growing your business

Okay - now you have a small business that you have started and are maintaining - what next? How do you grow your business? When should you think about hiring an employee? what are some other supplemental sources of income for you? How are you going to make contacts and promote your business? It's time to take the next step and we're here to help you!!

i. supplemental sources of income
Most investor would never consider putting all of their money into one stock - so why do we - as employees and contractors - limit ourselves to one income source? One of the best ways to grow your small business is to open yourself up to other income streams.

ii. bartering services
Okay - so you are a typical new small business owner - you have little money - a few clients and some spare time. But you need things - things like accounting services, legal advice, advertising help, publishing, business consulting, or the like. How do you transfer your time and experience into the services or products that you need? One great option - barter your services for the services that you require.

iii. travel
Travel may not be appealing to everyone - some people start small business to spend as much time as possible at home and not travel. However - one of the easiest ways to grow a business is to expand your market - by opening yourself up to travel you dramatically expand your market. This allows you to make more contacts, get more experience (and references), work more consistently and it gives your business more credibility as a valuable business (since the clients hired you instead of using a local business).

iv. promotion
One of the biggest hurdles with a small business is getting the exposure required to attract new clients. Your services/products could be the best in the world but without clients - you will fail. That is why promoting your business is SO important. That is why is it discussed twice on this site - once here as a tool to grow your business and once in the maintenance section - using advertising and promotion to maintain your business.

v. hiring an employee
This may seem incongruent with the other points on this list which address how to grow your business by attracting new clients - but it ties in better than you'd think. Hiring an employee is a serious commitment and should only be undertaken when you SURE that you can support an employee. But once you feel you are ready - hiring an employee is a great way to expand the work that your business can perform.

vi. subcontracting, partnerships and joint ventures
What if you are not ready to hire an employee but you have too much work to handle yourself? or you don't have enough work but you don't want to go back to being an employee? Then entering into a subcontracting, partnership or joint venture arrangement might be the way to go for you. There are also benefits beyond work sharing such as: reduction of money investment required (share costs, tools, work space, advertising and much more), ability to take on larger jobs, expand you skill set and geographic area, provide "one-stop-shopping" for complementary services or products.