Have you ever looked at the growth you’re experiencing in your small or medium sized business and been satisfied, but still found yourself asking the question, “How do I grow this without risking my margin?” If so, this article was written for you.
Below, I am going to break down seven proven processes Renegades Media has seen work for growing small to medium businesses. I’m confident you will find this information highly relevant in your own industry.
1. Standardize Processes and Documentation
As the owner of your company, you will want to be looking at strategic ways to
- a) increase the impact of every dollar, and
- b) increase the value of every minute you work.
SOPs (Standard Operating Procedures) fall more in the b) category, as they help you create more efficient operations over time.
Implementing SOPs can be difficult at first. That is, especially as you are growing your business from 1 or 2 key employees to 3-5+. You may have experienced this yourself, as it seems there is a diminishing rate of return for taking the time to create SOPs when your team is smaller than 3 core people. It is difficult to measure the impact of standardizing processes when so many things are new to you and new to this stage of the business.
I suggest that you always document operating processes to create a knowledge bank that can be given to each new hire. This practice will prove its value by decreasing the amount of time you have to take when onboarding new talent. It also helps with management tasks, as you and your hire have a baseline to work from and to continually reference as needed.
The guideline our team has found reliable is to ask yourself a couple simple questions, which determine whether you should standardize now or wait. Those questions are, “Will I need to do this again in the next 30 days? Will my life/work/business be more complex then than it is now?” If the answers are yes, create the SOP. Otherwise, you are probably better off using your time to focus on revenue creation and growth opportunities instead.
Some of our favorite tools for creating an SOP Bank are highlighted below:
- Asana – Project management, automations, repeating tasks.
- Notion – A project management and note taking alternative.
- Google Docs – Shared docs, sheets, charts, etc.
- Slack – notes, to-dos, automations.
2. Leverage Technology for Growth
Every business owner can use some form of technology to make their operations more efficient, accurate and impactful. When assessing what technologies and tools are going to help you, it is best that you start by defining your ideal outcome.
Ideal outcomes help to create the use-case scenario. This alone can drastically help you narrow your search for the right tools at the right price for what you need. We have seen the use of technology take different forms for different businesses, but in most scenarios the core principle remains the same:
- reduce friction
- increase measurable data
- identify opportunities
Reducing Friction in Operations
Automated task management and friction reduction are very valuable to growing small businesses. They significantly decrease human error and the time spent communicating redundant information. We use tools you have probably heard of (Make and Zapier) to connect softwares and reduce manual communications around both complex and simple tasks.
Most people we speak to (including our own team) have a hard time initially defining what their low-effort, high-impact automations are going to be. Once you get in the swing of building out automation processes though, it gets easier to tie business impact back to specific processes and systems.
An exercise you may find valuable for identifying your low-hanging fruit for automations is filling out the following diagrams. The simplicity of how they look, however, is not as simple as they are to complete…
Hopefully these won’t take you too long to fill out. At very least, expect about an hour of deep thought and brainstorming to do this right. (If you get it done in under 10 minutes, shoot us an email… We’re hiring system automators and you may be a good fit! 😉)
Once you have defined your starting point or lowest hanging fruit, start the process of trying to automate one process per week. You may be tempted to go much faster. Doing it right though, especially with complex softwares, is much more valuable than doing it fast.
Slow is smooth, smooth is fast…
If you ever want guidance on setting up your system automations, or are interested in recommendations for starting points, feel free to reach out to us. We do free consultations for qualified owners looking to get started on their journey.
3. Hire and Train Skilled Staff
It’s amazing what A players can bring to a business. That is, especially if it is a small business that has a lot of room to grow. Now, you may be thinking, “I can’t afford to hire A players, they’re expensive, right?!” It depends…. Just kidding.
Hiring A-Players is simply non-negotiable if you’re building out your team and key leaders. Just because you may not be hiring a full-time, key-leadership role does not mean you should settle for anything other than A players.
A players are better for the business in every way, shape and form. Measured against B players, A players out-produce on every level. Be forewarned however, attracting A player talent is less about what you pay and more about what your environment, opportunities, culture and management/leadership looks like.
You could pay A players 2-3 times market wages. If you lack the culture and leadership fit though, then do not expect them to stay long. So much of hiring the right people and training them to excel comes down to YOU. It is about your ability to lead, implement and grow the business as a whole.
An excellent resource I recommend to any business owner or leader is the Topgrading book by Bradford Smart.
Bonus Hiring Tip:
One of the most impactful questions I tend to ask fellow founders and owners is, “If you had to hire yourself for the role you’re in, would you do it?” More often than not, the answer is a resounding, “Oh, sh*t! Probably not.”
Look in the mirror and decide if you are willing to become the person and leader that is needed to get where you want to go. If you are unwilling to become that person (continually), then that’s okay. Just know when to get out of the way and let someone else step into that role.
4. Build Better Customer Relationships
I’m always amazed when small businesses we speak to have no database of customer information for business development purposes. Not only do they not have a system in place for growing their business, but they have no way to quantify opportunities to expand their services (see point #6 below).
