If you are planning on undertaking any sort of expansion for your business, the chances are you are feeling a heady mix of excitement and sheer terror. For a long time, your startup may have been successful in generating a solid amount of revenue and a tidy proportion of profit. As such, you have become complacent in your good fortune. After all, you may be thinking if it isn’t broke, why try and fix it. However, the entrepreneur in you is screaming to take advantage of the momentum and potential that your incredible business idea has. Yes, you are doing well, earning a living and enjoying being the master of your own destiny. But, this doesn’t mean that you can’t have ambition and strive for more.

Any sort of expansion for your venture will involve an element of risk. How do you think Richard Branson became such a successful entrepreneur? He never rested on his laurels nor did he accept the status quo. While your ambitions might not be as ambitious as Virgin, there is still potential in your startup ready to be tapped. For you to challenge the market and expand, you need to be willing to take on an element of calculated risk. Take a look at these ways you can expand your business.

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Go Global

The idea of expanding your business overseas is a grand one. What works in your home nation may not work overseas. Take Taco Bell for example. This chain is massively successful in the United States and has hundreds of restaurants in every state. However, this is a cuisine and notion that has never taken off abroad or in the UK. Why? Market research showed that there was no hunger for this sort of fast food. Take a look at your own service and product and decide whether you can expand globally.

Undertake some solid market research and involve a specialist firm to ask the right questions. This will cost money to complete effectively, but it will give you real insight as to whether your idea is truly international. It may not be. This might mean making some regional tweaks or it might mean abandoning global expansion ideas altogether. However, it might just suggest that your idea is international and ripe to take overseas opening up your markets, potential customer base and could see your brand becoming a global player.

Expand Your Product Range Or Services

If you are keen to make more of a name for yourself within your chosen industry, you might be keen to expand your portfolio of products or services. James Dyson was once synonymous with vacuum cleaners. Fast forward a decade and he is now the proud inventor of hairdryers and fans. If you are specializing in the creation of custom made tee shirts, why not expand your range to hoodies, shoes, and accessories. Yes, this will cost money, your supply chain may become more complex, and you will require a cash injection, but you could make a lucrative amount of money in the long term.

If your services are bespoke to IT contractors, you are a plumbing firm, or you have a single restaurant, consider branching out and getting bigger and broader in terms of stores, physical locations, and range. To do this, you may require more staff.

Sourcing suitable employees can be tough, especially if you take on a recruitment drive yourself. An alternative is to head to a site like www.contractlaboursydney.com.au to see if they might have your dream candidate on their books. Specialist recruiters can tap into a wealth of talent that you don’t have access to meaning that you can interview only those individuals who are qualified and who will fit into your already established team. Getting another team of people to work on your recruitment frees you up to implement other more pressing aspects of your business vision.

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Go Online

If your business is very much retail based and concentrates on a physical high street presence, it might be time to consider heading online. You need to move with the times and focusing your attention on the Internet will pay dividends. Every year more and more businesses are crumbling because they refuse to move into the twenty first century. Large companies such as Woolworths and HMV are dwindling and falling by the wayside. These aren’t tiny startups with one or two stores, but vast conglomerates that are struggling to hold their own in a fast paced and modern marketplace.

It’s time for you to move with the times and welcome the new millennial way of shopping. E-commerce is becoming more popular as people are choosing to shop on their laptop from the comfort of their own living room rather than hot foot it to the high street. Make sure that your website is intuitive, usable and appealing to your target market like the ones listed at usabilitygeek.com. If you sell baby clothes make your branding cutesy, jolly and gentle. If you concentrate on selling steampunk attire, make your branding more gothic and characteristic of the genre. Use your common sense, but apply your branding across every aspect of your online presence.

As well as your website, you need to be honing your social media channels and blog. With a variety of online platforms from which to communicate with your customers, you can post relevant content that is highly readable and that will get shared online. This free sort of online marketing and advertising is invaluable to the smaller startup and can repay you many times over.

According to experts like Andy Defrancesco, expanding your business doesn’t always mean making your brand bigger or spending more money, although it can do. Instead, it can mean making your business more streamlined, fit for purpose and ready to take on your rivals in the twenty first century. While a daunting prospect, expanding your business will result in greater revenue and stronger profits leading to a brand that is globally more valuable. If you don’t want to be complacent and you have many more business ambitions to fulfill, it’s time to expand your startup.

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Hrvoje Horvat
hrvojeh75@gmail.com