Has Your Business Outgrown Itself?
When you’ve started a new business and things are going well, it’s tempting to start trying to expand as soon as possible.
But is this always sensible? There are so many businesses out there that have failed because they’ve tried to run before they can walk. If you don’t have the customer base to facilitate that expansion, you’ll end up massively increasing your overheads without bringing in any extra revenue.
This shortfall will soon grow and eventually, it will kill your business if you aren’t careful. Occasionally, these gambles might pay off but most of the time they won’t, so it’s important to choose the right moment to expand. These are the best ways to know when that moment arrives.
Customers
A solid customer base is the best indicator of a business that is ready to move on to the next step. If you find that you have a good number of regular customers then you might be ready to expand.
However, you should also be looking at the number of new customers that you’re getting. A business that is struggling to bring in new customers should wait a while until they expand, even if they’re managing to maintain their existing customers.
Wait until you have a steady increase every month for an extended period, then you’re ready to start getting bigger.
Online Presence
Your online presence is more important than ever now and it can be a very useful gauge of success for any business.
Use keyword research services to see whether potential customers are coming to your site or not. The kinds of response that you get on social media posts are also worth keeping an eye on.
If you’ve got high levels of interaction and people are sharing your site in a positive way, you’ll be able to capitalize on this when you expand.
However, if you’re struggling to get your social media marketing campaign off the ground then it isn’t time to expand the business yet because this will be the primary way that you get new customers.
Keeping Up With Demand
When you’ve got employees that are sitting around doing nothing all day because there isn’t much work coming in, you obviously shouldn’t be making your operation larger.
However, when everybody is rushed off their feet all day and you’re still struggling to meet demand, that’s a sign that your current business operation is too small for the number of customers that you have.
Employees
When you’re trying to expand, you won’t get far if you don’t have a good team of people to help you do it. A team that doesn’t work coherently together is going to struggle when it comes to the transition from a smaller company to a larger one.
If you have any doubts about any of your employees, hang fire on the expansion for now. Hire new people to plug those holes so you are in the strongest position possible before you start trying to grow your business.
As long as you make sure you’ve met all of these criteria, there’s no reason why your business expansion should fail.
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