers will tell you everything you need to know – make sure you listen to them. Pay attention to what products or services are making you the most money and which are losing money, keep tabs on payroll and have a good system in place for tracking such metrics. This will give you a big picture view on how well your business is operating and will show you which areas need improvement. Review the numbers regularly and take corrective action.
A high-growth business is a desire among all entrepreneurs, but as you begin to see success, remember to grow smart. It is easy to fall into the trap of rapid, reckless growth – remain true to your purpose, be selective in how you grow and who you grow with.
