As a small business owner, you have to actively determine how to accelerate business growth using robust strategies and best practices. There are also a lot of things to do from forming business processes to learning about your target market.
It’s challenging to boost small business growth on your own. Many tasks that drive growth are fairly routine and can be sped up by hiring a qualified virtual assistant. They provide the time and flexibility you need to test and improve many business improvement tactics.
Magic is here to help you find a virtual assistant! Hire a Magic Virtual Assistant who can grow with your business and help you manage daily tasks that naturally arise.
5 Stages of Small Business Growth
There are about 32.5 million small businesses in the US.
Out of the new ones, however, 67.6% survive for at least two years and only 25.7% make it out for at least 15 years. What’s more, these numbers appear consistent across many industries such as manufacturing, retail, trade, and hospitality.
To understand how to improve your business, you need to first learn the five stages of small business growth. This will allow you to employ the right tactics for each growth stage.
1. Existence
The first stage is the existence or start-up phase. The business structure is still simple so, for the most part, business owners take on all the crucial operating tasks. They may also be the ones funding the entire venture since there are no investors yet.
Having capital is vital in this stage to provide a viable product and cover its daily expenses. That said, proper cash management is key to the longevity and growth of a small business.
2. Survival
A small business reaches the survival stage when it has proven that it’s a viable brand. This means that there are enough customers that the business can satisfy sufficiently to keep them for the long haul. The business owner must then look into improving their business model.
At this stage, the owner makes big decisions to accelerate business growth so they hire employees, however; they still operate with a simple structure so there aren’t business processes and workflows established yet.
3. Success
The third stage of small business growth is success. From the name itself, the business is thriving with a strong market presence and consistent profits. This also means more employees and managers with structured systems and workflows.
In the success stage, the main focus should be on how to keep the business sustainable even in rough times. That said, you can also push for further business improvement that may come with its own risks.
4. Take-off
The next small business growth stage is take-off. Even if you choose to maintain your position in the last phase, trends and opportunities may compel you to expand. The take-off stage is where you decide how to accelerate business growth and how you can finance this rapid growth.
There are streamlined sales, marketing, and operating strategies in place which you can leverage for rapid growth. Other routes to expand include merging or buying another business, developing new products, and moving into new markets.
5. Resource Maturity
After a successful take-off, the next step for your business is resource maturity. This informs the proper management of profits, systems, and processes from the last stage since you have the financial freedom and market control for it.
The goal here is to ensure that your business maintains its standing in the marketplace. Small business owners should keep their entrepreneurial spirit to stay in touch with what got them there in the first place.
If not, they may employ business practices that restrict innovation and collaboration. With this, they may enter the sixth stage: ossification. This refers to the lack of trailblazing decisions and restraint to taking risks.
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5 Tips on How to Accelerate Business Growth
As a business owner, you make the decisions on how to improve your business to sustain growth. One way to do so is to get a Magic Virtual Assistant to deal with routine tasks that come with business improvement. Here are five ways to accelerate business growth with Magic:
1. Hire the right people
Small business growth and development are continuous processes that require more people as you grow and expand.
What’s more, the secret to growth is hiring the right people. Hiring a virtual assistant best suited to your needs brings support in routine tasks and fluctuating workloads. This allows you to focus on your clients and on building your business.
Your Magic Virtual Assistant can also help you with talent acquisition including tasks like collecting information on applicants and arranging meetings with those that meet your standards. This way, you can focus on handling the final interviews of the shortlisted candidates only instead of recruiting and screening all applicants.
2. Put a focus on your finances
The road to success starts with proper money management. Make sure you know your financial capacity to be able to pay your dues and fund ongoing projects. To ensure accurate data, ask your Magic Virtual Assistant to update your income and expenses daily or weekly.
Checking the summaries informs you of your current cash flow. This helps you decide on when to proceed with any project on hold – at least until you secure additional funds or get new long-term investments to finance it.
On top of that, you should prioritize your established income sources. Make sure that you’re taking good care of your existing customers first before getting new clients.
To do this, implement a customer loyalty or referral program and let your Magic Virtual Assistant handle it. Also, your VA can try out your chosen marketing tactics based on the purchase histories of your existing buyers.
For example, Dropbox, an online file-sharing service provider, rewards successful referrals and its new user with an extra 500 MB of free storage space. This resulted in a 60% increase in signups for 2010.
3. Emphasize customer experience
The growth of a business depends on its customers’ happiness and loyalty to your brand. Enhance your customer service to improve their experience with your business. Ask your Magic VA to look for effective ways to fast-track deliveries, an easy shopping experience, a smooth checkout process, and more.
A Magic Virtual Assistant will help you build good customer relations to increase brand awareness and ensure customer retention. This can be through tasks such as publishing targeted content on platforms that your buyers visit or finding sponsored events to grow your customer base.
For instance, the fledgling food business Truffle Shuffle was able to offer its clients the best experience even when classes are regularly sold out. Magic Assistants attended to their clients by answering questions and helping out in that regard. They brought on 11 virtual assistants in total for sales and customer support.
“There’s a big change in efficiency where few members can accomplish more, and take on newer initiatives,” Head of Marketing Jeremy Jarman inferred.
4. Minimize risks
To rapidly accelerate business growth, you have to minimize risks. A Magic Virtual Assistant will find ways to limit internal or external business threats. Remember to always review your policy to check if your business has the right coverage, especially when you’re quickly growing.
Delegate to your VA tasks such as setting an appointment with your business insurance provider to know what possible threats your company should expect. This way, you can prepare proper risk management strategies that your VA can implement as soon as the risks arise.
Take for example Unity Technologies, a media and entertainment startup. They developed and shared SSDLC as one of their security practices with other companies in the industry. It involves regular reviews and bug-bounty programs to make sure that all their software and apps are safe from internal and external attacks, as well as viruses.
5. Be open to change
Being adaptable to changes is one of the most effective business improvement tips you should follow. It’s also vital to be open to business growth ideas and capitalize on promising ones.
Ask your Magic Assistant to track the progress of your strategies such as in sales and marketing. You can use these reports to determine if you need to switch directions to be on the right track for the growth of your business.
Change can also mean automation. Improving business performance by automating specific routine tasks can help smoothen business processes. This allows business owners to focus on expanding their business and client acquisition.
Your Magic Assistant can systematically deal with many functions such as:
Determine which tasks can be automated such as data entry, scheduling meetings, and posting blogs, then delegate them to your VA. This way, you ensure that operations are running smoothly while you’re actively growing your business.
Get a Magic Virtual Assistant for Business Improvement
Success comes through the constant search for opportunities and strategies on how to improve your business.
Maximize your business growth potential with Magic! Skip the recruiting and screening process with just one phone call. We grow your business by matching you with the right virtual assistant based on your goals and needs.
Within just 72 hours, a Magic Virtual Assistant will help you accelerate business growth one day at a time! They will handle a wide range of tasks that come with improving your business. This way, you can make better and more informed decisions in growing your business.
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