SMALL BUSINESS

1. Expansion Strategies for Your Business

When it comes to a business you must never rest on your laurels but must be use your creative side to come up with expansion strategies. Some examples of ways to do this include introducing a new product, market development, product licensing, to begin a chain and to consider a merger or acquisition. Growth is important but make sure you don’t become too enthusiastic and overdo a good thing. Overdoing can be just as detrimental as under doing.
How Do You Grow Your Business?

New Product
Use your creative side to come up with a new product that is in line with what you are already selling. You do not want to introduce something old or outdated but you never know when you might hit upon an excellent idea.
Extending the product line you already have is a good idea but introduce new products slowly. You do not want to overwhelm your customers. Do not create a whole new product that is unrelated to what you currently sell. You will more than likely money from your existing customers than you will from the new customers you acquire due to your new product. It is the Pareto Principle or the 80/20 rule (sometimes written 80:20) at work.

The 80/20 Rule states that 80% of your regular business will come by way of 20% of your long term loyal customers. It is always good to look for ways to get new customers as all loyal customers were once new customers but it costs five times more to get a new customer than to hold onto one that you already have.

Market Development

Developing your market using innovative new designs or concepts is a smart idea but do not exceed beyond your reach. This can overstress yourself, your employees and can overload the system. Worst of all if you overspend on your budget your company

Product Licensing

Licensing your product carries some risks in a financial sense because the onus of responsibility for the success of the product shifts from the creator to the company that is going to market, advertise, produce and distribute it. While you may lose out on profits in the short term, if the product becomes a bestseller and garnishes a national reputation for quality, you will reap the rewards in the end.

Begin a Chain

Certain businesses are easy to replicate in other locations and turn into a chain. Examples of these include restaurants, bars, retail stores and a variety of service businesses. It is essential to figure out why your original store worked in the first place and what traits can easily transfer to a new store and which cannot. You have to pinpoint if your initial success has to do with your products or services, your location, yourself, your staff or your marketing campaign. You start a new marketing campaign every time you open at a new location to drum up new business.

Merger or Acquisition

Joining forces with another company can make both of your companies bigger and better and can make you shine twice as bright! By doing this you expand your quantity of customers, you will operation more efficiently because you have more people to do the work, and you will increase your capital. It is vital that you find a partner who wants the same things as you do from his or her business however. Vision is extremely important or you could end up with conflicts and rising tension that threatens to destroy the good work you have both done.

2. Stay Flexible to Sell What People Want to Buy NOW!

The greatest advantage to owning a SMALL business is you can change quickly. If your customers suddenly decide they want some other product or service, you can offer that item to them within a few hours or days.

That usually isn't the case for big businesses. Just take a look at the awful situation the American auto industry is currently in. Detroit made big bucks selling hefty pickups and SUV's during the past decade.

But when gas prices soared and financing become difficult, those makers of gas guzzling automobiles were left in the dust. There was no way they could QUICKLY start offering smaller, cheaper, more fuel-efficient autos.

Factories would have to be retooled, thousands of employees retrained, billions in old stock liquidated, and a fortune in marketing spent to advertise the change.

Changing a big business like the auto industry takes years and billions of dollars. No matter how much they want to change quickly, the fact of the matter is, they can't.

Not so with YOU! If your car repair service finds customers need engine work instead of mufflers, you can make the change and be ready to offer the new service in a matter of days.

If your accounting service finds fewer customers need payroll help and more want tax assistance, you can start offering the new service this afternoon.

One of the industries I currently work with is the restaurant business. Your favorite BIG corporate restaurant probably specializes in a niche -- offering certain kinds of food, prepared in specific styles, and surrounded by a carefully crafted decor.

It costs the owners hundreds of thousands to several million to get their restaurant up and running. If they find out tomorrow the local clientele doesn't want another Italian restaurant, but wants Mexican food instead, the owners have a BIG problem.

Changing their decor, developing a new style of food, and retraining or replacing staff is very expensive. Even more costly, the restaurant has to change their image in the minds of the public through massive advertising.

Many large restaurants simply shut down, then later start up under a different name offering the food the market desires. None of this is cheap or fast.

Using the "small is flexible" principle outlined above, I have instead developed a restaurant delivery service. This service offers the one PROFITABLE feature most restaurants don't or can't offer -- the ability to DELIVER their food to customers.

These days consumers are busier than ever. Not only are they too busy to cook, they are often too busy to take an hour or more off to visit a restaurant. Restaurant delivery is the answer for the consumer as well as restaurants.

The beauty of this service is it is incredibly flexible. A restaurant delivery service can work with 50 restaurants. I'm not the least bit concerned if demand decreases for restaurant A, because I'm also offering the menus of restaurants B, C, D and E.

When tastes change, I change with them -- quickly, effortlessly, and with no additional cost.

That's flexibility. And these days, flexibility leads to BIG profits.