Strategies That Automate Your Small Business With Faster Growth

Growing your business usually requires a lot of time and effort. However, these tips will help you make this happen faster and easier.

Scaling your business is a challenge that requires a lot of effort on your behalf. In the beginning, you’ll need to wear many different hats as you deal with sales, marketing, taxes, corporate compliance, customers, and so much more on your own each day. At the end of the day, this takes a toll on you. Fortunately, there’s light at the end of this long, hard tunnel. Along the way, you can rest assured that this is better than the alternative: A life-sucking 9-to-5 job with the security of a guaranteed paycheck at a high mental or emotional price. By buckling down, clearing your mind, and looking at things in perspective, you’ll be able to easily identify ways you can grow your business and make more money quickly. With this in mind, here are a few business growth strategies that will take your business to the next level quickly and efficiently.

AI Helps You Work Smarter

Entrepreneur says you can convert your business metrics into data points which you can then turn over to an artificial intelligence engine that will optimize many things (e.g. price, digital marketing spend) for you. This is just one of the many reasons why it’s crucial to get familiar with machine learning and artificial intelligence. You have two great options available here:

• Google Cloud has built-in tools for automation and Google’s latest advancements thanks to regular updates
• Microsoft Azure is a first-rate competitor for Google (it’s even priced competitively)

With one of these machine-learning tools in place, you can achieve maximum efficiency and turbocharge your business.

Build A Brand Image

While it’s fine to start small, you’ll want to create a website soon. There are a few ways to do this, including:

• Onepagelove.com offers many one-page templates aimed at the startup market. You can quickly create a slick-looking site that helps your brand grow.
• Out-of-the-box e-commerce sites are also great since they let you hit the ground running with everything your business needs. You won’t have to pay designers’ fees or struggle with sorting through tedious payment options.

It’s also important to understand that your brand is much more than your website – it’s everything you do and how you do it. This includes employee engagement, which should start at the top from the beginning. Everyone’s attitudes and interactions need to reflect your brand in a positive light, otherwise, everything will fall apart. You need a strong foundation of understanding, ownership, and accountability – all of which stem from your internal brand strategy. How your employees treat your customers is a reflection of your brand. This is why your staff must act as brand advocates, but for them to do this they must first love what they do and want to be part of its success.

Use the IOT or Cloud Technology

Put the cloud to work for you with things like a cloud-based phone system to work for you.  There are several reasons why you need to use the cloud today, including:

• Making the IoT accessible to anyone
• Being able to quickly build, test, and iterate business ideas without being a programmer by using clicks, not code
• Adding customer context to your device data
• Getting a complete picture of product usage and performance by associating IoT devices with real customers
• Creating real-time interactions by having a cloud-based business phone system 
• Developing meaningful customer experiences across all your connected products

Expand Business Globally

Entrepreneur says finding a platform that’s reached saturation will help you grow your business quickly. These include:

• Amazon’s FBA service for those who are selling products in the e-commerce world
• Upwork for those who are selling services
• AirBnB, InvitedHome, and HomeAway for those who are in the business of renting vacation homes

Create Both a Sales Cycle and Business Cycle

Your sales cycle begins when a customer shows interest in your products or services and ends when they buy something from you. Herein you also have a business cycle in which you focus on marketing and driving people toward your product or service. When you first start your business, you probably won’t have the money to establish a business cycle, but this is where big corporations live. They spend their money creating traffic. You can automate this by finding a business cycle that gets constant attention to your business.

Embrace Digital Transformation

Yocale Business says your business model isn’t sustainable if you stay the same, become reactive, or act complacently. Longevity is found in your capacity to change – not to tell your customers what you already have. This is why the way you launch your brand is probably going to be really different from how you market it in the future. As your audiences’ needs change, the way they want to receive information will also change. By evolving with digital trends and outsourcing where you can, you’ll have a good growth strategy in place. While this isn’t always easy, it’s vital that you embrace the technologies and efficiencies afforded throughout today’s digital era and experiment with new ways to enhance your customer’s experiences.

Strategic Outsourcing

Growing your business means passing some responsibility onto others – even outsourcing some of them, especially when you’re short on resources. This shouldn’t scare you if you clearly define the work, closely manage it, and make sure it remains aligned with your goals. Successful outsourcing will drive transformation and help you achieve broad strategic goals. This will requires you to follow a disciplined process that maintains your focus on taking the right steps and making the right decisions.

Learn from Leaders

Fast Company says you shouldn’t fail to see what other leaders in your industry can teach you. This includes things like:

• Learning to thrive in a chaotic situation
• Taking advantage of the right training when it’s offered to you
• Figure out what your business could do better and then invest some time in those areas to improve them
• Focus on targeted areas throughout your day instead of trying to multitask
• When something goes wrong you need to shake it off and keep going
• Building a cohesive team that works together is important

Guest article written by: Mila Jones is a Senior Business Consultant, with rich experience in the domains of technology consulting and strategy, she works with both established technology brands and market entrants to offer research inputs and insights on leveraging technology as a source of strategic competitive advantage. She is a prolific author and shares her expertise with tech enthusiasts on popular digital publishing platforms. Twitter: https://twitter.com/miilajones