Taking Your Small Business to the Next Level

Have you noticed that your small business has just been hanging in there, no decrease and no increase in sales just nice and steady? Your business has just, what the industry calls, reached a “plateau” point. The hardest part of going from plateau to climbing up that proverbial money mountain. This post will give you a few ideas and some insight to get you business booming again. Yes, you’ve been busy, Yes you’re tired, and yes you don’t have any more time to take anything else on in your life to focus on growing your small business but I’m challenging you. This should be something you should do quarterly. Sit down and assess your business. Monitor your sales, see if you have hit that plateau yet and if you haven’t, still read this article any to prevent hitting that plateau.

My first tip would be, take a look at your marketing plan. Are you advertising? Sure you are… The real question is are you advertising to the right people. Is your bar advertisement sitting in the lobby of a daycare center? Not really the best place for it, now how about on a college campus showing your daily specials with hundreds to thousand of college students who like to party and have fun? Which one is going to be the most profitable areas to advertise in? Are you using print ads, Google AdWords, Google +, Facebook, Twitter, etc… How many of those people are on their that you personally know? Are they mainly friends and family? Then you’re advertising to the wrong people. You’re wanting to get new people to your establishment. And again I’m going to use a bar for example… To get more people to follow your Facebook or Twitter page offer an incentive, a free well shot or draft beer when they sign up and follow, that $2 shot or beer will more than pay for itself when that customer comes in when you’re announcing specials on Facebook and Twitter and spend $50+. My point is, yes you’re advertising but are you getting out to the right people?

My second tip is get a web site, a good website. Yes you can go out and get one of those cheep do it yourself web design schemes that allows you to build your own website but i can honestly say that it’s not going to look and function the way you want it to. So why not spend the little extra investment and have a web designer build you a website that fits you and not just a cookie cutter website that your company has to mold around. Then once your website is up and running market it! Introduce it to your followers on Facebook and Twitter, put it on all your print advertising, fliers and business cards.

My third tip and it’s probably over looked a lot in most businesses, make sure you have the right staff. Try to find staff who are as passionate as you about your business. They are going to be the employees that will always deliver the best customer service and in turn bring in more repeat customers. Weed out the people who are there for just a paycheck. Take a deeper look about this in this article “Recognizing Potential” right around the third paragraph. With the right staff you can have an enjoyable business with less stress and work with people with the same interests.

These are just a few tips on taking your small business to the next level. These are proven methods in any business but easily overlooked by preoccupied business owners.