3 Ways to Easily Expand Your Business and Increase Your Profits
By Sue Painter
How do you see your business in terms
of its reach? If you are an entrepreneur
who thinks of your business as local only,
you are probably thinking too small
and leaving profit on the table.
Think about it -- if you own a small business and you've got a website, or use social
media, you've got a business with a national or international presence. You may think
you're only local, but in fact, you're not. People know about you who live elsewhere,
and some of those people could be paying customers.
Very few entrepreneurs have a strictly local business anymore. Here are three ways to
expand your thinking and the scope of your business. All can increase your profits.
1. Even if you serve local people only, you probably have ways you can add product
or service to make a portion of your business create income from non-local
customers. For example, if you are a local tutor for junior high students, you can
create an e-book with your top 5 tips for helping students do better in school, put it on
your website, and create an income stream that you didn't have before. Just because
you service locally doesn't mean you can't sell nationally. The big benefit to adding
non-local income streams is that when your local economy goes down, you still have
this new income to bolster your business.
2. Your website gives you the capability to have an international presence. Here's
the thing: you pay for hosting and someone to help you with your web design
anyway. Why not make it work better for you? Make sure that your website is
interactive, which will help keep people on your site and checking back often for new
content. This is known as making your website sticky. You can create interactivity in
many ways, but the first and most important thing is to give visitors a reason to leave
their name and e-mail address on your site, so that you can reach out to them over and
over again. You can also make sure your website has fresh content on it at least
weekly (a blog can accomplish this), or post a survey on your site that is interactive, or
post videos about yourself and your business. The key is to create fresh content at
least weekly. You're paying for a website and hosting anyway, so increase your return
on that investment.
3. The same thing goes for social media. If you are already established with social
media accounts on sites like Facebook, YouTube, or Twitter (and there are hundreds of
others, as well) you are already spending time online. May as well make that time pay
off by helping you to expand your customer base and giving you more visibility and
credibility. Create a social media campaign that drives potential customers to your
website and give them a reason to be happy they visited. Social media can buy you
great publicity and help build your know/like/trust factor. If you are already doing
it, you may as well be doing it strategically!
Use these three tips and you'll be able to expand the scope of your small business
and create opportunities for serving more customers and increasing your profits.
What entrepreneur wouldn't benefit from that?!
Now that you have these 3 tips for expanding your business, I'd like to give you 7 ways to build
your confidence as a business owner. Go to Confident Marketer and pick up that free download
to keep on building. Sue Painter has been a successful entrepreneur for the past 14 years, and
works with other new business owners to help them build success quickly.
By Sue Painter
How do you see your business in terms
of its reach? If you are an entrepreneur
who thinks of your business as local only,
you are probably thinking too small
and leaving profit on the table.
Think about it -- if you own a small business and you've got a website, or use social
media, you've got a business with a national or international presence. You may think
you're only local, but in fact, you're not. People know about you who live elsewhere,
and some of those people could be paying customers.
Very few entrepreneurs have a strictly local business anymore. Here are three ways to
expand your thinking and the scope of your business. All can increase your profits.
1. Even if you serve local people only, you probably have ways you can add product
or service to make a portion of your business create income from non-local
customers. For example, if you are a local tutor for junior high students, you can
create an e-book with your top 5 tips for helping students do better in school, put it on
your website, and create an income stream that you didn't have before. Just because
you service locally doesn't mean you can't sell nationally. The big benefit to adding
non-local income streams is that when your local economy goes down, you still have
this new income to bolster your business.
2. Your website gives you the capability to have an international presence. Here's
the thing: you pay for hosting and someone to help you with your web design
anyway. Why not make it work better for you? Make sure that your website is
interactive, which will help keep people on your site and checking back often for new
content. This is known as making your website sticky. You can create interactivity in
many ways, but the first and most important thing is to give visitors a reason to leave
their name and e-mail address on your site, so that you can reach out to them over and
over again. You can also make sure your website has fresh content on it at least
weekly (a blog can accomplish this), or post a survey on your site that is interactive, or
post videos about yourself and your business. The key is to create fresh content at
least weekly. You're paying for a website and hosting anyway, so increase your return
on that investment.
3. The same thing goes for social media. If you are already established with social
media accounts on sites like Facebook, YouTube, or Twitter (and there are hundreds of
others, as well) you are already spending time online. May as well make that time pay
off by helping you to expand your customer base and giving you more visibility and
credibility. Create a social media campaign that drives potential customers to your
website and give them a reason to be happy they visited. Social media can buy you
great publicity and help build your know/like/trust factor. If you are already doing
it, you may as well be doing it strategically!
Use these three tips and you'll be able to expand the scope of your small business
and create opportunities for serving more customers and increasing your profits.
What entrepreneur wouldn't benefit from that?!
Now that you have these 3 tips for expanding your business, I'd like to give you 7 ways to build
your confidence as a business owner. Go to Confident Marketer and pick up that free download
to keep on building. Sue Painter has been a successful entrepreneur for the past 14 years, and
works with other new business owners to help them build success quickly.
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