Introduction
Most small businesses fail because they don't grow. They don't have to grow into a big business but they have to grow to allow you to shape the business the way you want. While you may have your own particular goals for the business you started, at a minimum it should provide a fair income for the work you do and have customers with whom you like to work. Growth lets you get to that point.
This course looks at how small businesses grow and analyzes what kind of growth is desirable and what should be avoided. We'll look at the difference between selling and marketing and which approach is better suited to your small business. You'll be given concrete examples of what worked and some detailed strategies and plans which are guaranteed to bring in new customers.
After taking the course, you can use the message board at the Suite101 Business and Economics Community to continue to get the support you need from the course developer and from other course participants.
Your business needs to grow so you can pay your bills, buy necessities, pay off your mortgage, send the kids to college and go on vacation but it also needs to grow so you can get rid of customers who cost a lot of time and money and never buy much or customers who don't pay when they should. The advantage of your own small business is that you can make it grow exactly the way you want.
You can put in lots of work and effort, make it grow large and profitable and sell it for a bundle. You can make it grow slowly, enjoy life and only take work you really want to do. You can make it squeeze every penny of profit out of its operations or you can be generous to your customers and suppliers. It's your business and your decision but to do any of this, the business has to grow.
In this course, you'll learn which growth strategies work in the long term and what you can do to get new business tomorrow. It will help you decide whether you should go for growth in sales or growth in profit, how to price for growth in one or the other and how to test your strategies before committing to them. We'll look at selling to small groups whose members all have similar interests, targeting small market niches which the big companies have missed, getting feedback on how your products or services are doing and networking to raise the profile of your business.
Once you know you can get new business when you need it, you can start deciding what you want your business to become. You can make sure the income you want from your business will be there when you need it. You can plan the growth of your business and be confident that you will be able to achieve the growth you need.
Lessons
Click here to see course syllabus
