Uncover Your Business Growth Potential

 
Are you like many small business owners who get so busy doing the day-to-day work of the business that they do not recognize the potential for growth? If so, your business may have significant growth potential, but you have not yet been able to recognize it.

The old saying “there’s gold in them there hills” could apply to your business; all you have to do is find it.

Embracing Opportunities for Business Growth

Our last article mentioned the SWOT analysis, which helps find untapped potential in your business.

Opportunities are the untapped potential in your business. They can come from external changes in the business landscape or internally in the things you just don’t have time for in the day-to-day operation of your business.

These can result in the following:

• You could quickly create new products that would add revenue to your business.
• Expanding your target market by tapping into audiences similar to your core.
• Developing more repeat business within your existing customer base.
• Developing Joint venture opportunities that grow your customer base.
• Improving systems and processes to make them more efficient and improve profitability.

7 Questions That Identify Untapped Areas in Your Small Business

• How can you increase your relationships with your existing customers and clients?
• What audiences share similarities with your current target avatar?
• What projects have you been sitting on that could generate revenue and help expand your business?
• What new technologies can your business embrace?
• Are there hidden talents, skills, or experiences yet to be uncovered within your current team members?
• Are there opportunities to partner with other businesses serving your target market?
• Are there changes in the general business landscape or economy that bring opportunities to your business?

Answering these questions is like taking a quick screenshot of the opportunities available to you. We will explore these opportunities as we move ahead.

Right now, there are three areas that you are uncovering:

• Tagging the projects that require focus but little time to implement.
• Looking at new technologies that could change your business for the best.
• Spotting unused talents within your small business team.

Uncover Growth Opportunities Through New Marketing Activities

The pulse of your business will usually be directed by just how active your marketing is. It could be paid, low-cost, or free. However, to grow your business, you need to evaluate your current marketing efforts to make changes relative to your small business’s continued growth.

Assess What Marketing Efforts are Working

Let’s take a moment to review precisely what is happening to your business.

Once that is done, you can look at making positive changes that will reflect the future growth of your small business.

Perform an audit of the past 12 months from a marketing perspective.

Ask yourself:

• Have you accomplished the goals you set for yourself over the past 12 months?
• What changes have happened in your target market?
• Has your marketing message penetrated your target market, and are you attracting new customers?
• How recognized has your brand become?
• Have your sales met your sales forecast over the past year?

Introduce New Marketing Initiatives

Your marketing initiatives may need to expand for your business revenue growth.

You may need to draw on new investments to cover the marketing costs for your upscaled business growth. However, you can expect a more efficient business designed to save you time and money and to draw more customers to your brand.

Steps to achieve this could be:

• Using webinars to sell products and services.
• Developing a content marketing system.
• Paid Facebook Advertising
• Adding video to your marketing efforts.

External Factors That Affect Your Business Growth Potential

In business, it is not uncommon to be affected by external factors over which you have no direct control. These are ‘Threats’ that make up the fourth component of the SWOT analysis. You need to have a plan to recognize and deal with these.

These include:

• Government Regulatory practices
• General economic conditions
• Environmental Issues

Your competitors can also make changes that affect your business. Therefore, you must monitor your competitors to know and understand who they are, what they are up to, and how they can affect your business growth.

For example, your direct competitor discounts prices by 50%. What will be your plan of action? The same applies if there is a new competitor. How will you make sure that your business stands apart from the rest?

In addition, there can be external factors such as:

• Changing customer requirements
• New technology advancements
• Competition from places like Asia etc.

Changing Negative External Factors into Business Growth Opportunities

Once you recognize these negative factors, you can turn them into opportunities. So don’t ignore them; look for opportunities.

Here are some questions designed to help you identify the external factors that could affect your business’s performance.

• What are the problems directly facing your business?
• What strengths do your competitors have that you don’t?
• What marketing initiatives are driving your competitor’s success?
• What economic conditions are affecting your business
• What Industry developments are happening that could change your business strategies for growth?

Uncovering opportunities to help you grow your small business can come from both positive and negative internal and external factors. You need to be aware of them and deal with them directly.
 

Other articles in this series:
How To Successfully Grow Your Small Business
Preparing to Grow Your Small Business
Business Growth: Your Team and Tools
Creating your Business Growth Plan