How To Reinvent Your Business
Starting your own business can feel like scaling Mt Kilimanjaro. You dig your feet in, climb, and pray for the best. It’s an exciting, chaotic, and hope-filled journey… But what happens when you reach the top of the mountain? Is there anywhere to go but downhill?
Unfortunately many small businesses grind to a halt – or even start to decline – after climbing their first mountain. This is known as the small business profit plateau. Your company is finally up and running smoothly, but its exponential growth suddenly stops. Your profits start to flatline. It feels like your team is working twice as hard just to maintain the same ROI.
The first profit plateau is an emotionally challenging time for any small business owner. The hype surrounding your company has died down, the magic and motivation you once felt has vanished. Worse still, your profits may be decreasing. Breaking through this early slump and taking your business to the next level is going to take hard work, passion and courage. Have you got what it takes?
Explore Different Market Niches
All businesses start out with a defined target market, but sometimes that market doesn’t hold the potential you expected. Maybe you’re failing to compete with existing market leaders, or new competitors have emerged. Or perhaps you’ve reached the limits of growth within your narrow market niche.
Does this mean you should throw in the towel and abandon all hope of progression? Of course not! Instead of reinventing your product or service, try redefining your market. Pretend you’re just starting out and brainstorm all over again – there are plenty of excellent guides for defining your market from scratch. Often just by shifting or expanding your market niche, you can reinvigorate your business and push past the profit plateau.
Reinvent Your Brand
The first year of business can mould and change you in unexpected ways. Missions and values can shift. Once your company reaches maturity, you may be surprised to discover how little your branding reflects your business personality.
If you suspect this might be the case ask your staff and customers for feedback. Does your brand speak to them? Are you easily known, loved and recognised? If the answer to these questions is no, it could be time for a change – whether it’s new brand visuals, a new website, or even an entirely new name.
Embrace Technological Advances
Many startups fall victim to the speed of technological change. If your business doesn’t keep modernising and evolving its systems, you have no chance of keeping up with your competition.
Develop Complementary Products
Another approach to stimulating growth (and delighting your customers) is developing complementary products, services or add-ons for your existing range. Survey your current customer base and figure out their pain points. What is your current service missing? What complementary products or add-ons would make their lives easier?
If you can figure out a way to satisfy their unmet needs, breakout sales are basically guaranteed. But be sure to survey how much they’d be willing to spend on complementary products. You don’t want to sink time and money into endless development – sometimes the simplest add-ons or accessories are the most effective.
Assess Employee Performance
Your business is only as successful as its employees. If profits are stalling and you don’t know why, it could be time to review your workforce. Assessing employee performance can be uncomfortable – particularly if those staff have been with you since the very beginning – but it’s an important part of growth and optimising your business.
You should also encourage employees to give feedback on management. Do they feel satisfied with the levels of coaching, support and career development available? Do they still feel committed to the mission and values of your company? Profit plateaus are often reflected in staff motivation and performance.
Align Marketing With Popular Trends
Something strange happened in July of this year. Pokemon Go exploded onto the scene; and its popularity left many observers perplexed. Why were millions of adults suddenly wandering around with their face stuck to their phones, playing a game seemingly for children?
This confusion soon gave way to the realisation that where a massive trend exists, there is money to be made.
Seek Objective Help
As a small business owner, I’m sure you’re a skilled and tenacious multitasker. You’re used to taking on challenges and doing everything yourself. But when your business hits a profit plateau and growth grinds to a halt, it’s definitely time to call in reinforcements.
Many small business owners are reluctant to hire external consultants. I hear the same objection all the time – “My business is my baby, I understand it better than anyone. How can a complete stranger offer useful insights?” But there are incredible benefits to be reaped from hiring an outsider.
Avoid the Sunk Cost Fallacy
If I told you to stop throwing money away, you’d think I was joking – it’s such mind numbingly obvious advice. We all know that cutting unnecessary costs is the quickest way to increase profit margins. So why do we feel uncomfortable axing projects that are failing to achieve ROI?
Do you quit or keep at it? Now that you’ve reached a profit plateau, it’s time to ask yourself some serious questions:
- Which marketing initiatives are we spending money on without seeing any ROI?
- Are any features of our product or service too expensive or unsustainable?
- Do we have any unnecessary human resources? Did we overhire?
- Have we targeted the wrong market niche?
Brutal honesty is required here – cut your losses and take remedial action, fast.
https://www.workflowmax.com/blog/hit-a-profit-plateau-8-breakout-ideas-for-small-businesses