Work Smart: 3 Tips to Help Expand Your Business

​If you are reading this you might be thinking of starting your own business. You might also be someone who already has a start-up business, just looking for some helpful tips. Well, either way, that's what you will get here. Everyone has dreamt of starting their own business and being their own boss. What only a few think about though is how to properly do it. Here are 3 key tips to help you expand your starting business.

​Identify the Trends
Much like anything else businesses have phases or seasons. There is the good season when business is booming. There is also the not-so-good season where things are bad or okay. Now what you do is take note of what is happening around the good season, as well as what is happening during the bad season. 

It is simple, imagine you are a candy store. Your best sellers are chocolate bars. But, suddenly people are looking for a specific kind of chocolate bar. Do you ignore that? Of course not. You ask your customers about it. Because that might be your next big seller. Identifying trends is important but often misguided. When you see a dip in sales try to ask your customers what you can do better, or what they are looking for exactly. 

Observe which businesses are doing well when yours is not so hot. Also, take note of what they are doing. That will inform you of what you should do next to improve. This now leads us into the next tip.

Adapt to Needs
Now, before we get started here, this is not to say that you copy every trendy thing you see. Far from it. What I am saying is to use the information you have gathered from tip 1 to help you plan your next step. 

Let us stick to the candy store analogy. So there is a growing demand for a certain candy bar. Does that mean you immediately neglect your original best seller in favor of this new one? No. That is called bandwagoning and it is dangerous. What you can do is to lessen your stock of the best seller and stock up on the other candy. This allows you to adjust what you are doing at a manageable pace.

That tip isn't just for candy stores though. Restaurants do that as well. When people started to get conscious about their health fast food chains introduced salads. These opened their doors to health buffs who would never touch their food otherwise. It also keeps their original patrons from totally going away.

Set Small Goals
I bet when you started your business you dreamed that it would be big and successful. Or, at the very least self-sustaining making a bit of profit. But, if you set that as your only goal you are setting yourself up for a long road of disappointment. 

To be clear, having a successful business is not a bad goal. In fact, it's a great one. The problem is that is a long-term goal. It's like wanting to be a great football player like Lionel Messi. You don't become that good after a day of training. That comes with a lot of time, practice and experience.

So you start small. If you want to play ball first be good with the basics. If you want to have a good business get a solid foundation first. Build your network of returning clients. After that expand your services, and everything else will follow that. Not all your steps will be good, but knowing you made the smaller goals keeps your eyes on the prize. Again, there is nothing wrong with wanting to be successful. 

As an added bonus, another smart thing you can do is to protect your business.  Unfortunately, we cannot predict the future we can only prepare and buying insurance is a step in that direction. 

At Black And Associates Insurance, we aim to provide comprehensive insurance policies that make your life easier. We want to help you get the insurance that fits your needs. You can get more information about our products and services by calling our agency at (509) 464-0058. Get your free quote today by CLICKING HERE.