For many small business owners, keeping the lights on and operations running takes up so much time that growth strategies can get pushed to the back burner. This presents a major problem. Your business won’t be able to compete in the long term if it doesn’t develop and grow. Not only is it important to find and build relationships with new clients, but products and services need to be improved, new market opportunities need to be researched, and your business’ structure itself needs to be optimised and scalable.

There are many great strategies that businesses in different industries can apply with great success, but we’d like to take a look at a few that generally apply to growing businesses of all kinds.

Build an innovative company culture to delight customers

To grow reliably your business needs to be an industry leader, and a great option for your potential customers. That makes complacency dangerous. To ensure that your products and services are top of the line, it’s critical to continually develop and look for ways to improve your customers’ experience. Doing this well means that you’ll be able to go above and beyond your clients’ expectations.

Gather customer feedback, but don’t rely on it

An important part of improving your business is listening to customers and incorporating their feedback. However, this is effectively just troubleshooting your products and services, rather than really breaking new ground. To do that, you’ll need to apply your and your employees’ professional expertise to experiment and find new ways to make your products and services more effective and comprehensive.

Always be ready to invest

Growth opportunities come in many shapes and sizes, and most of them require some financial investment. Perhaps you need more space to serve a large incoming client, or funds to quickly acquire more stock, or new equipment to fill a challenging but lucrative order. Whatever the case, you’ll need funds quickly, before your window of opportunity closes.

That’s where we come in. Fifo Capital is not like your primary banking institution, where it can take weeks or months to get a loan approved. Rather, we offer a variety of different solutions, from small business loans, to stock loans, to invoice financing, that you can be approved for within just 24 hours. Building a relationship with a smaller scale financial institution like us is a great way to get the funds you need when you need them. We develop a 1:1 relationship with all our clients, so you don’t have to deal with call centers or impersonal representatives who aren’t familiar with your business every time you want to get something done.

Leverage new technologies

In the past it was possible for most types of businesses to operate and compete for years without making any significant technological upgrades. With the rate of technological development and innovation only accelerating every year, those times are over. New technologies can be applied in creative ways to reach new markets, to reduce operating or transaction costs, or to improve the quality products and services. For example, new payment options are constantly being developed that can reduce domestic and international transaction costs. This is particularly relevant for international payments, because relatively recent exchange services like HiFX can save businesses as much as 6% on exchanges and transfers. That adds up very quickly, and could make or break an entire business’ budget.

Develop employees to drive internal development

For a business to grow sustainably, its internal structure, procedures, and employee expertise need to be developed to meet the bigger and more complex needs of the organisation. The only way to do that effectively is to build a culture of learning and personal growth for employees.

Workers need to be encouraged and incentivised to pursue a deep understanding of their industry, as well as a broad understanding of the roles of their coworkers and their organisation at large. Motivated employees who pursue this kind of engagement with their job are naturally better able to recognise inefficiencies and possible issues with existing procedures. They’ll also have an easier time coming up with possible improvements and solutions, and will be better at incorporating new ideas in an effective manner since they’ll understand the broader context of any changes. That broader context is also critical in helping workers to collaborate more effectively, and to develop complex solutions to complicated problems.

Successful growth strategies are difficult to implement, and they’re dependent on a lot of different variables. Depending on your industry, your location, and your economic environment, the rules can be different for different types of businesses. Whatever situation your business is in, however, these strategies are a great way to start creating a growth-friendly environment for your venture.