Grow Your Business Safely and Successfully

When you’re running a business you need to be thinking about growth. If you don’t, you’ll find yourself over-reliant on a single market. That might mean on customers in a single town, that might mean on a single product. It could even mean on a single client, if you rely on a government contracts to get your business the work it needs, for example.

Growth is important to diversify – to take the same products to new markets, or bring new offerings to your existing markets, or both! – and make sure you that if something changes and your original model simply doesn’t bring in the same revenue your business won’t be imperilled. Growth brings you resilience, which is one of the most important qualities a business can have.

It’s important to make sure you plan your growth for success though. If you don’t put the hours in to make sure you’re growing your business in a sustainable, sensible way you might find yourself overextended and your original business overbalancing and failing.

Today we’re presenting a few ways you can plan your business’ growth to make sure you’re set for success.

Research

You need to make sure there’s a market waiting for you when your business expands. If you’re moving into a new territory, whether that’s a new town, a new country or even a new market speaking a different language, you’ll be investing a great deal of resources to prepare for this move, and if you can’t be sure there are willing consumers waiting for you at the end of the tunnel you’ll find yourself in difficulties.

Using a market research firm like Attest will get you the facts and figures to ensure that you know how much you can expect to sell and make an informed decision about your expansion.

Test for Success

If you try to kick start your expansion before you have the resources necessary to make a success of it you could find the failed investment doesn’t just sink your new branch – it also drags down your existing business which appeared perfectly stable.

Before you start thinking about expansion, think about what might constitute a sufficient resource base for you to work from, and a reasonable level of stability that ensures your business won’t overbalance in the attempt to grow.

Speak to an expert, or at least your investors and ensure you’ve set reasonable targets like a having a certain amount of money in the bank, a monthly turnover in excess of a set level or are over a certain footfall for three months in a row. This will ensure that you are ready to expand successfully.