We’d all like to grow our businesses and make more money in the shortest possible timescale. But doing so is far from easy. Taking the wrong approach could cause your business to lose some of its identify, and make it bloated, inefficient, and ultimately a pain to run. Happily, there exist a few tricks that can reduce this likelihood.
Remote Work
Allowing staff to work from home can ease a company’s expansion pains. For one thing, it’ll allow you to cut down on transport costs, and free up space for extra staff on your premises. For another, it’ll instil a sense of trust between you and your workforce, which will encourage greater productivity in the long-term.
Technologies like MPLS, offered by services like RedCentric, allow remote workers access to all of the same facilities as on-site ones, using encrypted VPN. This means that firms don’t have to compromise on security when affording their workers the ability to work from home.
Research the Competition
Before you take steps to upscale, it’s worth looking at the results achieved by others. Where have they gone wrong? What have they done right? There will be some mistakes common to all businesses of a certain size, while others will be specific to certain industries and niches.
Acquiring other Companies
On the face of it, the simplest way to expand your business is to acquire another one. You’ll get expertise, brand recognition, and important resources which you’ll be able to integrate into your existing business. With that said, mergers and acquisitions can be painful, and so you’ll need to do your research and keep your workforce appraised of your plans.
Updating Technology
Technology can make it easy to run a larger business, automating some of the administrative tasks that can overwhelm an office that takes on a lot of work quickly. But investing in the wrong technology can often do more harm than good, as there’s a learning curve inherent in putting new systems in place.
Marketing, online and offline
Few would deny the power of modern online marketing. We now have greater access to actionable data than ever before, which means we can be focussed in our approach to customer acquisition. With that said, we shouldn’t neglect the power of offline marketing, which for certain sorts of business might still represent the greatest return on investment. However, if you do use offline marketing strategies, think outside the box. You don’t want to do what everybody’s doing or your brand will get lost in the noise. A good way to spread the word and keep your brand top of mind is to give useful promotional products to your customers. If you’re a gym, for example, you could offer promotional stainless sports bottles with every gym subscription.
Secure Financial Backing
An expansion is a time of increased insecurity. If investors can see that there are turbulent times ahead, they might get nervous, and, in the worst case, withdraw entirely. As such, it’s important that you keep them informed of your plans. This way, you’ll be able to proceed in the security that the financial rug isn’t going to be pulled from beneath you.
