Last Updated on September 13, 2024
Producing larger amounts of revenue, generating brand awareness, and establishing connections are always essential for any small business. It sustains their means of acquiring more resources in order to make sure that their products and services are of quality, saving them from becoming obsolete, and helping them survive the rigorous competition.
All small businesses face the constraints of limited resources — from means of production and distribution to generating brand awareness.
The cards in your arsenal may be not the best ones from the deck, but even the lowest ranking cards can still make the game-winning combinations – all it takes is hard work and strategy. Here are three awesome ideas to grow your small business.
Partnerships
Your limited budget could leave you vulnerable in some areas that require relatively big investment like a small store or other physical distribution channels. What’s worse is that there is a huge chance that your investments might not return to you in your expected time, since your still-anonymous branding has yet to make itself known to the market.
Working with a competent associate to make up for what the other is lacking proves to be a good strategy for a win-win result. Benefits of a partnership include the combined talents and expertise of two or more entities, and as well as their capital, which results in higher productivity.
You own a special condiment factory, for example, but you are having problem with distributions since the local stores all carry condiment brands that are much more established than yours. A smart strategy would be partnering with a local restaurant or a burger stand that would provide your condiments to their customers along with their food.
Be warned though, as both business partners will be held responsible for each other’s liabilities like debts and other transactions. Only team up with someone you trust and make sure he trusts you too.
Social Media
Social media has been a big part of people’s lives, as it’s becoming one of their primary means for communicating with others and as well as acquiring real-time information. Having a Facebook page or a Twitter account doesn’t only provide information about your company; it also gives you that chance to engage your audiences.
Answering queries or engaging audiences in conversations through comments, chats, and Tweets gives your brand that chance to radiate a humanizing touch that everyone likes because people naturally want a real human being answering their concerns rather than an automated machine. Social media is also one of those channels that could give you passive publicity since your content or other people’s content about your business could be shared and circulated by other end users.
Let’s say that you are selling some organic health restoration products, and you’ve written and shared on Facebook an article about simple methods of detoxifying the body by mixing lemons, limes, and oranges in a jar of cold water. Since your health-conscious followers will be most likely friends with like-minded people or have family or peers who are in need of cost-efficient detoxifying methods, your content, and consequently your Facebook page, would easily get publicity if your followers tag their peers on the comment section of your content or share them via their walls.
Familiarity with a brand thru its online efforts would naturally result in sales as you establish your credibility.
Online Selling
The Internet has become an efficient distribution channel as transactions may be done online, hence eliminating geographical barriers. This is a good option to exploit as you maximize profit margins by selling to people who cannot visit your physical store, whether they’re too far or just too busy to wait in queue.
This is a technique utilized by startup clothing manufacturers who cannot afford retail space in high-traffic areas. The free access to their online store makes up for the potential low store-visit rate that they receive. Included in the online store should be information about the products like pictures of their models wearing their designs, measurements of the sizes, contact numbers, and transaction instructions.
Achieving growth means increase in the scale of operations and in the size of output your brand produces. And for startups, using every possible means to its maximum potential is always essential.
Surviving or even outplaying the competition is never an easy task, but it isn’t impossible. Working smart’s the deciding factor between success and failure because it’s never easy to operate a business with all the constraints on resources holding you back. Those who know how to best use their resources and turn the tables around their constraints stand out from the rest who haven’t figured out how to maximize their resources yet.