3 Ways To Grow Your Business

No matter what type of business you run, chances are that at some point, you’re going to run into a plateau. At some point, it may feel like no matter what you do, you’re not going to see any more growth. The truth of the matter is that when these times come, it’s important not to get discouraged and to start thinking outside the box. Here are three ways to break a business plateau.

Leverage Your Employees’ Ideas

Your employees live and breathe your business. The good news is that just about everyone will have an idea of something that can be done better. At the end of the day, as human beings, we love to contribute our ideas and we feel gratified when our ideas lead to change. 

The good news is that you don’t have to go by the old idea box any more. These days, idea management programs make it easy to solicit ideas from employees and other members of your business. These programs will even comb through the data, find the most popular ideas and make it easy to organize your ideas for different areas of your business and product or service offerings. So, if you have found yourself in a rut when it comes to coming up with new ideas, consider leaving the innovation up to your team through the use of an idea management tool. 

Automate Processes 

Technology has led to an evolution in the way we do just about everything and it continues to bring us new tools every day. For businesses, one of the most important of these tools is automation. If you have not thought about the areas of your business that can be automated to free up time you can use to focus on growth, now is the time to start thinking about it. Some of the most common areas of business automation are:

• Email - Email services like Mailchimp and Constant Contact both have tools that allow you to automate updates that are sent to your audience based on changes in your website. Do you have a new product? Update your blog to let your visitors know, and an automated email provider will send your audience an email with a link to the coupon or product.

• Advertising - Advertising can take tons of time off of the table for those who are running businesses. However, innovation has led to a host of tools that can help you automate the advertising process and take some of that time back for more important things. 

• Payroll - So many businesses are still manually processing payroll. This takes precious time out of the day and is utterly unnecessary these days. A quick search online will reveal a large amount of services that will help you automate your payroll process. 

These are just a few ways that automation can help you free up time. A deep dive into your business processes and automation options for those processes may reveal far more.

Dig Into Your Marketing

Another good idea is to take a look at your marketing. When I say take a look, I really mean comb through with a fine toothed comb. Often times, business plateaus are caused by overspends in marketing of programs that don’t offer a positive ROI. So, take some time to look into your marketing efforts and make sure that every dollar spent is leading to a significant return.

Also, if you don’t have the luxury of time and need help with marketing, you can outsource this. For example, if you need help with marketing on Facebook, explore this list of Facebook advertising agencies.

Final Thoughts

Sometimes, it may feel impossible to break a business plateau. However, with a bit of thinking outside of the box, any plateau can be broken. Using the tips above are a great way to start when it comes to overcoming a plateau in your business.