7 Things to Consider If You Want to Expand Your Business

Growth is an exciting prospect for any business owner – it keeps you ahead of the competition, promotes innovation, and improves your bottom line.

11:37 01 February 2022

If you own a business and want to expand it, congratulations! That's great news. Growth is an exciting prospect for any business owner – it keeps you ahead of the competition, promotes innovation, and improves your bottom line. It's an important part of any business plan, but it can be tricky to get just right without harming your existing operations. If you want to make sure that an increase in workforce or relocation doesn't put a damper on those rosy prospects, here are seven things to consider before you expand.

 

1. External Corporate Reports

If you plan to expand to a foreign market, it's important to think about what you'll need to keep all of your business documentation in order. You'll want to check out financial translation services for external corporate reports. Bank and account statements, annual reports, invoices, equity research, and even important legal documents and more should be in a foreign language. Without the proper translation, you're leaving yourself open to costly errors. It's something that can easily get overlooked when creating a budget for the expansion, so it's important to take the time to consider all the documentation you'll need to have in multiple languages, and how much it will cost for them to be professionally translated. Ideally, you'll want to find a translator that's not only a native-speaking linguist, but also navigates the niche terminology of your industry.

 

2. Cyber Security And Automation

When expanding your business, you need to make sure that your cyber security is up-to-date. While the future of business cyber security seems to be headed in the passwordless direction, strong passwords are far from being obsolete as of yet. That means that you want to make sure that your current password manager program is the best it can be and that you're using a unique password for all of your accounts. Investing in different tech solutions as well as educating your staff on proper cyber security measures is important for ensuring all of your confidential information remains safe and secure. In addition, you should also be thinking about how automation can make your business more efficient and cost-effective. From simple scripts to fully automated systems, there are many ways you can go about streamlining your processes and saving time, effort, and money.

 

3. Consumer Needs

Just like you had to consider who your early adopters were when you were first starting out, you need to do similar research as your business expands. If you're opening up a new location, for example, who will be the primary consumers? You don't want to invest too much or too little in marketing and advertising if those funds could be better used somewhere else. Creating a customer profile of your average consumer at the location you plan to open up shop in, should be a priority for any business looking to expand its presence. Make sure that you do a demographic study of the area surrounding your prospective locations so that you have accurate information on the people you'll be marketing to. You'll want to consider how mobile your customers are as well as their average age, income level, and other important factors so that you can design a unique experience for each demographic.

 

4. Effective Marketing Strategy

Even if you've had success with your marketing strategies so far, it's important not to get complacent when it comes to this. Expanding your business usually means that you'll be reaching out to a new audience, perhaps even those in a completely different country, so rethinking your marketing strategy is key to succeeding. You'll want to use different social media platforms, for example, that cater to your new potential consumers without turning people off with obscure hashtags or spammy posts. If you've had success with email marketing in the past, ramp up your efforts if possible, so you can stay top of mind for your new audience. On the other hand, you'll also want to be mindful of time zones and local holidays that may affect how people consume your content, since you could ultimately be reaching a global audience.

 

5. Attracting Talent

Expansion means that you'll need more people to work with and for you, so who will they be? You'll want to think about your future employees when your business starts to expand. Will you need more accountants or marketers in the near future? Make sure you're staying on top of industry trends in the areas you'll need more employees working in, and keep an eye on your employee reviews when filling these positions. In addition to your future employees, think about what current staff members will need from you when it comes to their career development. Will providing a raise or giving certain people more responsibility work to increase their productivity? Do others need more training? Is there an opportunity for them to work on new projects or perhaps even expand their roles within the company? If working on company expansion is too much for the current team you have, you might want to consider hiring someone to work part-time until you find the perfect candidate that you'll want to keep for the long term.

 

6. Connecting With Your New Community

Your brand is about to gain a wider audience, so how people perceive you will be even more important. Consider how to best promote your company values and your mission statement, especially if you're expanding into a new country. Your current customers probably love you for the way that you've provided them with specific solutions to their problems, but your new customers might be looking at things from a different angle. How do they define success? What are their biggest headaches that your products or services could help alleviate? You want to make people care about your brand and make it relatable for them, so think about how you can do that for your new audience.

 

7. Risk Management

Expansion can be risky, but you'll want to make sure that you mitigate as much of the risk as possible. Thinking about the potential obstacles you could face when you're growing is always a great thing to do, and something that's especially true if your industry is rapidly changing. Have an exit strategy in place just in case you need it, or remember that sometimes the best decision is to take steps to ease up the workload you have. With so much on your plate, you might want to consider outsourcing some of your responsibilities or hiring someone who can help handle things like customer service or IT. While it's important that you know how to do everything yourself, it's also smart to focus on what you do best and hire out the rest.

 

 

If your business starts to grow, and you want to keep up with this expansion, make sure you consider these 7 things. It's important that you make sure you're always on top of industry trends, your current employees' needs, and how people perceive your brand. With a little planning, you'll soon be able to take advantage of the many opportunities that growth has to offer.