Published:

09/07/2016 12:28pm

Your Company is Growing - Now What?

Small business owners live for it. That moment of jubilation when the markers you and your team have worked so hard to achieve have not only been met, but continuously exceeded. At this point, your one-time goal becomes a threshold, and the bar is set ever higher. This is when the realization dawns that in having reached the next level, the competition becomes fiercer, the need to succeed intensifies, and new and greater challenges await. What is the best advice to assist companies that are transitioning through small business growth to emerge as mid-sized firms?
The race goes to the swift. In business that means reevaluating your process and becoming more efficient. According to American Express’ Open Forum, “Mid-sized businesses often lack three critical skills that can remove the risk: the ability to assess their own execution capability, [the ability] to assess the marketplace’s true reaction to the new product or service, and the forecasting acumen required to see future cash flows.”
Focus on Your Core Business
Wherever possible, free your key personnel to focus on building your core business. First determine what business tasks can be farmed out and then find the best, most effective and trustworthy practitioner to partner with. For most small businesses to make that switch from small business to larger enterprise, that means farming out their marketing and branding initiatives.
‘“There are almost 200,000 companies today with revenues between $10 million and a billion - midsized, as defined by Ohio State University’s Fisher College of business- and they account for about a third of the U.S. GDP and a third of all U.S. jobs,”’ states author Robert Sher in Mighty Midsized Company: How Leaders Overcome 7 Silent Growth Killers. Sher states that a critical oversight on the part of mid-sized companies is that they are still acting like small businesses.
Before, a new marketing campaign that achieved major small business growth might yield $100,000 in profit. This could be achieved without great risk to the firm. Today, as a larger enterprise, with $300 million in revenue, the mid-sized business must find an opportunity that can deliver $30 million in new revenue just to grow by a mere 10%. These opportunities require a far greater investment to launch and carry more risk -and greater focus.
Build Upon Small Business Growth to Succeed as a Midsize Firm
What the midsized business must do to survive and to thrive are these two main objectives. First, to shore up their internal structure by focusing on their business plan and aligning the best personnel to put their efforts towards achieving the core corporate principals. Second to hire a marketing and branding firm that specializes in assisting mid-sized companies to achieve their goals.
What can be expected from these specialists? Entrepreneur suggests these initiatives as part of any sound midsize company growth strategy:
Find new ways to sell your product
Having a well-designed, easy to navigate website that is clearly visible to search engines is just the start. Does it have features that will attract new business such as a blog? Is it monetized? Also, ensuring that your website can easily be accessed by mobile users is key, as according to Google, these eclipse desktop users. Your marketing firm can demonstrate ways to use social media, pay per click, and email marketing services to increase brand awareness. These initiatives can be evaluated and tweaked as necessary to deliver optimum results.
Know Your Demographic Before You Introduce New Products and Services
The demographic responsible for your small business growth may not be your target audience as a midsized company. Have your marketing firm reevaluate your position in the marketplace, and the relevance of your products. Also, they can assess a need for new products and services to ensure your firm isn’t tilting at windmills.
The biggest takeaway, in addition to congratulations, is not to lose the zeal and passion that made your firm what it is today. Stay focused, stay valid, align with the best consultants, and continue your success and achievement!