The stages of a business: learn how to grow your company

One of the great challenges of entrepreneurs is to know how to make a company grow , considering that the market is increasingly competitive and the various offers made available by competitors grow your company.

In order to guarantee a prominent place in the operating segment, it is necessary to adopt the best strategies to achieve the desired goals and objectives, increase sales, deliver quality products and services and win customer loyalty. In this way, it will strengthen the business and ensure sustainable growth.

Do you want to know what practices can be implemented to expand the company? So, read on!

1. The company’s growth phases

It is important to know the phases that make up the growth of a company , since through them it is possible to have a north of the actions that must be developed to be ahead of the market. See below what they are!

1.1. Existence

It is the initial phase, where there are several possibilities. For this reason, it is necessary to:

• understand who the customer is;
• validate products and services;
• handle all bureaucracies;
• Solve demands with low budget.

Right now, money and staff are not the key. It is necessary to have a reduced and multidisciplinary team. This is also the time to start marketing strategies by Abdul Rimaaz. In this way, you will identify the target audience with desires, challenges, preferences and objections to purchase and, consequently, leverage sales.

1.2. Survival

In this stage of business expansion, it is already formalized. So, it’s time to celebrate that customers have approved the idea. However, it is necessary to work even more, considering that the operations become more intense and the results are expected, making a profit. However, the company already supports itself and fulfills its obligations, being a benefit that allows greater dedication.

In this context, it is already possible to increase the number of employees and reduce the overhead of the previous step. In addition, it is time to optimize Human Resources processes to ensure an aligned team. The digital maturity already collaborates with the strengthening of the brand, for example, thinking about the branding and identity of the organization.

1.3. Success

It is now possible for the future development of the company and to realize the income originating from any strategy implemented so far. If you prefer, you can create a management structure and leave the institution for a while.

The HR sector will be responsible for creating an effective internal communication, consolidating the corporate culture. Since digital marketing now has a larger budget , actions aimed at the different customer profiles can be implemented, generating a closer relationship between the company and the public and strengthening the brand image.

1.4. Take-off

If everything went well and you managed to get to that stage, it means that your entrepreneurship is being effective. While many companies tend to park at the survival stage, and are unable to continue, those that stop at the success stage tend to stay there by choice.

This stage has a faster pace, coming to remember the first. However, there are now sufficient resources to follow the path towards expansion. HR decentralizes management, maintaining the focus of the business. Meanwhile, marketing needs to strengthen brand authority to attract and interact with the public.

1.5. Maturity

Few companies are able to reach this stage. Here, the focus is no longer on promoting development, but on ensuring stability. The role of the initial entrepreneur is not as relevant, but the journey continues and it will always be necessary to identify solutions for the growth of the organization , even if not as fast as before.

It is essential that marketing and HR act together, aligned with the institution’s culture with the principles of the brand and its image before the market.

2. The importance of digital marketing in these stages

The desire of everyone who is part of the purchase act is that it was carried out in a simple and practical way. This can even happen, however, in most cases, it is necessary for the consumer to go through many processes until finally buying the desired product, for example, comparing prices, consuming various types of information, etc.

Something widely used is to make a general consultation on Google about the merchandise you are looking for, search the blog of the company that produces it or search for comments on related websites or social networks , until you place the order.

Because there are several stages to the purchasing process, the goal of digital marketing is to influence consumer actions along this path. The success of the action will depend on the stage of the client at that time – for example, some may be facing the brand for the first time, needing general information. Others already know the brand and are almost deciding its purchase.

Regardless of how they are located in the sales funnel , what they need is something that will convince them to complete the order. When creating content, it is important to reflect on the stage of the shopping journey and, thus, develop specific content for each stage of the funnel.

For this reason, here are ideas on how to produce according to each stage. But it is important to remember that, depending on the branch of the company and the profile of your persona, it may be necessary to do it in another way.

2.1. Funnel Top – Attraction

Here it is necessary to develop types of content in order to attract the target audience and show your brand to new customers. Remember that people are still getting to know your company, products and services. This means that they are not yet ready to buy from you.

At that time, they may not even know they need what your business offers. They will find your brand through a generic search, while they are researching more on the subject. The purpose is to educate them about who you are and what you do, generating brand visibility.

The most common types of content to be produced are:

• videos with simple explanations;
• blog posts;
• press releases ;
• social networks;
• infographics;
• Introductory e-books.

