Business owners have faced a myriad of challenges over the last two years and these changes won’t slow down in the coming year. As entrepreneurs we need to be resilient, prepared, and always looking to improve in the face of constant changes and challenges if we want to scale our business and ensure longevity.
I’ve experienced my share of struggles as a new business owner when I launched my business in 2019 during the pandemic and then falling pregnant with baby number three – but there were definitely key lessons that helped me to continue growing the business.
So today, I want to give back and share with the amazing mumpreneurs out there my expertise and experience as a business marketing consultant and an expert in digital marketing. In this blog post, I’m going to give the best tips on how you can grow your business and take it to the next level in 2023.
Ready? Let’s dive in!
- Commit Yourself To High-Quality Content Creation
Make a commitment to creating weekly content and posting it to your chosen networks regularly. This will build an engaged community of raving fans and help your followers stay interested and engaged with your brand. Whether you share content through a blog, YouTube, email newsletter or daily posts on the social media platform of your choice – it’s important you remain consistent. There’s lots of conflicting advice in terms of the perfect amount of posts, but the truth is – never prioritise the quantity of posts at the expense of quality. Create high-quality content that genuinely adds value to your audience – whether that’s to educate, entertain or inspire them. The key is to focus on value-driven posts to really succeed in the area of content marketing.
- Build Genuine Connections With Your Customers and Potential Customers
Meaningful connections start with meaningful conversations. Encourage conversations with your potential customers – have conversations in DM’s, and build a community, consider starting a Facebook group, etc. Your customers will connect and relate with you when they know, trust and like you. Building genuine relationships with your customers is also critical if you want to learn about their needs and how your products or services can help them. One of the most common mistakes I see brands make is not promoting a two-way conversation with their customers – and relying on a push approach with all marketing communications. Over the years, the clients I have seen have the most success with building relationships with customers, are the ones that genuinely care about their customers and have genuine conversations with them as though they are talking to a friend. Global beauty brand, Go-To Skincare is a text-book example of creating raving fans and achieving cult-like status with everything that they do.
- Seek To Understand The Problems Customers Have and SOLVE THEM
As entrepreneurs, we are born problem solvers. Every entrepreneur has created an incredible business based out of frustration with a problem they perceive in their industry. Each and every day, we are solving problems for our customers – whether that is through a service that we deliver or a product that we provide in order to ultimately help that customer in their personal life or business. Place emphasis on researching the problems your customers are facing and continuing to create clever solutions for them. In order to solve any problems, it’s important to understand your audience and what problems they are facing. Seek feedback from your customers regularly, even if you have an established business or brand – there should always be a focus on continuous improvement with every product or service. Whenever we become complacent, we leave ourselves exposed for a competitor to do it better, and ultimately risk losing market share.
- Know Your Numbers
Successful entrepreneurs know their numbers. Make sure you know your numbers and have priced your products and services correctly so you are able to reinvest a proportionate amount of profit into the growth of your business. You don’t have to be an expert in accounting and financial management but you should monitor, track and review some financial numbers if you want to run a successful business built to stand the test of time. If numbers aren’t your area of expertise, enlist the help of a trusted Accountant or financial advisor who is able to help you better understand and interpret your financial statements and put a pricing strategy in place that is suitable for your business. It’s also important to ensure your chosen advisor has industry knowledge to ensure that the pricing strategy put in place is consistent with succeeding in your chosen industry.
- Hire A Qualified and Experienced Mentor
Hire a qualified and experienced mentor that can guide you through the stages of your businesses and provide advice on where to spend your time and money – this can ultimately save you a lot of time and money in the long run.
Here’s what to look for in a business consultant or advisor:
- Education (do they hold a business qualification or MBA?)
- Career experience (is it relevant?)
- Results for other clients (do they have a proven track record?)
- Industry experience (are they an expert in your industry?)
- Value alignment (do they share the same communication style and values as you?)
There are endless options for business coaches, business consultants, business advisors and so-called experts. It’s important to know what you are looking for in an advisor and ensure they tick at least three boxes across; education, experience and industry knowledge.
For example, is it the best fit to work with a Business Consultant who specialises in serving service businesses in the construction industry when you are a beauty brand looking to expand globally?
- Establish Systems & Processes That Allow Your Business To Comfortably Grow
In order to grow, every business requires established systems and processes to ensure we can scale comfortably. Having well defined systems and processes in place are critical for your business and also to support your team maximise their time each and every day. Consider a system like Notion as a dashboard – it is a great tool that I personally used in my business for productivity and organisation that provides a one-stop destination to house everything for my business. One of my favourite tools to use for screen recording any SOPs for my team is a tool called Loom. It allows you to screen record anything on your computer live via a Chrome plugin and then share it with anyone in your organisation or network using a website URL.
And there you have it! I hope these tips will help you navigate the ever changing landscape of managing a business. It is hard work but also very rewarding to see your vision come to life. Changes and challenges will always come but with hard work, a growth mindset and a bulletproof strategy, your business can grow and thrive not only in 2023 but beyond.
If you have any questions, please leave them in the comment section below. I’d love to hear from you!
x Olivia
