Business expansion rarely happens by accident, the 5 tips below will help you to tackle your business project and help you to challenge your thinking about the expansion. Ticking off each of the points below will help you align your plan to success.
1. Product & Market Enthusiasm
What product or service is going to be the cornerstone of your expansion plan? This product or service could be taking an existing product to a new market or a new product to an existing market. Either way, you need to define and focus on the product or service. Taking too much to market at the same time could create confusion about your product and your business.
A new product will require extensive market research to establish, does it already exist in the market, if so, who are your competitors & what will set your business apart from the existing players in the market.
2. Expansion Goals
Once you have finalised the product or service that will be helping drive the expansion. You will need to set meaningful goals that will keep you on track to achieving the expansion goals. These goals can be tabulated into a detailed expansion plan containing step by step actions with aligned responsibilities to who will do what and when.
You need to know what your growth potential is and what you are going to achieve. This will help you break it down into performance milestones.
3. Funding the Expansion
Many expansion plans don’t happen without some sort of funding, you need to define what sort funding or investment is required. Could be monetary or share investment or even through product marketing share.
You need to ask the following questions,
• Where is the funding coming from and what conditions attached?
• How & where is the funds going to be focused?
• Have I created a forecast on how the funding will increase the expansion?
4. Message to Market
Customers don’t find out about your new product or service by accident. Getting your customer to know about your products and services requires a detailed plan. This the following questions should be answered,
• Who is your target market?
• What type of message you want to send out?
• What media channels are you going to use? IE Social, Print, Radio Media?
• Do you need to the help of a communication specialist?
• What is the communication / marketing budget?
5. Support Plan
As a business grows, there is a strong focus on sales. However, there is nothing more frustrating to you customer if you cannot support them post purchase. Is your business and team ready to support your customer?
By Samukelo Khomo