After running a podcast for several years, I have interviewed hundreds of business owners and one of my most common questions is this: How do you grow a small business?
Also, during my years as an entrepreneur, I have grown two businesses; my dance school, and my hospitality business (aka running several Airbnb properties). Now, I am trying to grow a third business, my podcast.
Here are some tips on how to grow your small business.
1. Build a relationship with your clients
Your clients are your pot of gold, so why not give them the golden treatment?
When you show your clients that you care, they will do their best to stay with you. Loyal clients will forgo a better deal if they know they are your priority.
In my services business, client satisfaction was of utmost importance. For my podcast, it’s not about me, it’s about my listeners. I eliminate all the fluff and give my listeners the entertaining/inspirational/educational material they want.
2. Use social media as a tool, not as your end goal
The purpose of social media is to keep in touch with your clients. It’s not to grow your social media following to satisfy your ego.
I see business owners falling into the social media trap of creating content to satisfy the social media algorithms.
- Do you prefer white or black?
- You will not believe what happened next…
- X reasons why…
These social media click-baits do very little for your business and they can become a time suck.
Instead, use it to communicate important information about your product or service.
When you play these social media games, you repel real clients who might want to be informed about your business, and you attract a whole bunch of social media hobbyists whose whole day revolves around interacting in social media, but who have no real interest of doing business with you.
You can follow me on LinkedIn, Twitter, and Instagram. I will not waste your time with click-bait content.
3. Be consistent
“It takes 10 years to create an overnight success.” We have seen this hundred of times. A business chugs alone for many years and all of a sudden it becomes the proverbial overnight success. Well, I wouldn’t have become an overnight success witout the 10 year of grind done before.
In my podcast, people know that every week they will have an episode. They come back time and time again. Because of that consistency, the audience continues to grow, and one day someone will say that it was an overnight success.
4. Measure your progress
Is easy to get discourage when you are hustling day in and day out. Some times it’s hard to realize how long you have come along, all you see is the road ahead and the people (businesses) that are ahead of you, but if you measure your progress, you can look back and see how much progress you have made.
Tracking your progress will help you stay motivated and focused on your business progress.
Conclusion
The biggest secret to growing your small business is to love and enjoy what you are doing. If you love your job, your business, you will wake up every morning with a desire to continue learning, growing, and serving your clients.
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