Looking for small business growth hacks you can implement this year to jump-start your goals and avoid common growing pains along the way? We would love to help!
Building a business can be the most difficult and rewarding project that someone can take on. When you leave the corporate world and spearhead your own vision, it is freeing, empowering, and nerve-racking. Is your goal to take your business and scale it into an investment that increases in value and gives you your time back?
We want to share some growth hacking strategies to help you achieve your goals.
But who are we to talk about small business growth hacks?
Great question. With the world full of so-called gurus and keyboard warriors, picking who you listen to and what advice you take matters. Over the past 12 months, we have used these marketing strategies to turn a one-man operation into a full team, increasing sales revenue by 228% within a competitive market. Interested in our advice?
So how did we do it?
STEP ONE:
Establish a clear vision and what it will take to achieve it
You need to know where you want to go and what you need to do to get there. Without a clear path, you risk unnecessary mistakes, wasted time and money along the way.
At PressHero, our goal is to become the number one WordPress support company in the world. To make that happen, we must be able to hire top professionals in the WordPress industry around the globe. Creating an entirely remote work environment allows us to hire a global team with no one needing to move. Employees can work from anywhere they want.
If you are a restaurant owner, maybe you want to franchise. If you are running a clothing store, maybe you want to expand to a larger market. Think about what you really want. Then brainstorm how you can accomplish that and the barriers that may stand in your way.
STEP TWO:
Document your process so you can duplicate it
Running a business is challenging. When you started your business, passion and determination probably fuelled you. And as exhilarating as it was to make your first sale and serve your first customer, growth requires a team. We all have 24 hours in a day. Eventually, you need to recruit help. You need to document your process so those that join your team can duplicate it.
When documenting your processes, think about everything you do to make your business successful. Write it down and visualize the flow of someone brand new moving through each step.
For example, the PressHero Customer Process:
For process documentation to be successful, you must be mindful of both the minor details and the big picture. Include everything, not just the production or service processes in between.
- marketing to potential customers
- managing resources required to service your customers
- evaluating successes and failures both from an operations standpoint and financially
- Gathering feedback from your customer base and employees
- implementing improvements to ensure customer service satisfaction
This permits duplication when you can no longer manage everything on your own. New team members can join your team, follow the process and get the same results as if you were doing yourself. Defining your processes also helps identify what is working and what is not to feed improvement and more growth.
STEP THREE:
Hire a team to take your business to the next level
Using the documented processes, you can train people to do what you do. But growth hackers will bring people into their business to complement their skill set and make up for their weaknesses.
For instance, I love talking to people and helping businesses, but I can’t create blog posts that are beautifully designed. But Jill can not only write exceptional content, she knows how to structure it. So I throw my thoughts into a google doc and she formats everything to make it look beautiful. Each person on this team brings a unique skill set to the table that complements the entire group.
Without a team, it will force you to do everything yourself. As your business grows, you need to invest in hiring out the parts of the business that you aren’t the most skilled at and put someone who is more knowledgeable in that area. This will not only give you a well-rounded team but will also allow you to focus on the things that you are most passionate about.
Once you have a clear vision, a documented process, and a team behind you, it is time to scale your business for growth.
STEP FOUR:
Tweak the process and continually try to improve it
As you attract more customers and hire more employees, go over the documented processes as a team to identify what works well and what doesn’t. If you notice a point of friction, correct it. Allow your team to focus on their strengths and work together to streamline the process and create a system that produces a predictable result.
STEP FIVE:
Rinse and
repeat
Once you have a streamlined process, continue to repeat it and ensure everything remains aligned. This might be the most important of our small business growth hacks. These strategies are not one-time tasks. They are meant to be continually implemented as a cycle.
What is your vision for the future from the perspective of where your business is currently? With recent tweaks and improvements, your direction may have changed slightly too. Do you need anything different to achieve your vision?
Are your documented processes up to date or do they require edits to include recent improvements? Do you have the right team in place and are their talents employed the best way to complement each other? Continue to implement new tweaks for improvement as your business evolves.
Some final tips and tricks
As a WordPress Support business focused on helping businesses with managing their website and online presence, you probably expected some tips and tricks for digital marketing as part of our small business growth hacks. We can’t disappoint, now can we?
Provide Social Proof
People influence people, not businesses. They will take their friend’s recommendation and even that of a celebrity over traditional marketing promises and advertisements. Don’t overlook the importance of customer reviews and testimonials or comments and engagement on social media.
Offer Free Trials
Offering a free chance to try before they buy reduces the customer’s risk and encourages them to give you a chance to prove you offer what you say you offer.
Pay Attention to User Experience
If it is easy and enjoyable to do business with you, customers will do it. We are all looking for the easy button. Add calls to action on your website to guide them to information and next steps. For existing customers, make communication a priority. We’ve all heard it’s easier to keep a customer than it is to win a new one. Plus, existing customers provide social proof to prospective clients.
Implement Content Marketing Strategies
For customers to find you, Google and other search engines need to find you. Content marketing is part of the equation for digital marketing success. Write engaging and informative content that people want to read. Provide answers to questions people are asking. Give your readers the opportunity to subscribe to an email list to stay informed and up to date on new content as you share it.
In closing, scaling a business can be challenging, but it doesn’t have to be. Most people have a great idea and a vision of where they want to go. You just need to build a structure that will help you achieve that goal. Unfortunately, most small business owners get so busy working in the business that they cannot document the process or duplicate it for predictable results. This prevents continual improvement and scaling for growth.