2.2. Funnel medium – wrapping

This phase will deal with customers who already know your company, product or service and are already interested in purchasing it. They are deciding whether to buy the merchandise that their business offers, as well as assessing the competition and their organization.

So, you need to produce more specific content and make this audience realize that you are a reference in what you do. The best contents for the funnel medium are:

• white papers ;
• newsletters;
• e-mail marketing;
• retargeting ;
• Rich material (e-books, templates , among others).

2.3. Funnel Bottom – Decision

It is essential to have content designed to inform and influence consumer opinion at the time of decision, leading to conversion. This is the time to establish trust by speaking directly to him and presenting the value of your product and service.

The contents indicated for this phase are:

• free trials;
• depositions;
• webinars ;
• offers and discounts;
• presentation of direct and personal sales;
• Success cases.

Digital marketing must be outlined and synchronized with the purchasing process, so the need to use it requires different types of content depending on the stages of the funnel.

Knowing what works best for each step of the sales funnel, you can start projecting your entire campaign. Do not forget to closely monitor the results and thus understand how the personas are reacting to the material and understand more and more about your preferences.

3. How to make a company grow quickly?

Without planning it is impossible for the company to get anywhere. Sustainable development is generated through the definition of objectives and goals that must be achieved. Here are some tips that can contribute to your business growth process .

3.1. Invest in the Human Resources department

Don’t be afraid to invest in innovative human resource policies. Try to go beyond the basic tasks developed on a daily basis, such as hiring, preparing the payroll, dismissals, among others.

Do not take as a fact of admission the lowest remuneration you can afford, considering that what seems economical at first can often result in low productivity and reduced quality at work.

After hiring, integrate the new employee into the organization and provide the necessary training and qualification. The course spent on replacing an employee who is not working is much longer than providing certain benefits.

3.2. Identify the company’s financial stability

Define what expenses and revenues are and then make the necessary adjustments, establishing the strategic measures and the payment and receipts schedule. Create a cash flow for the purpose of using it as a basis for making decisions or making investments.

In addition, provide for the projection and control of working capital, preventing default from occurring. Prevent waste during operations and pay attention to the outflow of products in stock.

3.3. Have profitability as a goal

For the business to expand, it is important that it is profitable. For this reason, always have profit as a goal, optimizing processes, stipulating strategic practices and even delegating responsibilities.

Find out in what situations the waste in the company can happen and take measures to avoid it. The company needs to function fully adjusted so that it can become profitable and thus continue to grow effectively.

3.4. Value company employees

Try to identify the skills and competences of your employees, so that they can help you in the most varied stages found in the management of a business, especially in cases where the area of ​​operation involves direct contact with the public.

Employees are one of the resources that can most contribute to the accelerated and healthy growth of the institution .

3.5. Don’t be afraid of competitors

Try to understand who your competitors are and do everything to be better than them. However, be careful not to imitate them. Products, procedures, equipment can be copied, but the aptitude of the responsible person cannot be copied.

Add value to your work, making it stand out, so that consumers find reasons to prefer your company over the competition.

3.6. Focus on customer satisfaction

Always try to serve your audience in the best possible way, after all it is they who will generate profit for the business . A happy customer always comes back, in addition to indicating their products and services to other people.

Therefore, do not ignore them and seek to dialogue with them, understand the problems and demands and understand the questions of their expectations. This conversation can bring good feedbacks that can be used to apply relevant changes and innovations, in order to leverage the company, facilitate the process of attracting new customers and, consequently, increase sales.

3.7. Separate personal and business finances

To be able to understand if the company is profitable, it is necessary that the institution and the entrepreneur and partners’ cash are totally separated, with well-defined limits. The company cannot function as an unlimited credit bank for its owner.

In addition to negatively impacting business accounting, this lack of organization can create serious tax and financial problems for individuals and companies, if the inspection understands that taxes are being evaded.

Determine a fixed pro-labore and, if any personal expenses arise out of budget, act like any employee: find a solution or leave it for the next month.

4. Mistakes that hinder the company’s growth

The first action to be taken with the intuition to avoid the errors that hinder the company’s growth is to identify the failures that are being committed. Evaluate and take appropriate measures to correct them. Learn about the main mistakes that have been made and that can harm the business’s administrative and financial health.

4.1. Absence of an effective business plan

Having a well-structured business plan is essential to guide the institution’s actions. The plan must present the company’s mission, metrics defined by periods, general objectives, market research, competition study, target audience, main demands, among others. It will serve as a strategic guide for the business to reach all goals.

