There are countless theories about how to run a business, and when it comes down to it, every strategy has the same end-goal: increasing your profits. Whether you’re working on brand awareness, innovative product development, or increasing workplace efficiency, the goal is always to increase sales and cut operating costs.
It is obviously difficult to increase your profits in a competitive business environment where everyone has the same goal. That’s why experts in business strategy are in high demand for the value they can bring to a business. At the same time, there are plenty of easier ways to increase your profits that your business might not be taking advantage of at the present. Before you go anywhere else, make sure you’ve reaped the benefits of these easy ways to increase profits.
Put your best staff on the most profitable tasks
Every business owner has some staff members who just do a better job than others. It’s important to recognise who your best performers are. However, it’s equally important to know what roles within your company are more critical for your bottom line than others. Which roles these are depends on your specific business. For example, for new and growing businesses, it could be aggressive marketing. Putting your best performers in a role that has them building a brand image and bringing new customers on board.
For a larger business, it could be looking at all your price points to increase your margins. Or, it could even be looking at your internal structure and figuring out how to maintain the same level of profitability for less expense. Either way, you’re going to want to have your best-performing people on that job.
Cross-sell and Upsell Your Customers
Research consistently shows that the best way to increase your sales is to market to your existing customers. While getting new customers is always important, success rates are far higher when cross-selling and upselling existing customers compared to pitching to entirely new ones.
Upselling refers to pitching higher-value iterations of the same product, for example, a premium gym membership. Cross-selling refers to selling related, but distinct, products in the same order – would you like fries with that?
You could try creating bundles of existing products to create higher-value options without having to do too much. If it’s services you offer, create tiered levels of these services with more features available for higher prices and aggressively market the premium services to your basic customers.
Maximise your digital footprint
Now that most sales happen online, your digital footprint is more important than ever. A maximised digital footprint takes advantage of all the main social media channels, including Facebook. Instagram, and LinkedIn, and contains a good website with an active SEO strategy. If your business is deficient in any one of these areas, it should be an immediate area of focus that will help you to reach new customers effectively.
Another part of your digital footprint is your social proof. Getting customers to put 5-star reviews of your business on major websites, getting bloggers and influencers to talk about your products, all of these are ways to expand your digital footprint beyond your own channels and get your brand out into the public sphere where it can take on a life of its own.
Join a business network
A problem many small-to-medium enterprises (SMEs) face is how to compete with much larger companies with more significant resources at their disposal. These businesses would benefit from joining some kind of business network that connects SMEs to give them the same opportunities and resources as larger firms.
Bartercard is one such network, and it additionally contains a bartering scheme where you can sell excess capacity to other companies in the network. This system directly provides you new opportunities to sell and find value that you didn’t have before, so across the board, business networks viable options to increase your profits.
Join a business network that boosts your profits across the board
When you join Bartercard, you’ll immediately gain access to our expansive bartering system. By trading your excess business capacity with tens of thousands of like-minded businesses from New Zealand and around the world, you’ll get new opportunities to bring back real value that you never had before. But it’s so much more than that – you’ll also open up new opportunities to network and connect with other people like you, and who’s to say where those opportunities will lead? Contact us now to find out more.
