You no doubt caught the headline and were intrigued; either searching for business growth strategies or are a regular reader of our posts. One item to note: there is no “silver bullet” approach to business growth except through smart decisions, hard work, and a little luck. What we’ve pulled together is a handful of tips to enhance the “smart decisions” area of your business’ growth track.
1. Know Thy Customer
Whether you’re just starting out or an established and growing business, understanding who your customer is or should be through thorough market research, and segmenting your primary market into groups of customers for targeted marketing campaigns. Prospective customers may be segmented by demographical and geographical data points, or if you’re spanning industries, segment by industry type.
2. Seek Funding For Business Growth
In a season of growth, managing cash flow while you expand may be difficult, and “boot-strapping” the business may either make operations tight or hamper growth through available capital. Look at the growing expenses for your business—is it general increase in overhead or new capital investments in equipment? If the latter, work with an equipment finance company who specializes in your industry. Consider them the experts in providing funding through equipment leases and loans designed to help your business grow, taking into account market volume and any seasonal influences.
3. Discover Ancillary Products & Services To Sell
While it’s important to keep focus on your target market, include in your growth plan the research and discovery of additional products and services that you can provide as an add-on sale to existing customers, creating additional revenue with minimal investment, and may provide a little more insulation from economic fluctuation.
BONUS: Identify and Engage New Vendors
Offering services to a larger market or territory requires additional funding, but also will often require working with bigger or a larger number of vendors to support your operations. For a trucking business, this may mean working with multiple service yards or changing fuel card programs. Regardless of your product or service offering, growth will create new vendor opportunities; be it volume discounts or a switch entirely. Have this understanding going in keeps you proactive rather than reactive to the realities of supply and demand.
We’ve funded equipment loans and leases for more than 65 years, serving transportation, industrial, and construction industries with unique financing solutions driving business on the front-end, and now offering insurance and invoice factoring to support back-office needs of our customers.