You’ve got a goal for your business this year: growth. But you don’t only have expanding your bottom line in mind. Instead, you want to take your company to new heights, preferably as quickly as possible.
At the same time, you’d like to avoid any fast falls. The company needs to get this right. While expanding a business is usually time-intensive, there are ways to speed up the process. Let’s explore a few of these tactics below.
Hire in New Markets
You need people to pull off a successful expansion, especially when it involves new markets. Venturing into unknown territory without local eyes and ears is like navigating in the dark without a flashlight. Your company doesn’t gain the valuable insights it needs to win. Hiring workers in your new markets seems like a no-brainer solution.
But what if your expansion plans involve going global? Onboarding employees across international borders is a bit more complex. Companies must wade through legal requirements to set up local entities in each targeted country. This takes time and money. Your business must also have skilled legal and HR teams to handle what comes next.
Smaller companies often lack these resources. However, you don’t have to let this stop you from hiring abroad. You can partner with an employer of record, known as an EOR for short. An EOR already has legal entities in other countries and can hire employees worldwide on your behalf. With an EOR partnership, you don’t have to wait to gain valuable local expertise when you want to expand internationally.
Focus on Current Clients
Potential customers are out there for the taking, but you can’t win them all. It’s one reason the competition exists. Yet you can focus on the clients you’ve already won over if you want your business to grow. It also tends to be a cheaper and more profitable strategy.
On average, gaining a new customer will cost five to seven times more than keeping an existing one. In addition, current clients are 50% more likely to give a company’s new products a whirl and spend 31% more. If you want to expand quickly, targeting your current client base can yield bigger results.
You can achieve this by segmenting existing customers based on purchase behaviors and lifetime value. In other words, who is most likely to buy again if they’re given an incentive? An incentive could be a personalized discount, referral or loyalty program, or new product trial matched to the group’s needs. The goal is to increase the overall dollar value of what your targeted segments buy. It can be achieved through repeat business, product stacking, or larger purchases.
Invest Company Profits
Hopefully, your company is in the black if your goal is to expand. Steady profits give you the financial strength to fuel additional growth. Otherwise, you might be tempted to turn to riskier means, such as taking on too much debt.
You can benefit from the company’s retained earnings even if your profit margins are smaller than you’d like. For example, say your most recent research uncovers an unmet need for faster internet service in select markets. Your company sells internet connections there, but you don’t have the infrastructure to make it faster.
You could maintain the status quo, keep your profits, and hope a competitor doesn’t swoop in with faster, better service. A wiser decision might be to invest in updated equipment in trial areas. Reinvesting your profits lets you upgrade your infrastructure to deliver the internet speeds those markets want. When your company makes this move, it becomes more competitive and expands its range of solutions.
Work With Partners
You can quickly expand your market reach by partnering with other businesses. However, these partnerships need to make sense. You’ll probably perplex people if you sell pet food and join forces with a cellphone company. It’s easier for clients to connect the dots if a window installer pairs up with a home improvement store.
Strategic business partnerships give each side access to the other’s customer base. You also get in front of potential clients your traditional marketing efforts might miss. Since these customers already trust the other company, a referral can hold more weight. In some cases, they may be on the lookout for a solution your business can provide. Your partner’s referral could convince people to take the next step.
Say a homeowner knows it’s time to replace their windows because of age. They’ve already researched a few companies but didn’t commit because of concerns about price and quality. Since the homeowner is loyal to their neighborhood home improvement chain, they check out the store’s options. A staff member tells the homeowner what windows they can offer while mentioning they work with a local installer.
By offering a guarantee on the work and a financing incentive, the store seals the deal. Both partners get the business without necessarily having to invest in more marketing. Strategic partnerships like this can instantly open additional sales channels and revenue sources. The key is to make sure you have enough capacity to serve them.
Growing With Speed
In business, it’s all about delivering results. The faster you can do it, the better. Otherwise, consumers begin to doubt whether the company’s offering has merit.
Speedy expansions can grow a company’s numbers quickly and lay the foundation for continued success. Despite this, not all growth methods are both fast and thoughtful. To achieve good outcomes, businesses need tactics that combine strategy and speed. Working with resourceful partners, retargeting existing clients, and reinvesting profits leverage both. With these approaches, you can reach your expansion goals in a faster timeframe.
