The ultimate fantasy of most people running a micro business is to run into a Dangote-like character who listens to your business ideas and then asks you to bring a proposal. You submit your proposal, he reads it and the following week, "Bam!", he gives you 100 million naira to fund the growth of your business. If you have these fantasies, you're not alone. I've been there. Those fantasies rarely come true. You're better off starting from the scratch. Nobody has it that easy. No one. An speaker once remarked that your chances of raising millions to grow your small business in Nigeria is almost equal to your chances of being struck by lightening on a very sunny day. Believe me, that speaker was very optimistic. Your chances aren't that good.
So what does a small business owner do to jumpstart growth in his business. Here are a few tips.
1. Focus your efforts on selling more to your current customer base.
Analyze the list of all clients and customers who buy from you regularly. If you don't have such a list, now would be a good time to start collecting that information.
Run promos focused at your current customers. You already have crossed the trust barriers with them so come up with creative promos that will ensure that they buy more from you. Before you decide to go about spending scarce naira on advertising and marketing to new customers, ensure that your current clients and customers are actually buying more from you. With web2sms, it's easy to keep in touch with current customers and it's also cheap. Just ensure that you have permission from them before you start sending out SMS to them so that your text messages aren't intrusive. You might want to send your web2sms one in two weeks or once in a month depending on the type of products you sell. A spa on Lagos island schedules highly discounted facials for clients regularly during off-peak periods. As result almost all the clients show up more regularly and they generate more sales during periods which were usually slow.
2. Brainstorm on new products and services you can sell to existing customers.
It's easier to sell new products to your existing customer base than it is to sell to complete strangers. So again, before you focus on attracting new customers, think of complementary products and services you can add to your offers and inform your current customers about them. My barber recently introduced scalp treatment services (just imagine!) and all his current customers including me now pay for 30minutes of scalp treatment once every month. That single service has increased his monthly revenue by 50%. He didn't even have to spend anything on advertising the new service.
3. Ask for referrals.
You won't believe how incredibly effective this can be. Focus your initial energies not on advertising to strangers but on convincing your current customers to refer you to their friends, family and associates. You might want to make it easy for them to tell others about you. Here's where you develop a word of mouth tool- a gift that you give them that can spark up conversations about you and your business. Let me give you my own example- in running my market strategy firm- market intel, I am actively on the look out for opportunities, books, trade fairs, seminars and sessions that can benefit my clients. Most times I make arrangements for these little gifts and inform my clients about them. I have booked expo seats for clients who were thrilled at an opportunity to meet industry leaders. I didn't need to do it. It wasn't in our service offer, but these gifts have a way of cementing business relationships. As a result, I have gotten some very powerful referrals from current clients who tell their colleagues of how amazing their market strategy consultants are.
So don't be afraid to allocate funds to buying and giving meaningful gifts to your current customers. It is more rewarding than pumping that money into advertising to complete strangers who more often will ignore your adverts.
4. Sell to strangers.
Once you have ensured that you are milking your current customer base of every possible sale, then you can take on the unenviable task of attracting new customers. I call it unenviable because it can cost you ten more times to get a new customer than to manage relationships with existing ones. If you have effectively implemented steps one to three, you should have made enough profit to finance your marketing to new customers. It's a necessary evil at times but from my professional experience as a market strategy consultant, if you find yourself always selling to new customers, you have a war on your hands.
You can't rush business growth. Like every veteran businessman knows, it takes time, patience and persistence to build a great enterprise. But I'm sure that you are more than up to the task. After all, you're still running your business.
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