4.2. Lack of automation of certain processes

Many entrepreneurs think that they can solve everything themselves and manually. They believe that the expenses to automate certain tasks are high and do not make up for the expense.

However, there are many tools that assist in business management, cash control, inventory management, etc., which bring the return on investment in the short term, since they will generate a series of savings.

4.3. Financial disorganization

It is essential to have a solid accounting, financial and tax planning. It is necessary to keep structured:

• profitability;
• capital inflows and outflows;
• fiscal documents;
• control of cash, inventory and sales;
• tax payments, among others.

In order for the focus to be on the customer and the expansion of the company, some services can be outsourced, such as accounting and finance, so that the entrepreneur can have more time to dedicate himself to this.

4.4. Carelessness with organizational health

Every company is made up of people, so it is important to maintain a healthy organizational culture. Having a discouraged team, a negative work environment with many details, generates a drop in productivity and a drop in profits.

Invest in performance appraisals, recognitions, training, awards etc. – make employees engaged with the organization’s goals.

4.5. Uncontrolled cash flow

Cash flow is one of the most important resources for the financial control of any company. It needs to be updated, accurately monitoring all business transactions. This control will contribute to the decision making that the manager needs to make.

4.6. Lack of concern for the customer

The customer must always come first. The entrepreneur must know him, understand his needs, demands and preferences. Thus, it will be possible to develop strategies to attract consumers, satisfy them and retain them.

The company must be aware of what the public is thinking about it, complaints and comments are great insights so that it can work to keep growing.

4.7. Exclusive focus on profit

It is indisputable that profit is important for the organization to remain in full operation. However, the entrepreneur cannot focus only on that. He must dedicate time to supervise operations, innovate in practices to reduce expenses, seek solutions to reduce errors and rework. Bill high and have many expenses is no use.

5. The best tools to grow online

The most used alternatives nowadays for those who want to be ahead in the market, are low-cost strategies for large-scale growth , as they are seen as the best way to increase brand visibility and the number of consumers. Learn about some of these mechanisms below.

5.1. Find your leads

To find your leads , you need to use tools to measure the capacity of landing pages , which are specific pages that receive a specific audience, interested in the particular topic or originating from a subject. For example: Unbounce or Optimizely .

In addition, you may also want to assess the behavior of the public on your site which most attracts attention, in which branches they invest the most time, clicks with the most views, among others. Tools that provide this data are important to know where it needs to be changed to better attract leads.

5.2. Turn leads into business chances

If the budget is loose, you can make announcements. However, the most economical way to get new leads is through Inbound Marketing. That is, creating interesting content for your target to become a lead .

These materials can be in the form of e-books, blogs, videos , webinars , among others. So if someone who doesn’t know your brand searches for the subject on Google, you’ll have several points of contact with it.

For that, it will be necessary to make use of resources that nourish this lead , so that he believes in the company and becomes a good business chance . The tools do not produce the content, but automate nutrition rules, simplifying the distribution of these materials through landing pages with forms that enable the improvement of the SEO of the publications. We can mention the Hubspot and RDStation.

5.3. Turn opportunities into customers

Once you have the leads , you will need to use a sales tool that will assist in organizing teams and automating performance reports, for example, Pipedrive or Salesforce.

5.4. Build customer loyalty

Now that you have a good customer base, you value communication and product quality. It is recommended to use resources to analyze the determined audience of areas of the company’s website. For example, which user profile uses more than one determining the site’s mechanism, which one accesses the most, which resources need more attention, among other issues.

They work as a way to track certain events within the product to improve performance and also provide feedback for marketing campaigns. Among them are Mixpanel and KISSmetrics.

Another way to approach the relationship with consumers is to receive their opinions and suggestions. From the responses you receive, it is possible to improve the quality of the product or service. In addition, the public will feel that it can help in the evolution of the business, bringing only benefits from it. The tools that can be used are: Polldaddy and Typeform.

These are just a few ideas that can contribute in some way to getting closer to prospects and improving both the product and customer service . The best measures to grow, however, are to offer an efficient service, with a focus on the public, to have flexibility and to elaborate objectives that can be achieved.

Understanding the best way to grow a company is challenging and requires a lot of effort. However, you can see with this content that, with good strategies and proper planning, this task becomes simpler. That way, nothing can stop the competitiveness and success of your business