One of the biggest problems that small business owners grapple with is how or what is the best way to grow their business while at the same time remaining profitable… many simply don’t have a solid plan.

Unfortunately for lack of having a well thought out plan, many business migrate from one idea to the next hoping that if nothing else, the law of averages will eventually catch up with them and they will stumble across a profitable model.

We all know that it just doesn’t happen this way. Oh sure there are those exceptions to the rules but most just aren’t lucky enough to be in the right place at the right time. And speaking of luck… what most people that never experience any luck just haven’t come to the realization that luck is the end result of preparation intersecting with opportunity.

And for business this axiom is no different. There needs to be some thought and some planning that needs to be done so you’ll be ready when opportunity presents itself for growth and success.

If you strip away all the theory and packaging, there are four basic elements that about all other sub-elements of growing a business are a part of.

First… and this is a biggie….

You can get more customers. Seriously… don’t click off the page. We’re talking about the basic tenets of growing a business… obvious, I know, but it’s not arguable that this would be one of the headings. Please stay with me on this because I’m headed somewhere with some pretty astounding numbers on all this can tie together and be the easiest way you never knew you could grow your business.

Second… Increase the ticket value of the sale. In other words get more money every time a customer is in the buying mode.

Third… Entice your customers to buy more frequently from you. Get them to come back more often.

Fourth…. Extend the evergreen properties of your customers. Keep them buying from you over a longer period of time.

Let’s now discuss these in just a bit more detail.

I know you rolled your eyes at the first key. But, this is the area that most businesses spend the most time and money. Yet, even though it is absolutely necessary to replace the customers that no longer do business with you, you must keep in mind that number one is the most time consuming and least profitable method of growing your business.

Number two – increasing your ticket average. This has been a lynch pin in the restaurant business for years. Focusing on this area can literally add 20 to 40 percent or more to your bottom line. With a few creative marketing and selling strategies such as splintering, cross-selling, bundling, you can get your customers to spend a little more to get a better value while adding nothing additional than your net cost of the item since there is no additional marketing costs.

Number three begins by getting to know and listening to your customers to know what their needs and their problems are that you fulfill and/or solve. Then you simply stay in touch with them to offer additional products that you already know are of interest to them or that will benefit them. This a an absolutely fantastic way to communicate special offers to your customer base and even offers from other suppliers or vendors that you can negotiate a special price for as a part of a joint venture.

Number four is something that sometimes gets lost in the hectic daily activities of running your business, but number four is a powerful concept and it’s all about increasing your customer’s evergreen period. By this I mean how long does this customer continue to buy and support your business not only with their dollars but by referring others. The longer a customer keeps coming back the more benefits they receive from your products and the more goodwill and profit your business gains in return.

Okay… let’s dispatch with the conversation at this point and get into the fun part… the numbers and let’s approach it this way.

Obviously increasing any one of the four pillars mentioned above will mean increased profits for your business.

So, in order to illustrate (and to make the math easy for yours truly) let’s say:

You have a customer base of 1,000 folks.
They spend an average of $100 two times per year or $200 per year
Their evergreen period is 5 years

So, $200/yr x 1,000 customers x 5 years = $1,000,000

Easy enough… so let’s continue with business growth the numbers…

If you haven’t yet read the first part of the this article on growing your business, I would suggest going back a page and starting from the beginning so these numbers will have a greater perspective.

Now consider this… instead of bringing all resources to bear in an effort to improve just one of the key areas of growing your business, let’s take a look at those same numbers if you set your focus on just improving each them by only 10%

Look what happens to our +10%…

It suddenly has became 46.4%!

Think about your business for just a moment. If I were to walk in and mandate to you that you had to increase your business by some 46% or suffer some consequence… you would think there is no way I can do that.

But look what happens if you focus and bring just a little extra effort forth of just 10% in a few key areas.

Do you think you could be a little better in your advertising and networking efforts to add 10% to your customer base? And don’t you think you creatively package and bundle your promotions and offerings to get just a 10% higher ticket average.

And surely by increasing your customer satisfaction and your communication with your customers that you could increase how many times they buy by just 10%… and certainly if you do all of the first three then by default your customers are going to stay with you longer, so number four is essentially a given.

But 10% seems easily attainable… how about we shoot for 25%

This works out to about 144%.

A 10% extra focus across the board = a 44.6% increase…

but…

A 25% extra focus across the board = a cool 144% increase in your business revenue.

Now I don’t know about you, but that’s a trade off I’ll make every single time.

But not to miss the point here.

You may not be able to quite hit 10% in every category. In fact, you might not be able to hit 10% in any of the categories… that’s not the point.

The emphasis here is to get you to realize that small changes in percent across your entire business process or in the components of your sales funnel will have a dramatic affect on your revenue.

