5 Actionable Ways to Grow Your Business

Each month an average of 543,000 businesses get started and only 50% of businesses will survive more than five years. 

Starting a business takes work and making sure you can sustain growth takes even more hard work that has to be consistent. 

Over the years of running my company, I’ve not only heard the same challenges from clients but have dealt with them as well, such as:

• Needing more qualified leads
• Needing more sales
• Needing to drive marketing initiatives that yield a return

These challenges aren’t anything new to business owners because it’s just a part of entrepreneurship. In this blog post, I’ll highlight 5 actionable ways to grow your business.

Let’s get started…

1. Start a Blog and Keep It Going

Developing and pushing out content should be a priority for businesses of all sizes. This is an opportunity for you to connect with your target audience, showcase your expertise, and even add personality to your brand. 

To start, here are some things to consider:

• Decide on a schedule. Pumping out content on a consistent basis is a great way to build subscribers, give current customers something to look forward to, and have authority within your niche. So make sure you plan out how many times per week you will publish new blog posts. 
• Make on-page SEO a priority. If you haven’t already, check out The Beginner’s Guide to SEO. I run through the basics of SEO and what you’ll need to have in place to be successful. Anytime you create and publish a new blog post, make sure that you have optimized the title tag, meta-description, H1, images, etc. This will make it easier for search engines to crawl your site and then rank it appropriately per web searches.
• Mix up the content. Don’t just have text on your blog posts. Instead, add in images, videos, memes, gifs, and graphics to help keep them interesting and engaging. In fact, visuals increases a person’s desire to read by 80%.

• Repurpose your content wherever it makes the most sense. This includes sites like: LinkedIn Pulse, Medium, and Quora. This will help amplify the potential reach of your content.
• Distribute beyond repurposing. In other words, look at promoting your content through social media marketing. For example, putting some advertising dollars behind longer blog posts that are informative and lead people further down to making a purchase decision on your product/service is never a bad idea. You’ll also want to make sure that you’re sharing out the content via email newsletters.
• Within each blog post include a call-to-action. This is a great way to get new subscribers and paying customers.

2. Do Cold Outreach

I have to admit that cold outreach has never been something I’ve loved about running my business, but it has to be done. When doing cold outreach the two avenues I like to use are email and LinkedIn InMail. 

However, before doing any outreach, make sure that you do research on the person you are messaging. The days of impersonal outreach are gone. Make yourself standout. For starters, check out some of these sales templates you can use:

3. Look at Companies Who Are Hiring

Another tactic that complements cold outreach really well is to also look at companies who are hiring for specific positions that you are an expert in. 

From there, look at what the requirements are for that position and who the hiring manager is. Then reach out directly to see how you can lend a helping hand. 

Sites that are worth checking out are:

• Working Nomads
• FlexJobs
• LinkedIn Jobs
• Remote.co
• Jobspresso
• Powertofly

Don’t be afraid of taking on freelancing opportunities too. This is a great way to get your foot in the door with companies that you want as clients. Doing so will also give you a way to show off your expertise and if positive results are shown, then you’ll have more work. 

4. Check Out Local Networking Events

Look at local events and attend them to meet like-minded professionals. The main thing to keep in mind is that you don’t want to be that person who shows up and just tries to sell people on what you do. Rather, go in with the mindset of building authentic relationships.

People do business with people, not companies. Therefore, attend these events with the eagerness to learn about others. Doing so will help you understand their challenges, what they do, and where synergies for a working relationship could take place.

Should you meet individuals that you connect with well, exchange contact information. More importantly, I would recommend that you do not push any sales but push value.

Leverage the content you post on your blog to share ideas and thoughts you may have around their challenges. This will make you more memorable and give you an upper hand when it comes to getting new business. 

A site like meetup.com is a great place to start when it comes to scoping out events you may want to attend.  

5. Ask for Referrals

The number way that I’ve been able to grow my company is through referrals. Happy clients are more inclined to refer to other businesses that could use your help, so don’t shy away from asking for referrals. 

In return, you can offer a discount off your products/services and even give away any swag you might have. 

Final Thoughts

When it comes to growing your business, make sure that you have a plan with supporting tactics that you can implement. Focus on growth as a long-term driver rather than just small quick wins.

When you’re in it for the long game, your mindset around business growth changes too. You’re no longer just looking at every professional encounter as “what’s in it for me” but more strategic with “how can I help you?”