9 Drivers of Small Business Growth: An Owners’ Guide to Grow Business

When it comes to the matter of small business growth, there are several methods to help your company move on to the next stage of its journey. The old adage of having to speculate to accumulate tends to be the overarching theme to many of these growth strategies, but there are still some relatively inexpensive solutions to employ that can make a significant difference too.

Not all of these small business growth strategies will be suitable for your company, but we’ve tried to pick methods that are broad enough to be implemented in most industries.

1 – Conduct market research (and act on the results!)

Your staff, your stakeholders, and even you might be content with how things are going, but you won’t truly know your company until you’ve seen it through a customer’s eyes.

Even if profits are healthy and everything seems to be going swimmingly, there’s a chance that you could be operating below your company’s potential.

This is why it’s so important to learn exactly what your customer base, and even those that don’t use your business, think of your company.

There are few more powerful growth tools you can leverage than good market research. Customers are the lifeblood of almost every business, and being privy to their perceptions of your company, and the sector in general can yield extremely valuable data.

• A bike shop may learn that customers are disappointed that they don’t sell bike pumps, offer repairs, or provide a payment plan option. All of these suddenly become potential new products or services that generate more income and expand your business model.
• A struggling restaurant could find that members of the public are put off from trying it as they assume it’s too formal and expensive. This information should provide all the impetus needed for the eatery to work on its marketing in such a way to appeal to this missed demographic.
• An SaaS provider might receive feedback that the outreach emails they considered to be fun and informal are actually coming across as rude instead. Amending this small issue could suddenly generate many more leads than seen beforehand.

Thorough research into your customers’ mindsets will almost always deliver actionable results. Try not to be offended by any bad feedback, and make sure that you act on any business opportunities that arise from it.

2 – Launching new product/service lines

The aforementioned market research is a great way to find out what your customers expect from your type of business. That doesn’t necessarily mean you should always give your clients exactly what they expect, however. Sometimes, unexpected extras and offerings can allow you to stand out from the competition. Perhaps a small café within the grounds of a car wash business would generate extra income while customers wait, for example.

Any new offering doesn’t necessarily have to compliment your existing service though. You may find that the tools you have at your disposal allow you to enter an adjacent market at the same time. A taxi rank with drivers of large vehicles, for instance, could potentially offer a delivery service to move heavy items around for customers without the means to do it themselves.

Any new service must be publicised well. This is especially true if it’s an offering that customers wouldn’t generally expect from a business such as yours.

The safest option is often to just expand on the services or products you already offer. Think along the lines of an opticians stocking sunglasses during the summer months, or a running shoe shop offering shorts and T-shirts too.

3 – Improve your sales funnels

This is another small business growth driver that benefits greatly from prior market research. In fact, unless your sales funnels have glaringly obvious problems, then it’s near-essential to gather the opinions of the public.

We’ve all had an experience in which buying something hasn’t been as easy as we’d expect it to be. This could be on a website, in store, or over the phone. The problem for business owners is that this can put a customer off completing their purchase completely, or worse, head over to a competitor instead.

Owners that haven’t considered their sales funnels before would be well advised to ask as many outsiders to the business as possible how they found the process of buying from them. If there are too many buttons to click, forms to fill in, pages to visit, advisors to speak to, or any other obstacles, then you have scope to streamline the process.

You should be doing everything possible to ensure that customers find it as easy as possible to spend money on your business.

4 – Acquiring another business

There are few small business growth strategies that can grow business as rapidly as an acquisition.

For bricks and mortar businesses, it’s a far quicker option than opening new branches yourself, while online firms can find the capture of an existing client base lucrative. Not only does the expansion of your business increase your market share, but it also removes a competitor in the process.

The acquisition process can be complex, with myriad legal and financial issues to contend with, but the results can often be transformative. If your business can afford to buy out another company, and a suitable opportunity arises, then it should be an option that you give serious consideration to.

5 – Assemble a strong team

Sometimes the biggest difference you can make to your business is within your workforce. Whether it be by hiring the right people, or providing relevant training, you can create some real change by investing in your staff.

Each hire can be crucial to the success of your company. Just one negative influence within your workforce has the potential to drag everybody else down and hamper productivity.

The contrary is also true, and a great hire can have the effect of buoying your team. Specifically skilled workers can even allow you to offer extra services you may not have been able to previously.

Keeping your team up to date with the latest processes and legislations will also help to ensure your team are as knowledgeable as possible to aid their customer interactions. When it comes to specialist topics, customers are encouraged by staff that can advise them with a demonstrable knowledge of the subject.

A team that can display relevant expertise alongside strong sales skills can be an incredibly valuable asset for businesses. As the ones completing the work and dealing with customers the most, their opinions can also be worth listening to. Staff can often see inefficiencies in the company’s processes before others and their input can be invaluable.

6 – Building a reputation

One of the most cost-efficient ways to achieve small business growth is to build a good reputation. This can either be within the local area for bricks and mortar firms, or within a particular industry for others.

Assembling a good team will go some way to helping with this, but you can also be more proactive by asking satisfied customers to leave a review for you. The importance of strong reviews online should not be understated: in a 2021 survey, it was found that 99.9% of consumers checked reviews when shopping online. Even in physical shops, it was reported that 57% of their customers still check reviews when shopping instore.

Outside of this, simple word-of-mouth recommendations can provide business growth for businesses catering to a local community. Of course, this is usually a slow-burning tactic, but if you wished to speed matters up, you could always invite a local celebrity or influencer to your business in the hope that their endorsement will carry more weight with the public.

7 – Invest in new technology/equipment

We all hope for small business growth, but some businesses aren’t set up to accept it should it happen. Without the infrastructure in place to allow for growth, businesses run the risk of handicapping themselves from the off.

While many will point to the sensible advice of not upgrading infrastructure until its needed, occasionally it can be worth putting this work in beforehand to allow you to compete for larger contracts. This could be in the guise of machines that increase productivity, warehouses that provide more storage, or extra vehicles that expand your reach.

With technological developments continuing apace, and the advent of AI-based business solutions, it’s always worth keeping abreast with the latest news to determine whether an upgrade of the software or equipment you use could raise productivity.

8 – Small business growth through constant evaluation

One of the reoccurring themes among these small business growth strategies is the need to look at how your business is doing presently and then acting on that knowledge.

By constantly evaluating what is successful and what doesn’t quite hit the mark within your business, you can inform your future decisions with an eye on improving matters. The use of mystery shoppers is a great way of doing this that allows you to get a snapshot of how your business is doing, and their reports can serve as a valuable evaluation tool.

Casting a critical eye over your processes regularly will make you more likely to identify areas for improvement. Even if you’ve successfully changed one element of your business already, be sure to carry on assessing its efficacy as some changes may become less efficient over time.

9 – Speak to a specialist that can provide tailored advice

Talking to one of Forbes Burton’s small business growth specialists will provide you with far more bespoke solutions that can supercharge your company, no matter how niche its industry. Our experts have helped countless businesses to reach the next level by helping to implement innovative changes that drive growth.

We provide free consultations that allow business owners to sample our service without commitment. Call us on 0800 975 0380, or email [email protected] to find out how we can help your business achieve tangible success.