I have not met anybody who doesn’t want to start a business at some point in their life. And everyone who is in business, wants to become successful.
I have met a number of ultra-successful business leaders throughout my business career and there are about 6 important growth strategies they all take very seriously when it comes to their business. I believe anybody, who pays close attention to these business lessons, can become extremely successful.
So, here are those proven growth strategies I have learnt and I hope you will find them helpful in growing your business as well:
1. Product Quality – Strive To Beat The Market
You have heard many times that quality beats quantity. But leaders understand that the market is continuously changing. Not just one time, but every time, the market wants to see that your product quality is getting better and better.
If you have a great product, you won’t have to work too hard to sell it. If you continue to work hard towards always providing the best quality product, you will have to work less and less on marketing.
2. Never Take Customers For Granted
The marketplace is highly competitive today. Consumers have the freedom to choose more today than they ever had in the history of mankind. You can’t create a product, build your brand name and then assume that people will have no choice but to come to you.
Yes, they will come but you will have to work for it. Businesses who took customers for granted have always perished. Today, the risk of losing customers is much higher than ever. Social media and the internet are great tools for marketing and getting more customers, provided you have something that people want and like.
On the other hand, if you take your customers for granted and try to sell things they don’t like based on your past credibility or marketing strength, you have a high risk of failing faster than you can imagine.
3. Recognize The Power Of Social Media
Word of mouth has always been the best form of advertisement. Yes, there are other methods of advertising that companies have been using. But the power of a friend referring a product or a service to another friend is the most credible marketing technique.
Have you seen how you and me make purchasing decisions? When I came to the United States, a friend referred me to Wal-Mart, a friend referred me to Bank of America and a friend referred me to the apartment community where I signed the lease. We all trust recommendations from friends and family much more than what we see on TV or read in newspapers.
Isn’t that the reason why Facebook has succeeded so much and people love advertising on Facebook? They even call your connections “Friends”.
Leaders understand that and put their focus on word-of-mouth advertising. They keep their existing customers happy and reward them for referring somebody online or in person. Social networking sites like Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest and Google+ have just given you every possible tool in your hand to capitalize and multiply your business using social media.
4. Give Away Premium Stuff For Free
I was recently reading an incredible book named Hope From My Heart – The 10 Lessons For Life by the co-founder of Amway and a couple of other books from him. At one place, he mentions that when he and his partner went to buy their first plane, they weren’t sure if they wanted one. So, the company offered them the plane they liked for a free 1 month trial. They took the offer and brought the plane with them – for the free trial.
One month later, when the company sent the team to bring the plane back in case they still didn’t want to buy, Rich DeVos says, “We couldn’t give it back and so we paid the money and kept the plane.”
My point is, big businesses are big because they think big. They give away the things that customers may want. Some customers will disappoint you, but many more will reward you for your generosity and they will refer more customers to you.
If you are looking to get more customers, consider giving away free stuff. Give away a bit for free and once people want more, they will pay you and then you can make even more money.
Over Deliver – Then Always Upsell
Master businessmen are always trying to figure out ways to make more money from their existing customers. Everyone wants new customers and that is just common sense. But the best strategy is to have a way to up-sell existing customers. That is where leaders make most of their money.
Recently, I shifted my websites to KnownHost VPS hosting and because I wasn’t sure if I would like them, I went for the smallest package. Well, things worked just great and their support staff gave me a wow experience right from day one.
As I started to explore new ways to improve my hosting experience, I added new components, new configurations and that obviously needed some additional resources to be added. The support team at KnownHost did a great job of up-selling. They sold me more memory, more resources, more disk space and yet I am extremely pleased with my experience. As I write this, I am very happy, and in future I may still upgrade my services as my website grows even bigger and guess what, they always have something to up-sell. Isn’t that such an awesome proactive arrangement?
You should never be satisfied with your current offerings and stop selling. Just because someone is a customer doesn’t mean they can’t spend more money with you. You can get more money out of your customer base by finding what else they want and then finding a way to up-sell a product or a service to fill their need.
Don’t Fight On Price – Focus On Quality
Businesses are always fighting to beat each other in price. But, bestselling author and speaker Bob Burg is absolutely right when he says, “Everyone loses when selling on low price alone”.
Even when stores similar to Wal-Mart are everywhere, where do you think people go to buy the birthday present for their children and spouses?
iPhone isn’t the cheapest device in the marketplace. But, it’s the quality of the product that makes people pull their valets out and pay for it. Visionary businessmen focus on quality where everyone else is trying to beat each other on price.
Questions: What are some additional business lessons you think we can learn by watching other successful business leaders? Please share your thoughts in the comments. Thank you kindly!
Successful Business owners also keep their minds always open for new ways to expand their business. They watch their competition closely and learn from them. Just as Sam Walton did when he built Walmart. Entrepreneurship has everything to do with leadership. True leaders keep learning, keep moving.
Great tips Kumar! Truly inspiring to me. Thank you for a post on the right time.
Very good thought, Kumar! I love the idea of quality and I agree 100% with you that quality always wins in a long term against low prices (that means low quality). In my businesses I always try do give my customers the highest quality I can and it stands it’s worth.
Am particularly impressed by the never take your customers for granted. Its particularly useful to people in the airline industry
I think differentiating is another powerful growth strategy, especially if you’re in a very competitive market. It could be differentiating with the product or service or something small as 24/7 customer service. I used to work at a software company and sometimes we got contracts because we’re the only company that guaranteed 24/7 support.
Thank you so much, this is a great post for right business strategies. I fully agree on the quality aspects as this will always lead the market for long term. On the other hand, I have also heard a terms from my Indian friend like \\\”create mass lower quality product, which is affordable to mass lower class population to make huge returns\\\”. Briefly analyzing myself, I feel it holds true and seems to be also a great marketing strategies to capture lower income category of people and would be very successful in especially developing or poor country. I would request if your could further enlighten on this scenario too.
Values added perspectives!
Excellent points! Thank you for sharing these helpful information to us. I really wanted to succeed in my business venture and who doesn’t? I understand that in the beginning we need to pull everything just to gain positive ROI. This requires a lot of effort and a lot of money. Don’t they? Word of mouth is really powerful especially if it comes from a trusted someone or relative. However, we could reap WOM, we must first struggle to succeed in our only marketing. This is where my problem falls. Do you have any suggestions?
Thanks for these tips. Social media and online marketing is a must do strategy now a days.
I like reading and blogging about various business and marketing strategies
Thanks for sharing this amazing and informative article … enjoyed every bit of it .. 🙂
Apu
Thank you great post leadership primarily measures the ability to gather people together to work on a project or pursue an idea.