The right way to plan for growing your small business by following the advice of Eric J Dalius

Having a pragmatic view about the future motivates small business owners to stay positive and plan for business growth, and many of them what to grow fast. Running a business is challenging and it is even more challenging to build a team and keep the employees motivated to help achieve expansion and growth goals, says Eric Dalius, a veteran marketing expert behind many entrepreneurial successes. Timing the decision of expansion right is critical to ensure successful implementation of the expansion plan. You must never rush for it because it could result in disaster as you might lose everything you have built with a lot of hard work.

The ideal approach for expanding your business is first placing it on a firm footing that ensures a steady flow of revenue for a considerable period. It would help garner the startup capital required to meet your growth plans and then implement the plan in phases instead of trying to achieve things overnight by hiring too many employees and stockpiling new equipment, hoping for speedy implementation. Unless you go through testing and progress, there are high chances of your plans collapsing and crushing your growth dreams. It might even drive you towards bankruptcy, as seen by Eric J Dalius during his career of more than two decades as a successful marketing expert and entrepreneur.

It is not hard to learn from others’ mistakes and develop a strategy in line with what you will read here to see your efforts bearing fruits. You already know something that works successfully so it will be a bonus to include that for your brand. The strategies discussed will help to overcome some entrepreneurial challenges faced during the growth phase.

Create a culture that fosters growth

When companies implement their growth plan, it is normal to experience many stress and challenges, some of which are similar to those experienced during startup. It is critical to gain the workforce’s trust by making them believe in the growth plan that helps keep the business team together when going through the phase of high growth. To make employees stay connected to your company, you must explain to everyone the company’s mission and vision and the values to derive that help them understand the cause of the journey and how it will benefit all. In the words of EJ Dalius, build a culture that binds the workforce as a cohesive unit as the company implements its growth strategies. A strong company culture attracts new customers to your business, and by spreading it across all stakeholders, it becomes easy to achieve the goals.

Hire the right people

When you plan for business growth, it includes hiring new people just as you had done during startup. It is a critical stage in your journey for expansion because you must have the right people for the right job, far from easy. Compromising on the kind of people you hire can have a devastating effect on your business, which not only deters the expansion but might hit at the base of the company and bring it down.

When recruiting people, focus on their skills and experience and consider if the personality type will fit within the teams that already exist and are working on attaining growth.   Analyze the personality and attitude of the candidate to be sure that the person will gel well within the existing framework and can contribute right from the day of joining. Most importantly, the person should accept the challenges that might not be to everyone’s liking.

Encourage innovation

For many businesses, the expansion would mean adding new products or offering improved products and investing money exclusively for it. However, this linear approach does not always work well because the competition is too severe. Instead, be creative with your growth plans and embrace innovation by encouraging everyone to think out of the box. For example, implementing new technology can help streamline the business processes and improve productivity that aids growth. Again, being innovative with the recruitment and onboarding process should hire the best talents in the industry that can accelerate growth by infusing new ideas. However, it is vital to encourage innovation at the right places that build the momentum for growth and drives the business toward it. Innovation requires lesser resources and is especially helpful when expanding the customer base.   Once you gain stability, you can think about adding new products.

Take care of your existing customers

A company derives its strength from the existing customer base, like the foundation of a building. The stronger is the foundation, the larger will be the superstructure that it can support. All business expansion plans must first consider their strength based on existing customers, and you must take proper care of them to ensure that they remain beside you in your endeavors to achieve growth. Retaining your customer base should be a part of your growth plan, but unfortunately, most small businesses fail to address the issue and jeopardize their growth prospects.

The growth plan should be customer-centric, and you can gain valuable insights from your existing customers about the aspects of your business that they love and what could make them happier. You can gather cues that help plan for growth by keeping in mind what customers want and not just implementing ideas out of the hat.

Make your customers feel important

Your customers are your prized assets, and you must make them feel comfortable so that they understand how much you value them. Conduct a customer satisfaction survey to understand their pulse and how closely connected they are to your business. Since your existing customers are your well-wishers, you must take them along in your journey toward growth that aligns with their needs.

Whether you introduce new products or improve the business processes to make it more transparent, ensuring customer satisfaction is at the root of all your efforts. Stay grounded and progress steadily to achieve growth, or else it could end in a heartbreaking experience.