Now that you have built a successful business, you have an established customer base and you are fairly well known in your geographical area, your industry or both, what do you do to stay ahead of your competition? You might want to consider the following tips to help you to expand your business and take it to the next level.
The following are 8 tips to help you increase the size of your business and take it to the next level.
1. Open another location.
Either open another location or move into an office space if you are currently working from a home office. This may not be the best choice for expansion; however, it is the first thing business owners often do. If you are thinking of doing this, be sure you are maintaining a consistent bottom-line profit and that you have shown steady growth over the past few years. You also want to ensure your infrastructure, staff and your systems can accommodate the growth. Finally, research the demand of taking this next step and how it will affect your decision.
2. Expand your product or service lines to compliment the ones you currently have.
This will allow you to offer more selection and it makes your products and services more appealing to your customer base. However, first, you need to conduct market research to determine which products and/or services are in demand, which would be profitable for you, and which would be affordable to your customers.
3. Find ways to increase repeat business for your current customers.
This is a lot less expensive than locating new customers. Initiate reorder cards that you can send out to remind customers to reorder products and/or services when you want them to, not just when they remember to do so. Contact them more often with a monthly or bi-monthly newsletter via email or mail to ensure the customer is keeping you on the top of their minds for additional sales.
Consider developing volume sales discounts, monthly rates, or other discounts to entice them to purchase more at a time or for a longer period of time than instead of just a single sale. If you can, try to get your customer to contract with your business, if your business is set up to do so.
4. Update your Website or develop a new one if you do not have one.
Be sure to add monthly specials, discounts and/or promotions on your site - especially on the home page to attract attention. Ensure individuals/businesses visiting your site sign up in order to qualify to win a drawing or receive a discount, so that you can add them to your database. You can also add products and/or services to sell online. If done correctly, this adds sales and reduces the time necessary to locate these sales. These are typically bonus sales above and beyond anything you would normally sell since they are from a different 'group' of people.
5. Target other markets.
Only do this if you have already saturated your primary target market. For example, if you sell to teens, consider beginning marketing your product and/or service to college students.
6. Turn your business into a franchise or franchise opportunity.
You will need to ensure you have developed all your operating systems needed in order to make your business a smooth-running machine first, however. You can network within the franchise industry.
7. Add a partner or merge with another existing complimentary business.
With the right agreement and business plan, taking this step can be beneficial to both parties involved. Be sure to hire a reputable attorney to review all the paperwork and look out for your best interests.
8. Go global.
Find alternate ways to market yourself globally if you do not already do so. Consider ways to tweak your business in order to offer your business and/or services to consumers outside your current area. Have you considered teleseminars, Webinars, shopping cart Websites, or search engines?
1.Handle all bookkeeping work by yourself. Especially for a small business, it is very common for the owner to have a self-employed mindset. The owner will try to do it all by himself because of budget constraints. Although it does not seems like there are a lot of bookkeeping to be done at the beginning, you must develop a habit to record your book frequently so as to make your job easier in the future.
2.Do not tally your book with your business bank account. It is very important to make sure that what is on the bank statement is the same as your books. As long as the numbers tallied, you can be assured that there is no bank payment or receipt that have been missed out by you.
3.Forget to update your books. Sometimes, it is very easy to forget updating your book if you buy goods or services with cash or your company credit card. This will create trouble in the future as the numbers on your book will not tally with the numbers on the bank statement.
4.Not using the right bookkeeping software. Bookkeeping software can help reduce your workload and make your recordings more accurate. You should invest on the right software for your industry and train your staff to use it.
5.Forget to backup your data. You should backup all the data in your computer in case of any emergency. It only takes you very little time so there is no excuse for you not to do it.
6.Not organizing your information properly. You need to organize your information into the right category for easy reference. This will keep your recording simple and consistent for anyone who takes over your bookkeeping work.
7.Not registering for taxable sales. If your company's total sales reaches a certain amount (depending on your country of residence), you need to file for registration. Failure to do so may result in fines.
8.Do not have a separate business bank account. Even though you are a self-employed, it is a good practice to open a separate bank account solely for business transactions. This will make your bookkeeping job easier and makes everything much clearer.
These are 8 common bookkeeping mistakes made by many small business owners. Hope that with this article, you can avoid making the same costly mistakes.
Both Katrina Sawa & Cheow Yu Yuan are contributors for EditorialToday. The above articles have been edited for relevancy and timeliness. All write-ups, reviews, tips and guides published by EditorialToday.com and its partners or affiliates are for informational purposes only. They should not be used for any legal or any other type of advice. We do not endorse any author, contributor, writer or article posted by our team.
Katrina Sawa has sinced written about articles on various topics from Website Traffic, Internet Marketing and Start Online Business. (c) Copyright 2008 K.Sawa Marketing Katrina Sawa is an Award-Winning Relationship Marketing Coach who's helped hundreds of small business owners take dramatic steps in their businesses to get them to the next level in business, revenues and life. She offe. Katrina Sawa's top article generates over 18100 views. to your Favourites.