So you’ve decided it’s time to grow your small business into a large business and would like to know the exact steps to take?
Perhaps you’ve worked so hard to grow your startup, but there hasn’t been any positive result to show for it.
Scaling a business can be one of the most challenging times for every business owner.
The process requires twice the effort you put into starting the business in the first place.
It requires you to dedicate more time and resources to effectively achieve your goals.
However, the rewards in the end ( increased sales and revenue) can be advantageous.
So, it’s worth it to put in the effort to grow your small business into a large one.
Here, you’ll discover how to grow your small business, but first, let’s look deeper into business growth and success.
Understanding Business Growth And Success; How To Grow A Small Business Into A Large Business
Many business owners measure business growth by an increase in revenue or profits.
However, business growth is much more than that.
You can measure business growth by an increase in your business activities, customer base, and size.
More so, a business owner’s definition of success could differ from another, depending on the business owner’s ambition.
To some, it could mean becoming a globally recognized brand, while to others, it could mean making six to seven figures in revenue.
Despite the varying views on business success, every business owner shares the same desire to grow their business from one stage to the other.
Now, there are five stages of business growth.
How To Grow A Small Business Into A Large Business; The 5 Stages Of Business Growth
Development
This is the first step to starting a business.
At this stage, you discovered a need in the market ( your business idea) that inspired you to start your business.
This was also the stage where you set your business goals, developed a plan to achieve them, and secured the funding to establish your startup.
Startup
This is that stage in your business where you launched your products/services into the market based on your business plan.
Many businesses struggle at this point due to poor planning, insufficient funding, and poor management, among other things.
However, those who get it right at the first stage through careful market research and proper business planning make it past this stage.
Precisely, they introduce their product/service into the market, test the products’ viability, gather feedback, and review/refine their process.
This way, they survive, thrive, and make it to the next stage in business.
Fortunately for you, you’ve survived this stage, and you’re fit to move on to the next phase.
Growth Stage
This is when most startup business owners make efforts to grow their small business into a large business; the focal point of our discussion.
At this stage, business owners tap into existing opportunities in the industry and areas of improvement to take their business to the next level.
This is a crucial stage that could mar a business if not handled appropriately.
So, in addition to your growth plan and strategy, you need to ensure that the timing and market conditions are right for you to grow your business operations.
Later on in this post, we’ll consider some effective strategies for growing your business.
Expansion
This is a whole new level for your business.
At this stage, you should be looking to diversify your business and maximize its full potential.
The expansion could take different forms depending on your goals and aspirations.
It could be diversifying into other related sectors, partnering with other businesses, expanding into other market segments, or exploring other business models.
Whichever way you choose, aim to maximize your business strengths/potential and keep its limitations in mind.
Maturation Stage
Any business at this stage has survived the hurdles of the business world and made it up to this stage.
It has progressed from just being a startup to a role model/standard for other upcoming startups within the industry.
However, this is not the end of the business journey.
Instead, the stakes are high at this stage because there’s a need to sustain this success for as long as the business continues to exist.
Hence, at this stage, the business needs to be alert to trends in the industry and remain relevant to its customers.
Overall, now you have an idea of the different stages of growth your startup business will pass through.
However, it’s important to note that business growth and success don’t happen overnight or by luck.
It requires planning, strategic implementation, hard work, consistency, and patience to see your scaling efforts yield results.
There are several growth strategies for growing a small business into a large own.
However, only a few have proven to be effective in delivering the expected results based on different startup entrepreneurs’ experiences and expert advice.
10 Growth Strategies To Grow A Small Business Into A Large Business
1. Research The Market
This is one of the first things you do when starting a business.
It’s also natural to go back to the beginning when you’re thinking of taking your business to the next level.
Notably, it is important to research the market to identify how it has changed and how best you can fit this change into your business.
Overall, surveying the market can inspire you with new ideas to help you grow your small business into a large one.
2. Research The Competition
It’s also important to study the competition to identify growth opportunities in your industry.
Analyzing the competition to identify their weak spots can give you ideas on how to better serve your market and stand out from the crowd.
Overall, it could give you the competitive edge you need to thrive in your market, increase business performance, and grow your business.
3. Diversify Your Products & Services; Upselling Strategy
Another way to grow your small business into a large one is to extend your offerings.
This will help you cater to the changing needs of your target market and extend your business to meet the needs of other market segments.
So, you could expand your business to include other related products to the ones you’re already offering.
Furthermore, you could decide to offer a new range of products/ services that caters to a related market segment.
Diversifying your products/services will help you enhance your product/service delivery, positioning your business for growth.
4. Improve Customer Experience, Relationship, And Engagement
Customer experience is essential to every business’s success.
This is because your customers are your No.1 brand ambassadors.
So, how they feel about your business will determine what they tell others about it.
This is why one of your business growth strategies should be to enhance their experience with your business.
For instance, you could start using customer management systems to help you efficiently manage your growing customer base.
This will ensure a quick response time to your customers’ needs and enhance their whole experience with your business.
Furthermore, you should launch a customer loyalty program to encourage repeated patronage and strengthen the customer relationship.
An effective customer loyalty program will help you retain customers and encourage existing customers to tell more people about your business, thereby increasing your sales and revenue.
Finally, improve customer engagement by communicating with them regularly on different platforms.
In the end, all of these are simple ways to enhance your customers’ experience with your business.
The result would be continued patronage and increased sales revenue.
5. Improve Employee Satisfaction
Undoubtedly, customers are the most valued assets in business because there’ll be no problems to solve without them.
This ultimately means no sales and no profits.
Hence, it’s justifiable that most business owners focus more of their efforts on customer satisfaction.
However, savvy business owners/entrepreneurs understand that employee satisfaction is as important as customer satisfaction.
