A businessman who doesn't set out to aim in making their business grow is somehow doomed to be taken off the circulation. It's fairly rare to find small enterprises to maintain the scale of their operation for over ten years without being forced to grow to sustain. Nowadays, growth in businesses is synonymous with survival. But for those whose ambition recognizes the merit of growth and expansion, what things do they need to achieve their goals? There are several approaches depending on your situation and the environment you're in, but there key concepts that hold true across most, if not all fields of industry.

1. Maximize The Market

When you've started your business (the first four to five years), your sole focus is to stabilize and maintain operation and drive sales to sustain it. Now that you're ready to expand or scale your operations, one of the first things you'll need to look into is your client base. What you want to look for are opportunities to leverage these customers and your relationship with them to help grow your business.

Of course, this doesn't mean you'll restrict yourself with your current customers but they are a good place to start because you've already established a relationship with them. For example, large sports brands didn't start with a slew of sports apparel and accessories. They started with something but recognizing the opportunity to fill some void related to their product they offered something to fill it up and they didn't find it difficult because their brand is already recognized for its quality and expertise in the field. Think beyond upselling, be more pragmatic with your approach and create a model that would allow you to include additional products or services to offer to your current customers. Maximizing the market begins with maximizing your own market.

2. Optimize Technology

Almost everything today runs or is dependent on technology. It's difficult to imagine a business that is expecting to expand its size without utilizing modern technology such as the internet. Computer and information technology have come a long way and are right now ready to take the helm in driving the future of commerce. 

To grow, you must establish your technological capacity to cater to growing demands on multiple aspects. Large companies have in-house technical teams monitoring and managing their data. If you have the bandwidth to support an IT team then by all means. However, there are private companies that are more than capable of managed IT services at the fraction of the cost of having one in-house. Optimizing your infrastructure will allow you to cater to your growing client base, revved-up operational requirements, and other administrative tasks that you won't have time on. Technology helps you cope with growing pains and ensures that you'll have a handle on things as they change.

3. Be Customer Focus

There's no business that enjoys success without keeping its eyes on its customers. Their methods and processes are established long before an individual or an entity becomes a customer of their company. This means it starts with a marketing strategy, establishing a sales funnel, incorporating customer service, after-sales service, and others. This is about building a relationship with your customer even before they walk through your doors.

Building a relationship with customers is important because the competition is very stiff once you go up the ladder and making the most of what you can get is essential. Sales funnel helps you navigate through different scenarios and outcomes with every prospect and make certain adjustments that will ultimately result in a sale. Customer service doesn't only help retain customers (which is way more affordable than getting new ones) but can also attract new businesses and improve brand quality. There are many things that are beyond your control like how big your competitors are or how limited your resources now, but taking care of your customers well is something that is right within your control - so don't miss the opportunity.

4. Identify New Opportunities

After maximizing your current client base and optimizing operations to cater to increased demands, you'll be looking beyond the horizon to attract more customers. Using what you've learned from your client base, you can expand the data set or even add some criteria to your profile. For example, fast-food restaurants could have been successful with blue-collar individuals and young professionals who can afford their meals. However, many of them realized that children (even though they're without money) love their food so much that they're able to convince their parents to buy their meals there. This goes the same with video games that were initially made for kids, but are now dominantly played by adults. These scenarios are made possible because these restaurants and game developers paid attention to their customers even before they technically became one and capitalized on it

5. Form Strategic Partnerships

Forming partnerships can be a fruitful endeavor when done properly. You and your partners will be able to enjoy the benefits of a focused cooperative effort to reach a wide swath of the market easily. Look for business partners that complement yours, use your network to get into the table with them, and explain the benefits of working together. However, make sure these partnerships don't go against your core beliefs, and be ready to cut ties if your partners will drag your brand to the mud.

Sometimes acquiring new businesses are easier to expand your operation. Their existing system and client-base are already established and you'll be responsible for making sure that the acquired business is assimilated well into your own brand. But you must also do your due diligence to make sure that this is a profitable venture before you make your advancements. Take a look at their financial conditions, the strength and skills of their leadership and management, the breadth of their customer base, and existing contracts.

The key in partnerships or mergers is the potential synergy between the two businesses. The combined strength and influence of both companies must be stronger than if they individually stand on their own.

Businesses need to grow or they get trampled on, that's the harsh truth. However, growing is fundamentally a good thing as you'll be able to reap better rewards and depend less on a single product or service. Essentially, the benefits of expanding a business outweigh the risk and the hard work that it entails.