Today’s Guest Expert is Sandy Huang, owner of Pinpoint Tactics Business Consulting. Sandy’s client base ranges from start-up businesses, to companies on a steep growth tangent, to mature enterprises. Her unique consulting process helps her clients of any business lifecycle effectively tackle their challenges and strategically move to the next level. She is her clients’ “Executive Council” and acts as an objective sounding board.
In this post Sandy talks about how to identify ways to grow and expand your existing business.
How to Identify Growth Opportunities
(c) Sandy Huang
Pinpoint Tactics Business Consulting
Small business owners are always interested in learning ways to identify growth opportunities. Too many of us, though, get side tracked by the daily activities of running a business and forget to pay attention to opportunities that are right before our eyes. Before we know it, they have come and gone.
Here are three easy ways to uncover potential opportunities:
1. Examine your current client base:
The cost of securing a new client can be anywhere from five to 15 times that of securing a repeat client. Consequently, developing strategies that generate repeat business on a regular basis is essential to a small business’ bottom line. It goes without saying that you need to provide quality service in the first place for your clients to come back. But after a transaction is completed between you and a client, do you have ways to stay in touch and stay top of mind? Do you provide reasons and incentives for repeat businesses? Can you up sell some of your past and current clients with a new service or product you have? Do they have family, friends, and associates you can offer your services to? Assuming that you provided an excellent work to your clients, they can be your biggest fans who will gladly promote and endorse you.
2. Look at how you are currently receiving clients:
A small business’s client source is generally tied to its marketing effort. Besides identifying the appropriate marketing vehicles to reach your target clients, it is important to track the effectiveness of your tactics. Are your clients mostly through word of mouth referrals? Do they usually find you online? Are they typically attendees to speaking engagements you have throughout the year? Do your strategic alliances send the majority of your clients? Once you have identified the successful sources, explore creative ways to take those sources to the next level.
3. Identify complementary services/products that will open up a different market for you:
I recently asked a professional photographer colleague of mine to take pictures of my dog. She specializes in wedding and children’s photography and she does amazing work. After being pestered by my persistent requests, she made an exception and took my dog to the beach for a photo shoot. She had a blast and the photos turned out fantastically. She did not only enjoy the session, she uncovered a new market segment that complements her current client base well without having to change the fundamentals of her business. What is the service or product that complements your current offerings?
Beyond the above ideas, simply stay informed. Whenever there is a political, social, economical or technological change in the world we live in, or perhaps a policy change in the industry you operate in, there are business opportunities for those who are attentive.
Sandy Huang
Pinpoint Tactics Business Consulting
What are YOU doing to identify and exploit potential opportunities for business growth?
How to Create a High Profit Photography Business in Any Market
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{ 7 comments… read them below or add one }
I started a wedding photo biz 3 years ago. The first year was really hard and I almost went under. Then I started sending “family portrait” cards to my wedding customers one year later. I send postcards every 6 months and whenever things get slow.
Weddings are a weekend business. I now fill the rest of the week with baby pics and family pics from the original wedding customers.
Maybe I’ll add pets!
Vence
Great idea Vence. You actually COULD add pets … start by inviting your family portrait clients to bring their pet with them. Then suggest a session that includes the kids playing with their pet(s) and then portraits of the pets.
Getting great pet portraits is harder than you might think. It is a learned and practiced skill just like weddings, babies or family portraits!
I love figuring out how to make more money without increasing my workload.
Three months ago, I did some company portraits for a law firms top lawyers. I took the best photo of the company big honcho and had a huge print done on a canvas texture. Then I framed it. I brought it in and presented it … and ended up with an order for 15 additional prints & frames. My profit was over $1500 for very little work. I have now done this several times and have added over $5000 income that I never had last year.
I’d love to see other photographer’s ideas for increasing their business.
That’s great, Michelle. Given that a part of your business revenue is product based, up-selling by making these products visually available for viewing is an excellent idea. Sometimes clients will also appreciate the fact that you’d identified their needs before they even thought of them.
I’ve recently used Sandy’s services myself and would very highly recommend her. She helped me identify the areas of my business that I can improve and how exactly to go about doing that. We’ve implemented some steps to take my business to the next level which I have already begun, and that I know would not have happened without Sandy’s help! I’ve also been 10x more efficient with my time since working with Sandy, something that I know any photographer could benefit from!
Wow, what a great testimonial. I also work regularly with Sandy … she is an amazing resource, which is why I invited her to be one of our Guest Experts!
I found Sandy an amazing resource.Her ideas are the original route to success.I hope this could help my business grow faster.