Make It Your Goal To Boost Your Small Business Profits This Year

October 18, 2018

Small businesses can struggle to find their place in a competitive industry. You don’t have the same brand recognition as large corporations that are well established in the marketplace, and you most likely don’t have the same funding as those big brands. So, how can you compete? Well, it’s all about expanding gradually. New businesses fail when they either try to bite off too much too quickly or play the safe game. Either extreme can be detrimental to your success. Make it your goal to boost your small business profits this year, but follow these pieces of advice to make sure you move at the right pace for your company.
Limit margin erosion wherever possible.
The first step to increasing your profits is to take a look at your margins. You might be pulling in sales but wasting your potential profits by slimming down your margins with unnecessary overheads. The best way to boost your financing is to limit margin erosion wherever possible. The lower your costs, the higher your profits. It’s as simple as that. Of course, you shouldn’t aim to reduce costs in reckless ways. There’s no point in saving money if it’ll ultimately cost your business money, in other words. But there might be non-essential expenditures that you could cut out your business’ budget.
For starters, you could save money on the energy bill in your office by insulating your windows and walls. If you can trap heat more effectively then you can keep radiators and thermostats at a lower temperature. This will save you money on a monthly basis. You could also stop using paper and start digitising your documents. In the modern age, your small business should be going digital anyway if it wants to keep up with the times. It’ll save you a lot of money to stop using paper, so it’s a win-win situation. A regular budget assessment will help you to ensure that you limit unnecessary margin erosion to boost your business’ overall profits. Put your sales to good use and maximise your earning power.
Pay attention to your current client base.
If you want to boost profits then you’ll need to boost sales. And chasing new leads is a big part of that, but you might want to look a little closer to home. To secure steadily increasing sales, you should aim to create a loyal client base. That’ll boost your sales much more substantially than endless chasing customers who end up making one or two purchases before forgetting about you. If you can increase client retention then you’ll increase your profits and growth in the long-term. You just need to treat your customers well. Give them freebies and vouchers as a way of thanking them for their service; this will show them that your business values its customers. That’s how you start to build lasting relationships with clients.
Additionally, happy clients pass on the words to their friends and families. If you want to expand your brand then you should be aiming to get customers talking. Delivering a fantastic service will help with this, but even happy customers don’t always think to tell people about the businesses they use. Sometimes, an incentive can help. You could start a referral scheme that offers points to customers who successfully get their friends and family to sign up to your business and buy its products. In turn, those points could be redeemed for products and other great rewards. This is a brilliant way to boost word-of-mouth marketing. In turn, you’ll definitely boost your profits. You need to focus on leads you’ve already generated to stand the best chance of increasing your client base. That refers to both existing customers and people who might still be on the fence. A referral scheme could definitely win people over.
Create a more appealing brand to gain market interest.
Ironically, one of the best ways to boost profits is to prove that your business doesn’t care about boosting profits. That might seem like a strange piece of advice, but consumers connect with brands that have substance. If you want to increase your sales then you need to appeal to your target audience. You need to treat them as more than just statistics. What does your target market want to see in a brand? That’s the question you need to answer. Maybe you could offer free trials and other great deals to show that you really value the satisfaction of your customers and you just want to deliver a great service. You could also promise to donate a portion of your profits to a particular charity. An ethical business is more likely to make an impact on consumers. People will feel like your brand is caring, and they’ll feel like they’re helping by purchasing your products or services. This could really boost your brand and your profits.
An eco-friendly brand can also make a good impression on potential customers. As mentioned earlier, you can cut costs by taking a more conservative approach to using energy and other resources in your office. But your green strategies could go further than this. You could even sell surplus items in your office, as we’ve suggested before. Anything that can be turned into scrap metal can be recycled. And your old paper documents can be recycled too. This will help you in your efforts to streamline and modernise your operations. You’ll make money from the things you no longer need, but you’ll also impress the market by taking a sustainable approach to running your small business. If you want to create an appealing brand then you need to show the market that your business cares about important issues. This will create a buzz for your company, draw in customers, and boost profits.
Make external investments.
If you want your business to expand then you need to spend money. Spending money is the best way to make money, after all. Of course, investing in your own business is a good way to improve it and make it grow, but external investments are worth considering too. Small businesses usually lack funding compared to bigger organisations, but if you want money for internal investment then you need financing. You might want to consider increasing your personal wealth with investments that aren’t related to the company. That way, you’ll be able to fund the development of your growing business. The property market is a good industry to consider if you want a respectable ROI. You might even want to check out https://www.rumah.com/rumah-dijual for foreign properties. The more extensively you invest, the more personal funds you’ll have to put towards your business. External investment could really help you to finance and improve your small business. In turn, you could start to expand your reach and increase your profits.
Boost your team’s productivity.
Another way to boost your small business profits this year is to boost your team’s productivity. As explained at https://www.businessknowhow.com/money, happy employees are more likely to stick around and put in the effort. You need to make your team feel valued. Rather than simply hiring new employees every time the old ones become apathetic and disengaged, you should focus on keeping your existing employees happy. Long-time workers are more valuable to your business because they’ve gained knowledge and experience that can really help your company to grow. It’s cheaper to keep your existing team than to hire and train a new one. And if you want your profits to grow then you should aim to help each individual employee grow.
Regular training is important. Keep your workforce up to date on the latest developments in the industry. Value their individual growth and progress if you want them to value the company. Show them some recognition and praise for their development on an individual level and as a team. If people feel that their hard work is noticed then they’re less likely to slack off on the job. Additionally, you might want to offer rewards such as an increase in wage for exemplary workers; this will definitely encourage people to increase their productivity. But you could incentivise collaboration in the workplace by promising to increase everyone’s wage by a certain amount if they exceed expectations with regards to particular team projects or meeting sales quotas. The point is that boosting your team’s productivity will boost your business’ output. If you can achieve this without having to expand your business then you’ll massively boost your profits.
Amp up your online advertising.
Finally, you should amp up your online advertising if you really want to boost your profits this year. Marketing is essential to drumming up business, as everybody knows. But are you properly utilising the internet to reach new customers? Most modern businesses have some form of digital marketing strategy, but many companies still fail to create a powerful online presence. As a small business, it’s essential to make the most of this resource. With little financial backing, the internet is the best possible platform you can use to reach customers. With good website content, you could climb the search engine rankings and increase traffic. In turn, better content will increase your conversion of traffic to sales and boost your profits. You really need to optimise your website for the best results.

Mark Asquith

That British podcast guy, Mark is co-founder of Captivate.fm, the world's only growth-oriented podcast host. A Harvard, TEDx, Podcast Movement and Podfest speaker (amongst many more!), he's a wildly approachable Brit and Star Wars/DC Comics geek.

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