What does it mean to “grow your business”?

Is it the same thing as increasing profits, the bottom line? Or does it mean increasing sales, the top line?

It’s important to understand the relationship between these two approaches to business “growth” and how they fit into the evolution of your business.

For example, if you’re approaching the day when you want to sell your business, improving your bottom line via efficiencies and other strategies might be the best way of “growing” your business.

I say this because a concerted effort to increase overall sales in the short term could make you look less profitable to potential buyers and your selling price would be pushed down.

However, if you’re younger and eager to see your piece of the pie grow substantially, you might be totally comfortable living with a dip in profits while you develop new territories and/or new products.

With those points in mind, you’ll be better able to consider the following 13 tips and tactics as you plot out the ideal game plan for the growth of your small business.

Near-term small business growth tips:

  1. Analyze the performance of your sales team. If they aren’t meeting your expectations, or they are showing signs of ambivalence, shake things up. Bring in new blood working on commission only.
  2. Write down everything you do and categorize these tasks. Find tasks that you can delegate to others or outsource.
  3. Re-examine purchasing and see if you can improve the deals you are getting from your vendors.
  4. Improve your accounts receivable ratio.
  5. Look at repetitive tasks you and your team perform. Do they all have procedures written for them? See how they can be accomplished more quickly and be sure you have procedures that capture the most productive ways of accomplishing repetitive tasks. Be sure that you allow these procedures to be improved on over time; don’t fall victim to the “We’ve never done it like that here” mentality.
  6. Audit your small business listings on the Internet. See if there are any places where you should be listed but aren’t. Be sure listings are accurate. Check your Google reviews. Encourage customers to review your business on Google.
  7. Launch a customer referral program. Reward existing customers for bringing you new business.
  8. Launch a customer loyalty program.

Medium-term small business growth tips:

  1. Research your local competitors and similar businesses in other areas. Find out if any owners may be approaching retirement age or there are other reasons they might want to sell. Talk to mutual suppliers to see if any might be in financial trouble.
  2. Survey your customers and find out what other products or services they need.
  3. See if there are any of your suppliers that might be ripe for a buyout.

Long-term small business growth tips:

  1. Talk to city and regional planners to discover the areas that are slated for new development. Should you prepare to expand to any of these areas, or perhaps relocate to a bigger facility?
  2. Talk to real estate professionals to find neighborhoods in transition. For example, if a low-income area is beginning to be “gentrified,” it often means that young families with children will soon become the prominent demographic. Also, check out aging neighborhoods, they can “turn over” to younger, affluent families.

As you can see, some of these points take a lot of research and thought. Be sure you do enough of the items in the “near-term small-business growth” menu to have the time to dedicate to planning for your future.

That’s a task you should never delegate.

Looking for more small business advice? You can find more posts written by Susan here. 

Every customer interaction matters.

And consistency throughout the customer experience builds brand awareness and trust with your target audience.

“A truly effective customer experience is focused on opening up new paths of communication, as well as creating a friendly brand tone, and aligning actions with brand intentions,” writes Michelle Polizzi, content coordinator at Brandfolder.

You want to invite customers to connect with you through multiple channels, then deliver the same quality product and helpful customer service, whether it’s communicated in person, via email, on social media, or through your website.

Start building a consistent customer experience today. Below are three strategies to help:

1. Write a clear mission statement

According to a Forrester study, customers are becoming increasingly dissatisfied with organizations delivering inconsistent cross-channel experiences.

To offer consistency, start be developing a clear mission statement.

A powerful mission statement affects every part of your business, from how you design products to how employees interact with customers.

“Your customer experience mission = How you want your customers to experience the brand, and, perhaps more importantly, how you want them to feel. The customer is the star of this statement,” says Jeannie Walters, founder of 360Connext.

Use your mission statement as a guidepost for each channel. What do you want to communicate and how do you want to make your customers feel?

Apple, for example, is known for its mission of innovation. Take a look at how they exemplify this on their website with clean design, an emphasis on their newest product, and futuristic copy.

example of apple.com branding
Image Source: apple.com

To showcase your brand’s mission on your website, ensure that your site possesses design, copy, and functionality that directly maps to your mission and customer.

2. Deliver on your promise

Research reveals  that “64 percent of people cite shared values as the main reason they have a relationship with a brand.” Customers shop with companies that emulate their life principles.

What you promise your customers underpins your branding. It’s that X factor that separates you from competitors.

Consider your brand promise as an extension of the customer experience.

“A brand promise is credible. If the customer experience doesn’t match the brand promise, the value of your brand is weakened,” states Kelsey Uebelhor, a product marketing manager at ‎ProofHQ,

How do you represent your brand promise across channels?

Take your email marketing for example. When sending an email to your customers, you want to send a professional-looking email that showcases your business in a positive light and delivers value to your subscribers.

Use the essential elements of email design to make sure every message you send looks great and is compelling to your reader.

And use a mobile responsive email template to make sure your message looks great, no matter what device it’s viewed on.

The Vin Bin email marketing example

3. Distinguish your voice

Your brand voice is how you communicate with the world.

Is your tone casual, friendly, and conversational? Corporate, safe, and reliable? Or fiery, inspirational, and supportive?

Brand voice is an intangible quality that speaks to the customer. It makes your business stand out and persuades people to take action with you.

Social media is a great example. Create a social media strategy firmly grounded in your brand voice. Whether communicating with customers or sharing content, it’s important to convey one meaningful message.

Check out how Nike incorporates its brand voice on Twitter. The athletic apparel brand uses an inspiring video of Professional Tennis Players, Venus and Serena Williams, along with a play on their slogan, “You Can’t Stop Sport” as a hashtag.

Brand voice extends beyond text. Make sure your brand voice is also present in your visual elements, including your logo, images, videos, and infographics.

What’s next?

Consistency is key to the customer experience because customers desire familiarity when interacting with your brand.

Embrace your mission statement to build better websites. Demonstrate your brand promise in email campaigns. And use your brand’s voice on your social media platforms.