How To Grow A Business In Nigeria.

Growing a business is not as hard as it seems, it’s mainly about implementing some business principles that enhance growth. In this article “how to grow a business in Nigeria” I will explain the key factors that will help you grow your business.

Bellow are some principles you can implement to help grow and expand your business faster.

Improve on your product

It’s easy to grow a business, when you have a product that deliver the promised value. That’s why you need to constantly improve on your product to meet-up with your customers expectation.

Experiment with your product. Find ways to get better, use the internet as a tool to have a close look into your competitor’s business.

Figure out what makes them stand out and why do people buy from them?

Buy and use their product, this will help you understand what makes them distinct and things you can introduce to your product to help you exceed their performance.

This will also guide you towards what your customers want and how they want to be served. Then you can improve your product performance and continue to deliver good value to your customers.

Make yourself easily accessible

Making yourself accessible is about creating multiple channels where your prospects can find you.

Make your business line available and always be ready to pick your calls. In-case you miss a call, return such call immediately and give a genuine reason why you missed the call earlier.

Connect with your customers on social media platforms, Post interesting and engaging content and also publish content about latest development and improvement within your business.

Welcome your prospects with open arms, let them know you value and appreciate their interest in your business.

Build Trust

People do business with those they trust and like. Trust is an essential element of a business that enhance the growth of such business. Mean your words and keep to your promises, don’t be desperate to make sales, instead have an intention of helping your customers and make it obvious.

When your customers trust you and your business, they feel comfortable around you. This usually lead to building a relationship that’s beyond just being a customer, that makes this strategy an effective way to grow your business fast by becoming close friend with your loyal customers.

In such practice, what you’ve done is making them a part of your business, by then it becomes difficult for them to neglect your brand for other brands. Especially when your product delivers result, giving them good value for their money.

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Create a sales funnel

A sales funnel can be described as the stages your prospects go through before becoming your customer. Different business has different sales funnel depending on the industry, product, and mode of operation.

A sales funnel could be as simple as paying attention to the words you say, that make your prospect show interest and eventually buy your product. Keep using same words during sales pitch. Sales funnel can also go as far as creating a free digital product online that helps you generate leads from people who opt-in for your free product. Create an engagement plan that will convert the leads to customers.

For other businesses, it could be a sequenced newsletter that gradually build connection with prospect before they finally become customers.

Whatever the situation might be, the most important thing is to understand the process that constantly help you attract customers. Refine such process and improve on it, that’s your sales funnel.

Keep improving on customer’s experience

An effective way to improve customer experience is to focus on the customer’s journey with your business, what are their needs, and recommendations. Use that to elevate your business performance and also to introduce new product that match your customers needs and expectations.

Gone where the days when anything goes. These days customers want a personalized service delivered to them the way they want it and how they want it served. With the high competition among businesses these days, it makes it easy for customers to change brand easily.

To help you keep your existing customers and attract new clients, you need to flow with your customers tide. Constantly ask for feedback about their opinion, expectations, and how they want to be served.

Combining their feedback with your observation will help you see your business from your customers point of view and be sure to implement key recommendations that will help improve your customer’s experience.

Celebrate your loyal customers

Everybody love to be celebrated and your customers are not exceptional. Celebrate them on their special days like birthday, anniversary, and other special occasion.

You could go a step further beyond sending greeting messages. You could send them a physical gift on their special day.

Imagine you waking up on your birthday morning to a gift from a business you patronize constantly.

The fact that such company keep your date in record is an amazing feeling, while receiving a physical gift from such company is emotional. Making you understand how important you are and how much they value and appreciate your patronage.

You also need to include such practice into your business, it helps build strong emotional connection with customers.

Introduce referral program

A referral program is any practice that encourage your existing customers to promote your business for commission.

Everybody loves cool cash, especially when it comes with little or no stress attached. A referral program is a stress-free means of income that your customers will like to be a part. They’ve used your product and they know it works, this makes it easy for them to promote such product.

Besides, chances are some of their close friends and relatives who feel the impact of your business in their life are already willing to join the train. Become your customer and experience the same feelings as their friend.

Referral program work best when you have a product that deliver great value to it’s customers.

It’s not mandatory to have a website before Introducing referral program. Simply specify a percentage of your profit that’s convenient for you to pay as commission to anyone who brings a new customer to your business and be sure to pay them the specified commission.

Hire the right people

The success of every business lies in the ability to it’s employee’s to discharge their duties accordingly and accurately.

Having the right team makes it easy for you to grow and expand your business faster. Your team can handle the day to day operations while you focus on improving performance and also developing new products.

One major challenge in business is team building and management. For you to have the right team, it’s important you hire people who are genuinely passionate about the position they’ve applied for, not people who just want to earn a living.

