Being a business owner, regardless of the type of products or services you offer, is highly competitive. Fortune 500 companies have a plan that they have nailed to perfection to continue being recognized as a name brand and increase their sales year after year. If your business seems to be stagnant with minimal movement, then it is time to take new steps to improve your bottom line.
Know Your Competition
Instead of mapping out another year's projected goals on a whiteboard, try a new approach and find out more about the competition. Ever wonder how they stay so far above you? Well, maybe it is time to find out for yourself. Former employees can provide valuable information on policies and practices. New services like Geofencing give you the means to create a perimeter around the local competition to track customers that enter and exit the business. Additionally, you can program it to send alerts and special promotions to potential clients within a certain radius. You can determine your ideal radius using a radius map tool.
Utilize Technology
You live in the age of instantaneous action, where people do not want to wait for results. To gain the upper hand, you must keep up with the newest technology that provides services quickly not only to you but to your potential customers. Now it is easy to integrate certain cloud-based services to help your team remain connected on projects. An example of this is the way Evernote connects with Google Drive to help you move back and forth seamlessly between your notes and files. This can save you valuable time and allow you to complete projects quickly. In the world of high demand, this is essential to keeping your business ahead of your competition.
Spend Your Money Wisely
Projections for the year often fall short due to a lack of funds to launch a full-scale marketing campaign in the right direction. Instead of wasting money on many forms of marketing, focus on just a few with proven results. For example, if you spend money on things like trade shows and local magazines and they did not give you the results you anticipated, cut them out of next year's budget. It is also essential to take advantage of relatively inexpensive ways to promote your business, like social media sites that attract incredibly high volumes of people at any given time.
Connect with Your Customers
Your customers can provide insight into what you’re doing right and what you need to improve on as a company. Sending out a questionnaire through email is a cost-effective way to get the whole truth from your existing customers. In turn, this will allow you to make a few changes based on the results. Loyal customers can also help you increase your sales through word of mouth, which is a trusted device for potential customers.
Dedicated Employees
Your staff is the lifeline of your company. That is why you must keep them happy and motivated to expand your business and reach new heights. Make sure that everyone is on the same page with your marketing campaign and that they understand what the foundation of the company is. Monthly meetings to review the strategies and progress keeps your employees engaged and makes them feel like they are more than a weekly paycheck. Bonuses for sales and incentives throughout the year are just a couple of ways to keep your employees energized and productive.
The world you live in today is highly competitive. Today you are a star, and tomorrow your business is non-existent. In order to stay afloat and gain new ground each year, you need to stay a few steps ahead of your competition.
