6 Ways to Grow in 2023
Every business owner wants to grow and scale their business… The problem is, most entrepreneurs have no idea how to do it… And even less idea how to do it efficiently.
They throw money at the wrong problems and find out the hard way how easy it is to waste precious resources focusing on the wrong growth strategy… That’s where we step in!
Efficiency has always been a growth and scaling tool, and growth can be simple when you focus on efficiency first.
Not all business growth is created equal
Deciding which way(s) you want your business to grow and scale needs to be intentional. So often our Run Like Clockwork clients come to us and tell us they want to grow their business, but when we ask them how they will accomplish that, they say, “I don’t know… More of the same?”
As a small business owner, you have very limited resources, including time, money, labor, and materials, that you can allocate toward growth. We have to be very mindful of the finite resources we have and use them wisely, and that’s what efficiency helps us do.
That’s why we put together this list of growth strategies for small businesses. But remember that not all business growth is created equal. Some strategies will be more efficient and require fewer resources, while others will be less efficient and require (a lot) more resources in order to scale.
You’ll notice we’ve created a little Run Like Clockwork efficiency scale with our life preservers [🛟]. We’ve ranked the list from most (5 life preservers) to least efficient (1 life preserver).
Of course, we’re going to recommend you go with the most efficient (we are efficiency experts, after all) but regardless, if you’re going to choose a growth strategy, you should be choosing the one that suits your needs the best, and hopefully, this list will help you choose with intention.
Growth Strategy 1: New Processes
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Instead of creating new offers or going after a new audience, you’re just going to create or audit your processes around your existing offers. This is the most efficient way to grow your business because we don’t have to create anything new. This is a great option if you have little to no budget to invest in growth this year because it helps you save money (and other resources).
It’s the idea of continuous improvement of what you already have. Look for new ways to make things better. Consider removing features that don’t have value. And streamline who is involved to reduce cost and wait time. (On average, 85% of a project’s time is spent waiting!)
Growth Strategy 2: New Experiences
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With new experiences, you’re selling more of the same things to the same people, which will increase retention and create more connections with customers. Instead, you’re thinking of new ways for people to experience the same offering with you by improving retention, getting customers to reinvest, or creating a new event or experience to introduce people to your offers.
This strategy focuses on an audience you already have and a product or service you already know how to deliver. It requires some resources including money, time, and team bandwidth; but you’re not creating entirely new offers in order to grow. This strategy doesn’t necessarily work with every business model, but you can consider if there’s a new way to approach how you’re selling or presenting your offer.
Growth Strategy 3: New Features
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Instead of creating a new offer, this strategy involves adding new features or improvements to your audience. Ask yourself: what can we add or improve that would make this appeal to people already in our audience who haven’t yet purchased?
It requires more resources than the first two, but not as many as creating something new. But you will need to dedicate resources to figuring out how to deliver the new features. Imagine a software app adding new features that will draw in new customers; you can use the same idea, even if your offer isn’t software.
Remember, this is delivering your same product or service but with new enhancements. And delivering it to the same type of customers, but reaching a new segment of your audience.
Growth Strategy 4: Sell More to New Markets
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This strategy requires that you expand your market or audience, but you’re going to sell the same offer or product you already know how to deliver to this new audience.
New customers always require new research and development and new marketing, so it will require more resources to find and speak to those new people. Because it’s a resource-heavy strategy, this is also one of the least efficient strategies on our list, but that doesn’t mean it’s not a good strategy for a business that feels their current market may be changing or tapped out.
Growth Strategy 5: New Offers
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Make new stuff! This strategy requires you to develop a completely new product or service. You can find new needs to solve in your existing market or find a new market.
This strategy will require a high amount of resources, and the exact amount required will depend if you’re creating a new offer for the same market or going after a new market. (That’s why it gets one-to-two life preservers on our scale, depending on whether you’re finding a new market for your new offer or not.)
This strategy also involves a lot more uncertainty and risk than the previous ideas. Your profitability is also uncertain because you don’t yet know how much it costs to deliver and whether the market is interested. It’s a much higher-risk opportunity and one of the least efficient ways to grow. Again, that doesn’t mean it’s bad, just that it’s much more “expensive” in both risk and resources.
Growth Strategy 6: New Models
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Choosing a new model is the least efficient and most resource-intensive growth strategy. It’s about reimagining how you go to market by creating new revenue streams, new channels, or completely new ways of delivering value in the business. This isn’t just a small pivot; it’s a completely new way of doing business.
Like No. 5, you can sell this to existing customers or to a new market. But either way, it’s going to require extensive time, money, and team bandwidth because so many new systems and processes will be needed. It’s the most expensive in terms of resources — and the riskiest. Just like with a new offer, a new model is untested and unproven.
Which growth strategy should you focus on for your business?
You need to be intentional about your choices when it comes to business growth — not leaving things up to luck. If you want to grow and scale, you have to make a plan, set up the systems, and allocate the right resources for it.
As you look at the list of growth strategies above, ask yourself: what’s your growth budget?
Remember, your resource budget is more than just money; it’s also your time, team bandwidth, materials, and so on.
Once you have a total budget, how will you allocate it? Maybe you decide that 60% of your growth budget will go to one strategy, while 40% goes to another.
I recommend picking at most 1-2 growth strategies at a time. As an efficiency expert, my recommendation is always going to be: let’s do less to achieve more.
I also recommend that everyone reading this will pick No. 1 as at least one part of your growth strategy. Creating and refining your processes is something you can do all the time without many additional resources. And it’s something you can be doing continuously in your business, even in conjunction with other growth strategies.
This is how we train our clients to always be thinking: how do I make this better? How do I make it as efficient as possible?
Regardless of which of the six options you choose, efficient growth should always be the goal. As you choose your growth strategy, ask yourself: what is the most efficient way to add this to our business?