If, like most other business owners, you would have set ambitious goals for 2017; Now is a better time than ever to find or create opportunities that will allow you to get the financial success and freedom you have always dreamed of from your business venture. In this article, we discuss a few ways you can accelerate the success of your startup in 2017.
Table of Contents
Funding.
Many entrepreneurs bravely try to fund their ventures in order to build a multimillion dollar company over a 5 to 10 year period. The only setback with this approach is that it forces your startup to grow at a slower pace, due to the lack of funds that you need in order to accelerate the growth of your business.
Businesses that have access to capital can invest in equipment, training, staff and marketing resources that will help them scale their business over the long-term and multiply their overall profits.
Some ways funding can be beneficial include:
- Acquiring existing assets that can boost the business’s performance and competitiveness in the industry.
- Hiring staff that can improve processes, products, services or business growth.
- Purchasing new equipment or technology, that can help scale the businesses activities.
- Investing in office locations that can expand the business’s national or international presence.
Sustainable initiatives.
Consumers want to know that the company that they are dealing with and the products or services that they are purchasing contribute positively to a social cause. The quickest win is for businesses to demonstrate how they can help preserve the environment.
For example, a business might demonstrate how they minimize their contribution to carbon emissions by investing in energy-efficient technology such as LED lights, or energy-efficient electrical equipment such as LED TVs or eco-friendly printers. (Check out these 3 ways to make a social impact.)
Another way businesses can get involved is by partnering with organisations that specialize in environmental conservation. For example, Cartridges 4 Planet Ark have teamed up with Cartridges Direct to help businesses recycle their used printer cartridges. These cartridges can then be developed into new products, such as plastic pens.
Growth strategy.
You need to be ambitious and bold with your growth strategy in 2017.
A conservative approach will get you average results. This means your business needs to invest in a development plan that will ensure that your business a pipeline of sales leads.
As an example, investing $100,000 in a paid search marketing campaign could yield your business $500,000 in revenues over the next 12 months. Investing in other marketing channels might see your business have an average return on investment of 100%.
By not investing in these channels, you will minimize the revenue opportunity for your business.
Have a clear exit strategy.
Do you know what the exit strategy of your business is?
Are you planning to gain wealth from the sale of your business to another party, or to scale the business in a way so that you will receive a passive income from the business’s revenues?
It’s important that you have these in mind so that you know exactly what it is you are working towards. It can also be used to get investors to buy into the deal, knowing that they will not only get their money back, but that they will make a profit from the money that they invest as well.
Scaling the business.
The only way your business will thrive is if you can scale your business’s activities.
Identify the products or services that you sell and see if there is a cap on how many can be sold. If you find that you’re limited to less than 100 per month, you should look into ways to improve your business’s model so that you can scale sales to 1000s or tens of thousands every month.
Implement these in 2017 and your business will be poised to succeed in 2017.
Evaluate the 2017 business strategy that you have to see where you can make improvements and get some quick wins!
