A recent Forbes article states that 99.9% of businesses across the U.S. are considered small businesses. While larger corporations often get the spotlight, it's true that small businesses are the heart of our economic system.
Though it can feel like a risk to pursue your own business, your business community and business experts can help you through the process. Don't go it alone. So how can you ensure that your small retail business thrives despite the challenges you'll face?
We're here with six business tips to help you grow your small retail business and find your target market.
1. Have a clear vision and specific goals
As a business owner, you've likely felt overwhelmed and spread thin many times throughout your business journey. It can be easy to feel burnt out while creating a business plan. Our advice is to not do too much at once.
As you're thinking about ways to improve your business efforts, do your best to narrow down your vision and make it clear to yourself, your business partners, stakeholders, and employees. This is going to help you set specific goals and measure your success.
So how do you create a clear business mission? Here are a few tips:
- Know what you want to achieve as a business
- Make sure your goals are achievable and measurable
- Align your core values with your business goals
- Get your team on board with your mission and goals
One simple way to begin deciding on your goals as a small business is to create long-term goals. Some small businesses will have quarterly goals, 1-year goals, 3-year goals, and 10-year goals.
You can have goals for all of those signposts along the way. There are no specific rules for how to set goals for yourself. As long as you have a long-term vision for your business and your team is on board, you're sure to see your small business turn into a successful venture.
2. Create a team you can rely on
Starting a business is not a simple task. It comes with stress, ups and downs, and a wide range of emotions. A pillar of every small business is support that comes in the form of a team. Even if you're starting out very small, having a team of trustworthy, reliable team members will help your business idea to become a reality.
Maybe your small business started as a one-person business—many of them do. As you begin to see growth, add people to your team and draw on their experience and expertise. Turn your one-person business into a supportive business team that you can rely on through the ups and downs.
3. Have a focused marketing effort
Without a marketing plan, your business will stagnate. Word of mouth can only go so far. Marketing efforts can take the form of social media marketing, online marketing, email marketing, advertising, and so many others.
Using social media accounts like Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram, and Twitter will help you to establish your business as a brand, share offers and updates, and connect with your target market on a regular basis.
Establishing an online marketing presence is an important business decision and can expand your capabilities as a small business.
4. Invest in retail technology
Whether an online business or a physical retail store, retail technology is the key to both finding and maintaining your customer base. Not only will retail technology delight your customers, it will streamline the sales process, making extra time for relationship building.
Implementing retail technology like artificial intelligence, contactless payment, QR codes, and clienteling software will turn potential customers into loyal customers, helping your business to succeed and grow.
Clientbook is the ideal clienteling software that allows you to store and track customer data and communicate with clients. It's a valuable resource that will improve your retail sales and optimize the customer experience.
5. Train your sales team on relationship selling
Clienteling and relationship selling are more than just customer service techniques. It goes beyond that and into the practice of cultivating genuine relationships with your customers.
Train your sales team on how to connect with clients, how to get to know them and their preferences, and how to establish long-term relationships that will benefit both your business and your customer base. When your small business practices relationship selling, you'll see the benefits in your business finances and in your customers' experience.
6. Center the client experience through Clientbook
Top-notch business help looks like anticipating your clients' needs and preferences, and then helping them to find what they're looking for. Clients are the ingredient that makes your business function, so it makes sense that centering their experience is the key to a successful small business.
Examine the customer experience process from start to finish: A customer comes in for the first time. What is their first experience? What should be the second? The third? Is information about them being gathered? Are they developing rapport with the salesperson?
These long-term communications with customers are all features Clientbook's software encourages and enables for retail businesses. Clientbook allows you to send personalized offers and promotions to your customers, save their wish lists, and recommend products based on their preferences. Centering the customer experience is the most effective way to grow your small retail business.
What will convert shoppers from a one-time customer to a four-times-a-year client? Clientbook's clienteling software.
Conclusion
With these six pieces of business advice, you can go forward with confidence knowing a bit more about what it takes to grow a successful small business.
Take advantage of the business tools at your fingertips. Soon you'll be streamlining the mundane tasks of your business while focusing on the most important aspect of the process—developing relationships with customers.
Book a demo today to see how Clientbook can help you get ahead in your small retail business.
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