Your employees are the ones who interact with your customers directly.
Hence, happy employees will most definitely lead to satisfied customers.
In addition to that, happy employees are motivated employees.
The more motivated they are, the higher their productivity and efficiency level.
Hence, you can improve employee satisfaction by creating a workplace culture that promotes positivity and flexibility.
Also, reward employee performance.
Overall, improving employee satisfaction is crucial to keeping them committed to your growth plans.
6. Optimize Your Marketing Efforts; How To Grow A Small Business Into A Large Business
You’ve seen how far effective marketing can take you in business.
It has helped you take your business from an idea to a startup/small business, and now you’re thinking of growing into a large business.
Hence, it’s only logical to optimize your marketing efforts to yield more positive results.
Some of the things you could do to improve your marketing efforts include;
Building A Sales Funnel
A sales funnel is a breakdown of your sales process or strategy.
An effective sales funnel captures the exact action a potential customer is expected to take upon first contact with your business to the point where they buy from you.
It is usually broken down into four stages;
- Awareness; This is what your customers know about your business.
- Interests/Desire; This is when your customers start considering your products as a viable solution to their problems.
They also research their businesses to see how you compare against them.
- Decision; Here, customers are considering buying from you but haven’t yet made up their minds.
They’ll still need a bit more convincing to buy from you.
- Action; Here, the prospect either buys from you or leaves you.
So, a sales funnel is meant to attract your potential customers and make them buy from you in the end.
To build a sales funnel, you’ll need to ;
Create A Landing Page
This is your prospect’s first contact with your business.
Your goal here is to bring them into the funnel and collect their contact information so you can keep communicating with them.
Create A Lead Magnet
This is exactly what it is, something that attracts potential customers.
It’s when you offer your potential customers something of value (a free resource/service) in exchange for their email addresses.
Do Lead Nurturing; How To Grow A Small Business Into A Large Business
Lead nurturing aims to move the prospect from the awareness stage to the interest stage.
You can share valuable content that educates your prospects about your offerings and wins their trust.
Create An Irresistible Offer
Here, you want to encourage the prospect to buy from you.
You could either use discounts, free trials, or demo sessions to let the prospects know what they’ll be missing out on if they don’t buy from you.
Analyze Your Sales Funnel Performance
If the prospects buy from you at this stage, you can tell that your sales funnel worked.
On the other hand, it could mean that the prospects may need more lead nurturing.
In that case, you can go back to the drawing board and restrategize.
Furthermore, it could mean that the prospect is just not right for your business.
In that case, you’ll need to let such prospects go.
Implement Email marketing
Another way to optimize your marketing efforts to grow your small business into a large one is by leveraging email marketing.
The number of email subscribers continues to grow daily, and it’s expected to grow to 4.6 billion daily users by 2025, according to Statista.
Also, it has continued to gain popularity as one of the most personalized and effective marketing tactics.
Precisely, email marketing allows you to do more personalized and targeted marketing/lead nurturing which has proven to be very effective in increasing sales in business.
So, you could explore email marketing as one of your growth tactics/strategies for your business.
Use Content Marketing
This is also another lead nurturing tactic that’s effective for growing a business.
It involves attracting, engaging, and retaining customers by sharing valuable content such as videos, blogs, podcasts, social media carousels, etc.
This process engineers trust and make selling easy.
You could do these things to improve marketing/sales and grow your small business.
7. Focus On Your Core Strengths And Optimize For Stronger Impact
You’ve made it this far in business because there are certain things you’re doing right.
These are your core strength areas and what makes you stand out from other businesses in your niche.
So, an excellent growth strategy will be to review those areas and identify how you can optimize them to get more results.
Suppose your email marketing campaigns have converted leads and increased your sales revenue.
In that case, it will be wise to leverage that to increase sales and grow your business.
8. Engage In Networking And Build Strategic Partnerships
There are a lot of growth opportunities that could come from networking and partnerships.
Firstly, networking events allow you to connect with like-minded individuals from different fields, some of which could be helpful to your business in the future.
For instance, you could connect with professionals or service providers that could help you solve business problems in the future.
Moreso, you could find strategic partners whose goals align with yours.
Such partnerships could give you access to a broader network of potential customers, expanding your business beyond its shores.
9. Practice Social Responsibility
There’s a trend of social consciousness of the impact of human activities on the ecosystem by many individuals across the globe, popularizing the concept of corporate social responsibility (CSR).
This has caused many individuals to shift their interest to businesses or organizations that favor one social cause or the other.
Hence, to prevent losing existing and potential customers, you should also include social responsibility as part of your business strategies.
Identify a social cause that you genuinely care about that can help you positively impact the public.
There are so many ways to do this such as;
- Engaging in eco-friendly business practices.
- Producing eco-friendly products.
- Donating to a positive cause
- Volunteering, etc.
Above all, this strategy will help you to maintain a positive brand reputation, win your customers’ trust, and make them willing to buy from you.
10. Explore New Business Models/Opportunities
Finally, you can grow your small business into a large one by adopting newer business models.
However, these models should apply to your industry.
You could explore franchising or subscription business models.
Furthermore, you could explore other viable business opportunities.
This way, you’ll establish multiple businesses and have multiple revenue streams to finance your entrepreneurial endeavors.
Final Thoughts; How To Grow A Small Business Into A Large Business
You’ve seen the different things you can do to grow your small business into a large one.
It’s left for you to decide which of these strategies you would like to implement.
Remember that your growth strategies need to be timely to deliver the expected impact.
Also, while implementing, be patient to see your strategies yield the desired result.
More importantly, don’t forget to measure your performance and review/refine your strategies.
Here’s to successfully taking your business beyond the growth stage and becoming a full-blown business enterprise.
