Managing the Growth of Your Small Business: 5 Strategies for Success

Now that your small business has been up and running for some time, and you’re consistently meeting your sales goals, your organization can move from the startup phase of the business lifecycle into the second stage: the growth phase. During the growth stage of the business lifecycle, you’ll focus on growing your small business, expanding your customer base, and increasing your profits.

As your small business grows, and you begin to serve more clients, you’ll need to manage this growth by employing several important strategies. Here are five of these strategies in the sections below, so read on to learn all about managing the growth of your small business.

1. Identify Your Strengths and Weaknesses

To successfully manage the growth of your business, it’s important to start by conducting a SWOT analysis, as this will help you to identify your organization’s strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats. You’ll find opportunities for growth and areas of improvement, helping you to plan for the future, assess your hiring needs, and find the right niche for your growing business.

As your organization enters the growth stage of the business lifecycle, Dan Shewan of WordStream walks you through the process of conducting a SWOT analysis and acting on the strengths and weaknesses you identified. You’ll need to answer the following types of questions when conducting your SWOT analysis:

• What does your business do well?
• Which qualities separate your business from its competitors?
• What is your business lacking?
• What are some of the complaints noted in negative reviews from your customers?
• How can your business processes be improved?

To simplify the process of identifying your organization’s strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats, several SWOT analysis tools are available to small business owners. Free options include Smartsheet, SWOT, MindTools, Creately, and Canva, while paid tools include Grapholite and Gliffy.

2. Grow Your Team

As much as you’d like to, you can’t do it all as a small business owner — and you need to know what to delegate and when to do it. Therefore, it’s important to identify the various roles you’ll need to fill in order to grow and manage your small business.

As a few examples, you may need to recruit a Chief Executive Officer (CEO), Chief Operations Officer (COO), Chief Marketing Officer (CMO), Chief Financial Officer (CFO), product manager, and sales manager. You may also need someone to oversee business development, quality control, and information technology (IT).

Furthermore, the employees you hire should fit your company’s culture — so take some time to define your culture before recruiting new team members. When you’re ready to recruit new employees, hiring tools like Sourcehub, Contact Out, Textio, Know Your Worth, and HireVue can help.

Once you’ve expanded your team, personnel management tools will simplify the process of managing employee time and productivity, especially out in the field. When choosing software to manage personnel in the field for your growing business, however, it’s important to keep an eye out for features such as real-time updates from the field and even GPS mapping to make it easier to assign and even shuffle tasks and schedules in a snap.

3. Choose the Right CRM Platform

In addition to expanding your team and conducting a SWOT analysis, every growing business must use customer relationship management (CRM) software such as HubSpot, Salesforce, Insightly, or Apptivo. The right CRM system for your growing business can help you to find, land, and retain new clients, record interactions, maintain relationships with existing customers, and keep customer data organized in one easy-to-use location. Some CRM tools can even set reminders, create calendar events, and be integrated with other software systems (such as Microsoft Office).

4. Stay On Top of Your Business Finances

As your business increases its profits and begins to generate more money, you’ll need to stay on top of your finances. This means adjusting your budget, monitoring your cash flow, revisiting the terms of any existing business loans you may have, and exploring additional financing options (if necessary). Various tools and apps can help to manage your cash flow as your small business grows, including those such as Pulse, Float, Scoro, QuickBooks, Thrive, and Expensify.

Moreover, you may need to think about borrowing money in order to achieve your business growth goals. Small business loans, for instance, can provide you with the funding you need to take your business to the next level — whether you’re expanding your list of offerings, opening a second location, ramping up your marketing efforts, or purchasing new inventory and equipment.

Some of the best financing options for established businesses include Small Business Administration (SBA) loans, business lines of credit from companies such as BlueVine, and online term loans from OnDeck or Funding Circle. To qualify for these types of small business loans, you’ll typically need to meet credit score and annual revenue requirements.

5. Market Your Brand

Now that you’re ready to enter the growth stage of the business lifecycle, it’s time to kick your marketing efforts up a notch. Focus on marketing strategies that build credibility, attract new and existing customers, and keep your target audience coming back for more.

Content marketing is just one strategy to implement at this time, as this includes email marketing, online advertisements, blogging, and social media. Several content marketing tools to utilize include:

• Content management systems such as WordPress and HubSpot.
• Collaborative word processing apps such as Google Docs.
• Search engine optimization (SEO) tools, including Yoast and Ahrefs.
• Project management tools like Airtable and Trello.
• Digital analytics tools like Google Analytics and Mixpanel.
• Design tools such as Canva and Adobe Photoshop.
• Email marketing tools like MailChimp and Constant Contact.

Manage Your Growing Business for Long-Term Success

The growth phase is an exciting time for small business owners, but this doesn’t mean you’ll just be sitting back and watching the profits roll in. In reality, the hard work has just begun. Managing a growing business takes lots of planning and strategizing, but fortunately, plenty of business tools are available to help you along the way.

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