Business Growth Strategies You Must Embrace To Grow Your Business

Business growth is simply the process of improving the seeable value/performance of the success of a business. How can you then grow your business? It’s what we are going to discuss in this post.

In Uganda, most people in business focus so much on getting new customers. While it’s okay, it isn’t the only method for business growth. It’s the most costly and time-consuming way of growing your business. It’s more beneficial to focus on existing customers to build your business by coming up with various ideas for them to buy more often. Secondly, it is the quickest and cheapest way of growing your business and income.

What Are the Main Business Growth Strategies?

Business growth experts reveal three proven ways of growing your business. They include:

First, getting new customers

Secondly, selling more to existing customers and

Thirdly, selling more often to existing customers

Do you do that? Well, if you don’t have a business growth strategy for your business, it is high time you thought about it. If you didn’t know, don’t bother because we will discuss it one by one here. We wish to enlighten you on the importance of learning how to improve the performance of your business with the three business growth strategies.

#1 – Getting New Customers

As I have already pointed out, getting new customers to grow your business is the most challenging strategy for business growth. It’s what every Ugandan businessperson should know. Attracting new customers to buy from you requires you to do a lot of marketing and advertising. Unfortunately, most small businesses in Uganda lack resources to spend on marketing and advertising.

It’s important to know that people do not easily buy from strangers. Convincing them takes time. Build your credibility and believability by applying proven ways of presenting yourself as an expert in your field of specialisation and competing against your business competitors. It’s time-consuming. It’s one reason why new businesses find it challenging to break through. Focusing on getting new customers without having a clear plan to maintain old ones is another reason why most startups in Uganda fail to break through.

While getting new customers is crucial to your business growth, focus on maintaining them. It’s when you will not waste the resources you invested in getting them. Therefore, It’s essential to learn techniques for acquiring new customers and maintaining them to grow your business!

#2 – Selling More To Existing Customers

Existing Customers

Business growth experts say it’s better to grow your business with existing customers rather than get new ones. It’s because they already know you and know your products. Because they’ve already used your products, even when you introduce new ones, it’s easy to convince them to buy.

Your responsibility now is to create various ways for them to buy more and more from you. You can introduce promotional programs to persuade them to buy as they see the benefit of buying again from you.

For instance, if you have four customers who buy products equivalent to $50 per month, you earn $2,400 a year. If you work hard to get four extra customers in the same year with the ability to spend on average $50 per month, you will earn $ 4,800 from your eight customers (4 old & 4 new customers). But if you get four new customers and encourage the four existing customers to spend 50% more, your revenue will jump from $ 4,800 to $ 6,000 in a year. Do you see how fast you will have grown your business by directing your energy on both old and new customers?

In the above example, you have increased what your old customers buy from you by 50%. And this is what is known as the TRANSACTION VALUE. Always focus on your existing customers with new ways of increasing their transaction value! It’s the most straightforward business growth method. Why? It’s because they already know you. You’ve already established a trusting relationship with them. It, therefore, becomes much more comfortable with increasing its transaction value. Secondly, they can also get you referrals.

#3 – Selling More Often To Existing Customers

Real Buyers

Growing your business depends mostly on how often your customers buy from you. It’s another essential business growth method. Come up with ways to keep them coming back to buy from you.

Let me illustrate this by building on the same example above. If each of the four old customers spends $50 per month, you earn $2,400 in 12 months. But if you worked hard to encourage them to increase their transaction value by 50%, each customer would spend $75 per month, and you would earn $3,600 within one year. If the four customers increase the number of times they purchase from you to 3 times per annum, through your promotional efforts, they will spend a total of $10,800. Do you realise that your revenue jumps from $6,000 to $10,800 because of the frequency each customer buys from you?

In the above example, your assumed revenue increased from $6,000 to $10,800. It was due to the number of times each customer bought from you. You haven’t got new customers, but your revenue is increasing. That’s what we refer to as THE FREQUENCY OF PURCHASE. Always focus on the number of times each customer buys from you to grow your business!

Please Note That

As you work hard to grow your business, ask yourself the following questions and ensure you find the answers.

1. How many customers do I have currently?
2. How many new customers do I have to get?
3. How much do they spend on average in one transaction?
4. How many times do they spend in a month or a year?
5. What would happen if I increased their transaction value by 5% to 50% or even more?
6. What can I do to grow their transaction value?
7. What action can I take to improve their frequency of purchase?

When you successfully answer the above questions, you will find no obstacle in building a successful business. You will know how to improve your business performance with the three business growth strategies.

Conclusion

Business growth is not all about getting new customers. Getting new customers is costly. Therefore, it’s essential as a small business to plan for the number of new customers you intend to get. Focus on getting that expected number within your budget to avoid spending your resources blindly. When you do that, you risk losing your business.

Secondly, spend your time and energy on how to increase the transaction value and frequency of purchase of your existing customers. Successful businesses are those that apply the three business growth strategies. Apply them in your business to succeed!