To be honest, developing business expansion strategies is hard. It requires time, effort, and commitment. In the beginning, you’ll wear many hats. You’ll handle sales and marketing, understand corporate compliance and taxes, interact with customers daily, and more. At the end of the day, it takes a toll on you.
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If you’re struggling to grow your black-owned business, here are five least-known business expansion strategies you shouldn’t ignore.
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Develop a Customer Loyalty Program
Loyalty programs are great to increase your business sales. Stats have shown that it costs between four to five times more funds to bring in a new customer than to sell to an existing one. Generally, acquiring new customers is costly. That’s why it’s wise to find a way to retain the ones already doing business with you.
A loyalty program is one strategy that could keep old customers coming back and even attract new ones. If customers receive incentives when they spend more money with you, they will always come to do more business with you.
So, you should develop an irresistible loyalty program for your old customers and watch your sales skyrocket. Get one or two books on Amazon if you’re unsure how to create irresistible customer loyalty programs.
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Invest in Research and Development
When expanding your business, researching new product ideas and testing prototypes in different markets is crucial. Doing so will help you find out which idea has the highest potential for success before investing money.
Many once-successful brands like Blockbuster and Toys R Us went out of business because they failed to invest in innovation when the market needed change. You could avoid their mistakes by investing in research and creative thinking regarding new product ideas to help your business remain competitive.
Hire Talented People
Hiring people with highly professional experiences and talented skills should be at the center of your strategies when considering expanding your black business. Perhaps you want to expand your digital reach to a particular market.
Hiring a skilled digital marketing strategist could help you come up with the right strategies to use to penetrate the market. As you hire new talents, set key performance indicators (KPIs) for them.
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A small set of achievable KPIs can help you determine what you need from an employee and the talents needed for success. For example, you could measure skills, contributions, or the overall value they add to your business. See these guides on Amazon on how to hire the best talents for your business.
People Also Read: How to Overcome Language Barriers with ChatGPT in Expanding Your Black Business Globally
Pay Attention to Diversification
Diversifying your business products or services can contribute to your brand’s growth and stability. For example, if you run a coffee shop, you can expand to add a bagel cafe. This diversification will allow you to offer sandwiches, business lunches, and takeout orders. The same is similar to increasing your product line if you run a service-based business.
When expanding your black-owned business offerings, it’s crucial to include market research, product development, and risk assessment in your checklist. For example, a risk assessment can help you see before time the problems you’ll likely face so you can develop a realistic plan to overcome them.
Embrace New Technologies
Adopting new technologies can help your business boost efficiency and revenue while reducing operational costs. You can adopt new technologies for the expansion of your business in a couple of ways, including:
- Using cloud technologies: With cloud technologies, your team can work remotely. This saves money and time on commute and allows them to work on tasks from anywhere in the world.
- Adopting artificial intelligence (AI): The recent improvement in AI technology has made it a must for all businesses to use. It can allow you to offer 24-hour uninterrupted customer support. Plus, it can also help suggest new products to online shoppers. There’s just so much you can do with AI when expanding your black-owned business.
- Big Data: During business expansion, big data can provide you with lots of useful information to help you make informed decisions.
Almost all successful startups or businesses usually get to a point in business where they begin to think about whether to expand or not. The truth is that business expansion has a lot to offer brands. It can help your business increase its customer base and market share, improve operations, and reduce costs.
However, it needs to be managed carefully to avoid wasting your business resources. With these five least-known business expansion strategies covered here, you should be able to get on the right track.
Besides these five business expansion strategies, there are still others that can help you scale your black-owned business. You can get business books on Amazon to discover more strategies.
People Also Read: Solopreneur Tips: How to Be Successful as a Lone African American Entrepreneur
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