If this does not apply to you, then skip ahead. However, if you don’t have any form of business development system in place, it’s time to develop one.
There is no one-size fits all approach to business development. Nevertheless, I have found that a combination of team empowerment (commission on closes) and owner-led initiatives tend to work well. This is especially true if this is your first go-around.
Along with the right team structure and incentivization, you will want to get a lead-generation engine in place. This engine will look different depending on the industry, service or product. However, if you are considering cold email, check out our DIY set-up article for a complete cold email launch.
Track your data and monitor your opportunities. Great deals are born from simple conversations. A prudent business development specialist will confirm that the better you know the prospect, the better deal you are likely to create.
Never wait for deals. Create them!
Side Note:
There’s a big difference between the mindset of sales vs deals. Sales drive revenue. Deals drive growth. You need both to be sustainable.
Different businesses / business models will need to rely more heavily on one of these or the other. In general, find what works for you and hone in on how to create even more of it.
Typically, a great sale with some follow-on service will become ripe grounds for a great deal. Likewise, a great deal can lead to fertile opportunities to sell more to the same customer.
Win, win.
5. Changing Pricing Models
Having trouble growing your business, but haven’t looked at your pricing models? Ring the opportunity bell… Every company has phases of growth that necessitate pricing adaptation in order to support business needs.
I’m not just talking about increasing prices to inflate profit, either. I’m talking about examining your business model and defining what the most strategic opportunities are for you to:
- turn scaling costs into fixed costs
- turn one-time-purchases into recurring buys
- find margin within your existing contracts / products
Profit, products, costs, overhead are all data. With enough knowledge, you should be able to define a formula that more predictably maximizes the value you are seeing (and giving!) in each area.
With enough knowledge, you should be able to define a formula that more predictably maximizes the value you are seeing (and giving!) in each area.
For example: imagine a company where 50% of their new revenue (and over 65% of annual profit) was coming from up-sell / add-on contracts. Their main focus though was selling the small product at a profit. If we deconstruct this situation even further, we would discover that if they increased their amount of upsells by 20%, their total profit would increase by 7%.
If we knew that dropping prices on the primary product by 10% allowed us to increase our sales in the add-on contracts by 20%, we would be looking at a win-win scenario. Of course the numbers have to add up. (Always do your math.)
The main point here is to ask yourself the question, “How would I increase margin in my business without increasing my sales?”
6. Expand Your Service Offerings
If you have a business, you have customers. Hopefully your customers love you, because you serve them well. Maybe you serve them exceptionally well in one specific area, which makes you the BEST at that one specific thing. And maybe you have never taken the time to look at how you can extend that service to other areas of their business.
For the record, I think every business should expand their services only at the right time and for the right people. Use your own judgment when applying this concept.
Let’s work on another hypothetical. Suppose you have 20 quality customers that pay you regularly for service X. They also pay or purchase a somewhat similar service, Y, from another vendor. You know the general price they pay. You know they are satisfied with that vendor, but not ecstatic about them.
If 10 of your customers would switch to a new vendor with better pricing and service, then you know there are 10 customers you can attract in 3-6 months for a new value-add service. Let’s assume you can offer the same service for 10% less than the current provider and back it with your quality guarantee, while maintaining a 15-25% margin.
To go a little deeper, let’s look at a few situations in the chart below for what makes sense to pursue as a service extension:
As a rule of thumb, if you have less than 100 customers, look for opportunities that fall within the 50%-150% range of your current pricing. Anything that is too small will not create enough revenue. Anything that is too big will become too much of a hassle to manage.
Alternatively, if you have hundreds of customers, measure the value of add-ons by percentage increase to revenue and profit margin. 200 new customers each bringing in $50 a month of profit makes sense.
7. Refine Your Marketing and Branding
What would this article be without the mention of marketing and branding? After all, we are a design-driven marketing firm that specializes in helping B2B companies grow…
For starters, let’s break down how we assess brand and marketing opportunities for small businesses and B2B companies. The most important information we seek always has to do with the following:
- Who are your customers?
- Where did they find you?
- How much interaction do they have with your brand?
- How much interaction do they need with your brand?
- Where are the gaps in your brand and collateral?
- What is the lowest hanging fruit that will have the biggest impact on your customers?
It is important to assess the whole situation and measure your findings against what you want to achieve. Many owners (and marketers, unfortunately) make assumptions about opportunities based on what they see – rather than based on the data. Whether its for B2C or B2B, the goal of marketing is twofold:
- Guide & educate customers towards a purchase.
- Grow your audience through TOFU (top of funnel) expansion.
Take some time thinking about where you can capitalize on this… Try mapping your customer journey and see where there are holes you can fill. Ask your loyal customers for input. Collect some anonymous surveys to get unbiased feedback and shatter your assumptions. (Remember, assumptions are dangerous – especially in marketing.)
Where to Go From Here
I hope all of this gives you a great starting point for getting where you are headed. If you need a helping hand implementing any of these 7 tips to grow your small business, do not hesitate to contact us. We have a growing team of highly-skilled and experienced business marketing professionals that are available to help you reach your goals.
Thanks for reading!
