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Business growth is one of the most important motivators for anyone at the executive level, especially CEOs and founders. If you’re in a position to take decisions for a business, you’re going to want growth: more customers, more clients, more revenue, more success, however that is quantified.
It doesn’t follow, however, that every opportunity to grow your business is the right one. Some businesses close because they don’t see enough customers coming through the doors. Others because they chase growth too hard, without planning and preparation and fall for one of the many pitfalls that line the path to success. Today we’re taking a look at this issue so you can make better, more informed choices for your business.
When Are You Ready?
Sometimes you can feel a huge pressure to leap on an opportunity before you lose out but it’s really important to ensure you’re fully prepared for expansion before you commit. If you end up losing out on an opportunity that could have damaged your business, it wasn’t an opportunity at all.
If you’re looking at expanding abroad, you need international research and a solid budget template before you start spending money on that expansion. Good research tells you about the regulations governing the market you’re expanding into, meaning you can work out how costly it will be to comply with them.
This research can also tell you about the culture you’re expanding into, which informs your marketing, and the market forces acting on customers there, so you’ll know how much money people have to spend on products like yours and how much demand there is for a new business is your niche.
If your research shows you it would extremely costly, and that you’d be growing into an area where people don’t want to spend what little money they have on the products you offer, then that international expansion would be a bad choice! Even if it means moving more slowly, doing research and finding out what to expect in your new market is more likely to lead to success than leaping before you look.
Developing New Products
The other key means you have to grow your business is to introduce new products. This can give your existing customers more chances to spend money with you, as well as bringing in new customers.
Whenever you launch a new product, you’re using your existing reputation to tell customers that this new product is worth their time and money. That means you need to be confident that your new product is high quality, or you could harm the brand you’ve built. Market research can help you understand your customers and ensure your new offering is right for them!