How to Grow a Small Business

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You have found a strong business idea, the necessary initial capital and launched your business. But six months pass, and the indicators are almost the same as they were at the start. We have to disappoint you, such stability is not a sign of skill. Standing still is not the best strategy in business, because the lack of development is degradation. Read the tips that will help transform your still small business into a larger and more successful one.

Tip #1: Set the Right Goals and Develop a New Strategy
Brian Tracy, a famous Canadian entrepreneur and author of many telegram deutsch group bestsellers, advises everyone who wants to achieve success to write down 10 of their goals every day. In business, as in life, without a clear vision of the end results, we are just dreamers. Without seeing the end of the road, it is impossible to move along it.

One of the best goal setting systems is SMART.

S (Specific) — the specificity of the goal. Answers the question "What?"
M (Measurable) - measurability. Questions like "How much?", "How much?"
A (Achievable) - achievability. The goal must be realistic.
R (Relevant) - Consistency. Goals should not contradict each other.
T (Time-bound) — certainty in time. For example, increase revenue by one and a half times in two months.
After making a list of goals, break each of them down into tasks and subtasks. Pay attention to tactics. It is foolish to assume that acting the same way as before will lead to different results. Therefore, your strategy should be different from what you did before. Change your thinking. Outline new steps and start moving.

For example, you opened a coworking center. The business is already up and running, although there is no sign of big money yet. There is a great space, some furniture, a hospitable hostess-administrator, coffee with gingerbread cookies, and even a fax machine (!). And the guests are two and a half freelancers (one simply paid for the desk rental and never showed up again). What to do?

Set a SMART goal - for example, attract 10 new regular clients per month. Think through your actions: you can simply use contextual advertising, as you did before, or you can take a more complex but promising path. Attract not just freelancers, but a certain type of clients - organizers of seminars, trainings and educational courses.

Firstly, the revenue from such events is always higher, secondly, it is an excellent advertising move: when advertising their seminar, the organizers will indicate the location of the seminar, that is, your address. For a new coworking space, this is a significant plus. Break the goal down into tasks and write down in detail how you will move towards the goal.


Tip #2: Delegate
At the beginning of their business journey, every entrepreneur does most of the work themselves. But for the development of a startup, it is extremely important to learn how to delegate - to transfer responsibilities to more qualified personnel or to outsourcing.

Realize that you cannot be an expert in everything. Wanting to save money, for example, on contractors conducting contextual advertising, you risk losing even more money, wasting your advertising budget.

Don't forget about the opportunities that the age of new technologies gives us. Save time, money and increase efficiency by using all the opportunities to automate your business.

Don't waste your advertising budget
The call tracking and end-to-end analytics service will show the effectiveness of each source in terms of “from click to sale”.

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Tip #3: Don't stop working on the product
Constantly try to improve the quality of goods or services. If you are a manufacturer, buy higher quality raw materials or parts. If you provide services, it would be a good idea to invest in improving the skills of your employees or develop a new motivation system that will ultimately work to improve the quality of services provided.

Even if it is impossible to improve the product, you can always focus on customer interactions and improve the quality of service.

Expanding your product range is another way to move forward. Offer your current customers related products or services. To do this, study new products in your business, keep an eye on your competitors, and be open - often, ideas for expansion can come from customers themselves. So the next piece of advice...

Tip #4: Listen to those around you
The best solutions are always on the surface. Often, customers themselves tell you whether your product meets their needs or not and how it can be improved. Just listen to their ideas and use them if they are good enough.

Be open to information from contractors and employees as well. Collect feedback in person and listen to your managers' phone calls, for example, using call tracking.

Don't neglect networking! Monitor events held in your field, participate in them, make new useful contacts. The time of fierce competition is passing, today you can and should be friends with competitors - exchange experiences, share life hacks, help each other and listen to the advice of wiser colleagues. Take note, transform information into goals and implement everything that can contribute to the expansion of your business.

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Tip #5: Invest in Advertising
Advertising is the engine of trade. Even if you have a small budget, find a way to invest in marketing.


Choose the advertising channels that are right for your business. To do this, you need to:

carefully analyze the target audience and its needs;
answer the question of where your target audience gathers (if this is difficult, refer to tip #4 - ask your clients themselves which platforms they use most often);
think of a creative idea that will catch the attention of a potential client;
select a channel suitable for posting this creative.
The most common and win-win option is contextual advertising. And all because almost everyone uses search, including your target audience. Your ad will be shown for a specific user request, which means it will definitely hit the target. Conclusions: contextual advertising is fast and effective (if configured correctly).

At the same time, different topics have their own peculiarities. Some businesses cannot survive without social networks and influencer marketing, while others are more interested in conferences and exhibitions.

Don't set your advertising budget rigidly in advance, as this will limit your growth. The right strategy is to constantly monitor performance and determine marketing expenses based on the profitability of advertising channels. Look for the most profitable channels and scale them until you can invest at least one more ruble in them profitably.

To ensure that each channel operates at maximum efficiency, use an end-to-end analytics service .

Tip #6: Track your performance
For small businesses, every ruble counts, so it is difficult to overestimate the benefits that the implementation of end-to-end analytics will bring . It gives a clear understanding of how much money is invested in advertising and how much is received at the output. It allows you to see the shortcomings of advertising campaigns, unprofitable channels, ads or keywords in time and optimize the budget in the best possible way.

Using end-to-end analytics may seem like an additional expense for small businesses, but it is not. We have developed the START tariff specifically for small firms and startups , which allows you to implement end-to-end analytics for next to nothing.

Let's look at a specific example of how end-to-end analytics can help you get more profit with the same advertising budget. Let's go back to our coworking center: you are running contextual advertising, and your main keywords are "coworking center" and "coworking in Moscow".

Analyzing the number of requests, you see that most of them came not from general ads, but from a less popular but more precise keyword "coworking in Moscow City" Redistribute the budget from non-working keywords to more successful ones, based on end-to-end analytics data. Disable weak advertising campaigns and raise rates on ads for a more successful request, work on them additionally.

Instead of a conclusion
Andrew Mackenzie once said, "A business is like a car — it only goes downhill!" The faster you find, test, implement working ideas and scale them, the more noticeable your growth will be. This applies to sales, marketing, product quality — the entire business as a whole. It is up to you how your business will transform. The right goal setting system, an updated strategy, end-to-end analytics under the START tariff and our other tips will help you on the path to developing your business. Good luck!