According to Investopedia, 20% of new businesses shut their doors after running their operations for two years. About 45% of companies fail to stay afloat in the market after five years, and 65% of companies experience severe losses during the first ten years.
Brent McMahon RV states that running and maintaining a business is one of the most daunting and time-consuming tasks for entrepreneurs and businesspeople. It requires thorough planning, preparation, and strategic decisions.
A successful business focuses on properly utilizing assets, including finances, human capital, inventory, equipment, tools, marketing, employees’ productivity and retention, and making informed decisions to improve its bottom line.
So, how to take your business to the next level? Today’s article will give you a few practical tips based on Brent McMahon’s experience and insights. Read on!
Define Your Business Goals
Defining, knowing, and understanding your business goals is essential to standing out from the competition and thriving within the industry. Business goals are endpoints, targets, and accomplishments you want to achieve.
There are short-term and long-term goals, and each goal has specific objectives. According to Brent McMahon, a business goal usually takes various forms, and an entrepreneur must understand how to define it. McMahon recommends using the S.M.A.R.T strategy to define goals.
S.M.A.R.T stands for specific, measurable, attainable/achievable, realistic, and time-bound goals. Therefore, you must understand the motive behind your goals. McMahon gives a few examples, such as:
- I want to increase my company’s total income by 15% over the next year
- I want to reduce costs and expenses by 10% over the next two years
- I am looking to increase my company’s share in the market
- I want to improve my company’s overall brand identity, recognition, awareness, and reputation within six months
Understanding the reason, purpose, and intention behind your business goals is critical to achieving success and taking your business to the next level. Remember, this requires strategic planning, market analysis, competitor analysis, data collection, and generating insights from the research and feedback from your potential and existing customers.
Build Customer Relationships
According to HubSpot, 68% of consumers remain loyal and pay more for products or services from a company that maintains optimal customer relationships. Brain & Company reports that a company that increases customer retention rates by 5% experiences up to 95% increased profits.
McMahon says building good working relationships with existing and potential customers is crucial for long-term business success. Not only do optimal relationships increase communication between the brand and customers, but they also encourage customers to feel more confident, secure, and connected with the brand.
Remember, increased brand loyalty is directly proportional to repeated sales, boosted revenues, and improved overall business’s bottom line. You can establish trust among your customers by consistently communicating with them via emails, SMS, and social media channels.Likewise, focus on developing excellent customer service and hire people with experience addressing customers’ concerns and issues.
According to Brent McMahon, seek customer feedback, make changes to your products or services based on the feedback, and show consistency and promptness in your customer interactions. Offering rewards, discounts, coupons, and promotional items is another best method to increase and maintain customer retention rates.
Improve Employee Retention Rates
The credit goes to your hardworking and productive employees if your customers are happy with your products or services. Productive employees can build a solid foundation, streamline business operations, and make your company stand out from the competition.
However, You must invest in employees’ health and wellness programs, quarterly, bi-annually, or annual training programs, and establish a pleasant company culture and departmental environment to encourage them to remain loyal to the company.
According to S.H.R.M., a successful company invests in a sophisticated onboarding and maintenance program, allowing it to retain 69% of its employees for over three years. The general rule of thumb is that taking your business to the next level requires you to maintain 90% or higher employee retention rates. Consider the following factors to optimize your strategy:
- Invest in training and development opportunities for new employees
- Establish communication between management and employees
- Create accurate job descriptions with detailed responsibilities
- Promote correct staffing levels to cover the workload
- Provide feedback on performance issues
- Give away rewards and promotions
- Increase salaries and provide more flexible working hours
Create a Unique Digital Marketing Strategy
A unique digital marketing strategy combines various methods, including search engine optimization (SEO), local SEO, marketing automation, email marketing, social media marketing, pay-per-click (P.P.C.) campaigns, and native advertising.
Create a digital marketing strategy that aligns with your company’s mission, vision, and goals. The purpose is to reach your target audience, reduce marketing costs, and generate higher returns on investments (R.O.I.s).
According to Statista, 87% of digital marketers and small businesses increased their social media activities during the Covid-19 pandemic. A successful digital marketing strategy is customer-oriented, educational, engaging, promotional, and responsive.
For example, recent research highlights that video marketing has increased by 41% in the last five years. Another report shows that people spend an average of 4.2 hours on their smartphones daily.
So, your website must be responsive and mobile-friendly, and the content you create should automatically adapt to various screen sizes. You can hire a team of digital marketers or third-party services to streamline the process.
Final Words
Taking your business to the next level requires commitment, dedication, S.M.A.R.T strategies, informed decisions, appropriate actions, and sustainable practices. Follow the tips above to put your company on the path to success. Until Next Time!