Up next let’s tackle… the where do I start and how do I start growing my business…

Quite the contrary as you can see by the very enlightening numbers… small gains across multiple areas will yield you much greater ROI and with not nearly the amount of time, effort, and expense.

So, you can see the numbers… and you like what you see. You like the idea and can’t wait to take it back to your business… but how… how do you get started?

Glad you asked… let’s take a look at getting you jump started, and then I’m sure you can take it from there.

To Get More Customers

	Determine and select a target audience that you can fulfill and serve effectively. Get to know both your customer base, and the people around the community, and the demographics of the people who have bought and what they have bought from you in the past.
	Create your identity in the market. In other words, begin branding yourself and your business as an authority in that market that you have selected. Don’t be afraid to promote and market yourself.
	Develop and deploy a marketing message that is compelling and gets your target audience curious and interested in learning more about how you can help them.Work on developing a referral program that your existing customers can be exited about and that will turn them literally into a little army of sales people out in the community talking you up and referring business to you.

To Increase Your Ticket Average

At the time of the purchase, suggest a money saving larger size, or a money savings bundle that you have put together that complements (and up-sells) what the customer is already buying. This is known as bundling splintered the items. For example, if someone is buying a single splintered item that may be part of a group, suggest if they buy the whole group, the savings would be like getting one free if they bought them all separately.

Always, suggest additional items or accessories that would go well with the purchase. There isn’t an item around that doesn’t have some sort of complimentary accessory… and this goes to if you’re in the service business… in fact it may be even easier to offer upgrades to any service you may be selling.

To Get Customers To Buy More Often

Know what your customers needs are. If you’re in business and you’re not communicating with your customers often enough to know what’s going on in their world, what problems that they be experiencing, and what they would like to have, then you’re just flat missing the boat with one of the easiest ways to increase your business.When you know your customers, developing specials, bundling items, and getting referrals because you’re so in tune, will just become natural.

In today’s world, if you’re actively developing a customer list that you can regularly (even automatically) stay in touch with them, you’re behind your competition already. Always keep your customers informed on what’s new. What’s coming up… and even going away. Get them to opt-in to your business newsletter or ezine. Stay in touch with post cards and email broadcasts that are in tune to what they purchase… so you keep them away from your competition.

Increase Your Customer’s Evergreen Factor

	Get to know your customers. Call on them from time to time. In today’s electronic world this is easy, but go beyond that. You need to be out in the community networking and being an active member of local charities and organizations.
	Respect and care for your customers. Your customers are the lifeblood of your business. If you always take time out from your hectic day to personalize their experience with you and your business you’ll have customers and referrals from those customers coming to your business for life. In other words, make sure your customers are raving fans of you and your business.

Now get back to your business and spend some time looking over these four keys areas for business growth. Develop a plan of action for each area. It doesn’t have to be extensive to get started but get something down in writing for ideas that you can readily implement that will begin to maximize each one of these areas.

Then lastly… and most importantly… take action. Don’t worry about if your plans and ideas are perfect… just get started TODAY!

You can tweak, adjust, and learn as you go, but get going you must.

Remember, don’t worry or exert all your efforts trying to hit the home run. It’s the little improvements across all areas that really pay the big dividends…

Remember what you’ve just learned on how to get 10% to return 46.4%.

Give me a call or get in touch and let’s talk about where you are, where you want to be, and most importantly, how to get there.

E-Mail Marketing

E-mail marketing is, in its purest form, a form of direct marketing that is extremely targeted and track-able.

Since this is an electronic form of delivery and marketing, a business can track stats such as; the bounce rate, the open rate, and the click through rate.

This type of near real time information allows businesses to perform split testing and market tracking and know within a very short time information on which headlines (subject lines) get the highest open rate, which links inside the emails get the highest click through rate, and ultimately which combination of headline (subject line) e-mail content result in a sale.

As you can well imagine, this type of information is extremely powerful for a business on both the front end and the back end of their sales funnel.

Electronic Word of Mouth – or by today’s verbiage Viral Marketing is a very popular method for marketing and/or branding yourself and your business. Today there are thousands of vehicles that a business has at their disposal to ratchet up the Viral affect of their business, product, or service. Using a general Internet term, these vehicles would be referred to as social media.

Today, the social aspect of the Internet is growing at an exponential rate with platforms such as FaceBook, MySpace, and Twitter.

Although these platforms may have initially started out as a way to interlink groups of people socially, it did not take long for businesses and marketers to take advantage of the immense market reach and SEO that these platforms provide. And it’s not only the reach, it’s the unbelievable swiftness at which a business can have themselves in front of a target audience creating a buzz that spread with a viral effect.