How to Grow Your Business - Even in a pandemic!
| Wednesday July 28Most of us weren’t even in business the last time our economy faced such adverse times or at least perhaps not in business for ourselves.
The last recession “we had to have” I was in late high school! The GFC – I was a young mum with 3 very small children.
But that doesn’t matter. As a marketing strategist and thought leader for small businesses, I know there are five simple steps you can take that can mean the difference between closing your doors and growing a great business. We are told that 4 out of 5 small businesses fail before they reach the 5-year mark. And 95% of them are women-led businesses.
BUT they DON’T FAIL – they simply burn out.
They simply get so tired of the daily grind that they feel they have to do to keep enough customers coming through the door to keep the business afloat. Eventually, they just give up and go and get consistent income – a J.O.B.
Here are 5 simple strategies that cannot only help survive but THRIVE in business:
- Watch where you put your time
As business owners, we spend a LOT of time working “IN” our business and not enough time working “ON” our businesses. So instead of doing all the doing, make time to grow your business.
Look at what’s working? What’s not working? What’s next?
Importantly, identify your 3 money-making activities, you know those things that ACTUALLY make you money, and make sure you are giving them as much time and attention as possible. In fact, as a little exercise, get a piece of paper and draw two columns.
Column 1 – put your money-making activities in there.
Column 2 – put a % number in there of how much time, in a given week, you spend on that activity – the one that makes you money.
If you find that the activity that makes you 80% of your money is only getting 10% of your weekly attention – then you know what you need to do to improve your bottom line.
- Find a source of good advice
Get yourself a mentor, a board of directors or surround yourself with people who get what you do. A good mentor (paid or unpaid) will show you the way, help you avoid costly mistakes (perhaps from experience) and show you the shortcuts to better results.
You are the sum of the 5 people you hang around the most. So, in business, who are you listening to? Who are you surrounding yourself with? Forward thinkers? People who will challenge you? Or people who just want to pull you back down, because you are growing too fast, changing or worse, outgrowing them?
It’s so important to surround yourself with great people. People who get what you do and will support you.
Remember, don’t let the people in the cheap seats have an expensive opinion of you or your business.
- Do what you do best and outsource the rest
When just starting out, we want to do everything in our business. Or perhaps we have to because we simply don’t have the money to outsource or get help.
This can be a mistake.
To grow a business in the fastest possible timeframe it’s best for the business owner to stick to their areas of unique ability, their genius zone, and outsource the rest to people with the appropriate skill sets.
Do what you do BEST and outsource the rest.
Even if that means asking a friend or giving a student an opportunity to learn firsthand from a business owner what it takes to grow a business. If you are unsure whether you should be outsourcing, I refer you back to your work above in 1 – how much time are you spending on the money-making activities? If you start outsourcing would you have more time to work on things that will actually make you money?
- Narrow your focus and niche your expertise
Just like not everyone is your customer, you can’t be everything to everyone.
There’s not enough time in the day. Think about “What do you want to be famous for?” If people think of you, what do you want them to be thinking? Write down on a piece of paper – “I want to be known for...” and fill in the blank.
Top of mind marketing is why we use platforms like social media. So, when people think “X”, they think of us.
We just have to make sure that everyone, who should know, knows what “X” is! Our businesses are existing in an overcrowded and very noisy marketplace. To stand out, we have to be famous for 1 thing (or maybe 2 – but not everything we do).
Think of it like standing in a room of 200 people and all at once you yell your business names out. Who heard it? Hardly anyone right? It’s hard to stand out, but when you know what you want to be famous for, remembered for, known for, standing out becomes easier.
Take my business, for instance, I want to be famous for helping small businesses make marketing a priority in their business because I know the power of marketing. They think marketing – they think Jenn Donovan (that’s the goal!)
But I also do copywriting, but you don’t really know that until you come into my world. I don’t want to fill my books up with copywriting jobs, I want to help people with their marketing and just because I don’t advertise other services doesn't mean I’m not good at more things than marketing!
The more niche you are, the easier it is to attract attention. The more simple your business is, the more money you will make.
- Make time to think and rejuvenate
This point is arguably the most important.
A study by the University of South Australia suggests self-employed people tend to work six hours more a week than their salaried counterparts. Simply working longer and harder is no guarantee of success.
What can be much more effective is to ‘work smarter’ by creating enough downtime to think creatively about how to grow your business. Some of my best thoughts come from when I am in the bath (and I have lots of those!) or walking listening to podcasts or just sitting on the verandah doing, well, nothing.
There is little doubt that running your own small business can deliver lots of great rewards but making it through the first few years can be extremely challenging, especially in a pandemic.
Remember, it’s not the most talented small business owners who will make it, in the end, it’s the sons who are willing to learn new things, step outside their comfort zones, and learn to market their talent, that usually wins all the business.
So, become a great marketer of what you do, not just a great doer of what you do.
Author’s Bio:
Jenn Donovan is a marketing strategist and social media extraordinaire, coach, mentor, speaker, and soon to be an author to women who want to go from invisible to invincible. Jenn’s also the owner and founder of Social Media & Marketing Australia.
With a passion for making business simple, because it isn’t easy but it should be simple or at least simpler, she’s built a reputation for helping other small business owners simplify their marketing and businesses so they can reach their goals, be more profitable and live the dream (finding the freedom they set out to achieve when they started ... the elusive small business owner freedom dream...!)
Jenn believes in giving before asking and that’s why she’s the host of the popular Small Business Made Simple Podcast and the Founder of the enormously successful Buy From a Bush Business Facebook Campaign and co-founder of the Spend With Us Marketplace, which supports thousands of rural and regional small businesses.
With a career that started with more than 15 years in law and moved into retail in a regional area – purchasing, owning and growing her own retail business, Jenn has been in small business all her working life.
Her passion for marketing and social media came from the time of being a retailer – there’s hardly a harder job – and now she pretty much lives, breathes and talks marketing whenever she’s not asleep!
Jenn is also a Mum of 3 fast-growing adults/teenagers and wife to Mr Farmer, with hobbies including killing plants, half growing vegetable gardens and researching the latest marketing trends.
Connect with Jenn:
Instagram – jenndonovan_
LinkedIn – jenndonovan
Facebook – Social Media and Marketing Australia
