Every Business Starts as a Small Business!
When you’re prepping yourself and your team for approaches to larger customers there are numerous factors you need to consider prior to delivering your pitch for business. This post includes a brief examination of three paths available to every business and discusses the best path to move your business forward to success.
In addition, I’ll talk a bit about the mindset you’ll need for attracting and sustaining larger customers.
There are three major paths a business can take:
Plodding Along
Overwhelming Growth
Scaling Appropriately
Plodding Along
Many business owners believe that if they work 24/7 at their business that they’ll experience success. They engage in the same activities day after day with no visible progress. Business owners who start their businesses thinking “if I do this or do that, sales will roll in and I’ll be rich!” aren’t successful. Further, they’re afraid of change. As someone once said, “If you do the same thing again and again, you can’t expect a different outcome!”
Overwhelming Growth
Every now and then a business owner/entrepreneur starts a business that is so timely that business simply rockets. Customers swamp the business with demands for products or services. The business owners are completely overwhelmed to the point that they don’t evaluate their customers and determine which customers make the most sense for the business.
Consequently, when business accelerates so quickly that you’re overwhelmed with demands from the “wrong” kind of customer, you can’t focus on developing strategies for attracting the “right” kind of customer for your business. When this situation occurs you run the risk of slowing sales without having taken the time to find the appropriate customers to sustain your business.
Scaling Appropriately
When you have a strategy that enables your business to scale appropriately, your building at a steady pace that is manageable both for you and your staff. Your scaling strategy also sets expectations for your customers such that they don’t overwhelm you or your business. You can get started by doing the following:
Accept that you’ll need to make changes as you grow and have the courage to implement them.
Keep learning new skills and discovering new ways of evaluating your business because the skills that help you scale to one level aren’t necessarily the skills that will enable you to scale to the next level.
Develop and continuously refine your strategy for attracting, maintaining, and locking in large customers.Incorporate “big business” thinking and culture into your business.
Foster an “ownership” mentality in your employees.
Changing Your Mindset
You might think that landing large customers is easy. Well, it is simple! However, if you and your team are mired in a small customer mindset, it will be harder than you imagine to transition to larger customers.
What are the advantages of targeting larger customers?
Less expensive
More profitable
Longer term relationships
More security
When you pursue a larger customer, it’s important to understand:
What tasks or processes larger customers “hire” small businesses for
What kind of large customer is the “best fit” for your business’s goods or services
Who the “hiring manager” is for the tasks/processes that your business can deliver
What the business cycle is for your targeted customer group
After you understand these details and have a clear “picture” of your target customers, you can begin to develop a strategy that will get you in front of the right person and close your deal.
Every business starts as a small business! However with the proper strategy and mindset, your small business can grow to a larger business.
If you’re wondering how to get started, feel free to reach out and ask a question.
Here’s to balance!
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