While business growth is rarely a linear trajectory, there are fundamental actions that you can take to give your business the best possible chance at stable and secure success. Let our client, The Accountancy Partnership, guide you through the key areas that you need to cover for business growth and bottom line protection.

We’ve led you down the garden path a little here by implying that there actually is one stable route to business growth. More honestly, business growth is never a linear trajectory, and rarely straightforward.

That said, there are some things you can do to help steer your business in all the right directions (onwards, upwards and forwards). These simple steps will help ease your route to business growth, and make it as diversion-free as possible.

Create a solid marketing strategy for business growth that lasts

A great idea is nothing without the backing of a strong marketing plan to help everyone find out about it. Marketing is the vehicle with which you show off to the world and reach new audiences to grow your business.

Your marketing strategy should include things like:

Content (landing pages, articles, blog posts, images, videos, case studies)
Social media (organic and paid content/ads)
Email communications
Pay Per Click (PPC)
PR

Creating your strategy is the first step, but let it evolve as you evaluate its success, and adapt accordingly on a regular basis. Dig into the metrics and analytics available to assess the effectiveness of your approach. It will help you understand what’s working well, and what needs a refresh.

Seek advice from those in-the-know

One of the best ways to propel business growth is by enlisting the expertise of those who know what they’re doing. You can’t be the expert of everything, so get help in the areas where you need it, such as creating a website, building an app, or plumbing in the water for your workshop.

You won’t necessarily need to recruit a full-time workforce either. Develop a network of reliable freelancers and contractors who you can call upon as necessary. In fact, this might be the solution to your marketing strategy, for example.

Tap into real-time technology

Make the most of the software and services which enable you to access real-time information about your business. It’s a tried and tested way to level-up your business development because real-time info enables you to:

Take action more quickly, with reactive strategies
Access data and metrics more readily, helping you to make more informed decisions
Identify issues and anomalies much quicker, and therefore solve problems more rapidly
Save valuable time
Improve communication between teams who can all access the same data, at the same time

Focus on fine-tuning your customer service

Today, customers need to be more than just a transaction. Your customers are advocates of your brand, and your business’s biggest fans.

To transform a customer into an advocate, you first need to focus on your customer service so that you can foster a knockout customer experience. Do this and you’ll not only gain their loyalty, you’ll also pique the interest of the friends they tell about your brand, and the people who read the glowing reviews they leave of your product/service.

Get out there and meet new people

The saying goes: “it’s not what you know, it’s who you know”, which isn’t necessarily all true. Knowledge is most definitely power, but so is the community of people around you and it’s important to keep building on this community if you want to grow and develop your business.

This doesn’t have to just be through good old-fashioned networking events either. These days, there is a whole raft of virtual meet-ups and online events that allow you to connect with like minded entrepreneurs – or even customers – from the comfort of your own home or office.

Distance and time for travel isn’t a good excuse not to network anymore!

Put your accountant on speed dial

Okay, you might not actually fancy doing that, but what we mean by this is to stay in regular contact with the finance experts at your disposal.

Use their skills, software and experience to the benefit of your business. Remember, they see a lot of businesses, and have in-depth knowledge of what might work, as well as helping you make sure your cash flow stays in good health, that you hit important deadlines, and that you’re taking advantage of any tax relief that’s available to support the growth of your business.

Written by The Accountancy Partnership