This is the first stage to having the right set of people on board.

You can check my Team Building and Management Online Certificate Course where I demonstrate best practice to building a team the will genuinely become passionate towards helping you build, grow, and expand your business.

Enhance established revenue source

In business, it’s much easier selling to existing clients than attracting new clients. Your existing clients are already used to your product. Most of them trust and like your brand, they wouldn’t mind trying a new product if introduced to them.

Take advantage of your existing customers by periodically introducing new products to them. And also be creative with your business, find ways to deliver the same business in multiples ways.

For instant, a fashion house who makes custom wears can introduce ready made wears, you can also introduce items like shoes, bags, hat and so on. These are products that compliment your business and your customers will like checking them out when introduced to them.

Internet based businesses could go as far as introducing monthly and yearly subscription to existing customers. These are ways to establish multiple revenue source from just one customer.

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Introduce your business to new audience

If you have a business that’s doing well in one location, it’s best for you to introduce the same business to audience within another location. The fact that people within your location are buying your product is an indicator that you have a good business that others will like to benefit from.

At times, all you need do is to extend your advertising effort to another location, then introduce delivery options that can help deliver your product to people in those locations.

Business growth is about attracting as much customers as possible. Customers that will become loyal to your brand and stick with your business for a long time to come.

Identify ads strategy that works for you

Not all advertising option works for all business, you need to figure out where your target audience dwell then channel your advertising effort towards that direction.

I have seen businesses benefit massively from social media and I have also seen businesses who vow not to use social media ads anymore, claiming that it’s a wast of time and money.

This does not mean that social media does not deliver results, in-fact social media is one of easiest a cheapest means of advertising. Just that all businesses will not get the same result from social media regardless of your targeting and creative design.

That’s why you need to identify what’s working for your business and do more of that.

There’s no one size fit all in business, pay attention to your ads strategies and document the results, this helps you identify ads platform that work best for your business. At the early stage, you might need to experiment with different ads platform, chances are you will get better result from some platform that others.

Now you are beginning to understand where you need to focus your advertising effort and budget.

Partner with other businesses

Working with businesses who’s product complement your’s, not only help sell more of your product, it makes it easier to introduce new products to your collection.

Like the fashion outfit example I used earlier, you can partner with those that make shoes, negotiate with them to help them sell their shoes for commission. In most cases this doesn’t usually require additional capital, all you need is to build trust and don’t betray the trust others have in you.

Most time, customers usually want more. A customer that just ordered a website design package could be interested in mobile app development and software development. If you don’t offer these additional services then it’s best you partner with businesses that offer such services.

Else, you will be leaving lots of cash on the table and if such customer find a business where he can get all his needs within one space, he might abandon your business and move to businesses that deliver all his needs.

Educate your customers

In some situation, people are not sure if they need a product or not. That’s because they are not sure of the result to expect from such product. When you educate your prospect, it help enhance their buying decision making them feel the need for your business, once they are clear about the results they should expect.

It’s not enough to assume your prospect knows it all, it’s your responsibility to help them understand how your product works, it’s benefit and how they can get the best result by using your product. This practice present you as a professional to your prospect, meaning that you understand your business in details.

If you have a website, adding a blog is a good way to educate online users about your business. Write articles about your products, services, and industry.

Bring your business closer to your audience, helping them have an idea of what to expect from your business.

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Never stop leaning

The quality of information a man has about his business determines the quality of his business.

Keep expanding your knowledge about your business and Industry, sign up for courses, read books, get yourself a mentor that can help improve your business performance, this will help grow your business much faster.

Many business fail, not because the owner is not putting his best but because he doesn’t know what will work for his business and refuse to learn from those that understand that stages better.

When you are not sure of how things work, it’s usually difficult but the moment you begin to understand how it works then it becomes fun and interesting. If you are having issue with any part of your business then you need to start learning about such topic. This will expose you to information that will help improve performance within such area.

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Give back to the society

Giving back is not just an act of charity, it’s a powerful means of advertising that connect with your prospect’s emotionally. When you give back, it present you as a generous person that care for others.

And the most common way people show appreciation and support to such act is to patronize your business to encouraging you to do more.

When giving, it’s important to give with generosity then take advantage of such practice to promote your business. Make pictures and videos, publish on social media and other platforms where your prospect and client can see it.

The interpretation of such demonstration is that… If you can go out of your way to extend support to your community, then you clients should expect the best service delivery and attention from you. These are practice that attract sales and makes it easy to grow and expand your business.

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Conclusion

To get the best result from this article, list out the principles described and identify the ones you need to implement now, that will help improve your business performance and start implementing them.

Pay attention to the results you get because some of the principles will deliver more result than others, depending on your product, industry, and mode of operation. Identify what’s working for your business and stick with that.

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