Business expansion strategy tips for tradespeople

Once your business is up and running it can be tempting to sit back and relax. This can be a valid strategy although it may be problematic.

For starters, what happens if you begin struggling to find paying customers? This may not be a huge problem for large companies, but for small businesses, it can be a real concern That is why using business expansion strategies are essential.

Following lockdown, the market may be saturated with customers who have been putting off necessary work. So, this is the perfect time to invest in business growth. You can also look into exploring new markets or new areas to grow your business.

Want to learn more? Keep reading to dive deeper into this and other areas including market expansion strategy and how to promote new services.

Common business expansion strategies

Let’s begin with a closer look at how business expansion strategies can help your small business. The most important thing to consider here is learning how to deal with the extra work generated using market expansion strategies (more on this later).

You can grow your business by:

• Hiring new employees: if you have plenty of work, one of the quickest business expansion strategies is to simply take on new employees. This will mean an initial investment in tools, vans and training, as well as continued overheads, so ensure your profit margins are correct before taking the leap. It will be worth the extra expense though as new workers can take on more work and will help to generate more revenue over time.
• Franchising: If you have painstakingly built up a fantastic reputation and branding, you may have the option of franchising your business. This involves letting other companies operate under your brand and company name while paying you an agreed upon amount every month/quarter.

This will prevent you from needing to pay out for hiring a new employee and means no irritating overheads in the long run. Although, you need to still have some oversight in case they do poor quality work or take other actions that could damage your brand.

• Outsourcing: If you simply don’t have the resources to deal with extra work and don’t have the time to look into hiring or franchising, outsourcing can be a great option. This involves paying another business to do the work, while you take a cut of the profits and deal with the customer management.
• Online platforms: Consider joining an online platform like Checkatrade to raise the visibility of your business and connect with more customers.

Market expansion strategy options

Having a market expansion strategy will help you to reach more customers and generate more work for your business. There are a number of brilliant ways to do this and if you don’t have the time to manage this yourself, there are a range of companies who can provide the service for you.

Consider using the following market expansion strategies:

• Market to new customers: Marketing is particularly helpful when used in conjunction with business expansion strategies and you have a wide variety of channels to use. Consider setting up a social media account with pictures and testimonials of your past work, build a website, develop your branding, use paid ads on search engines, run a story in the local paper, even use your van for advertising. The opportunities are endless.
• Cover new areas: Another way of reaching new customers is to expand your business to cover larger areas. This will mean charging a premium for customers who live further away, or you could hire workers from different areas to cover these new places.
• Change your target customers: Or, you could choose to target different customers than you currently do. Why not start working with corporate or even industrial clients?
• Offer discounts: If you want to reach new customers, word of mouth can be very successful. If your customers are happy with your work, offer discounts to anyone they refer to you. You could even offer price reductions for repeat business.

How to promote new services

You may have been operating the same way for a number of years so now is a great time to make a change. Choosing to promote new services can help your business to grow and flourish.

Wondering where to begin? Use the following tips to support your expanding business:

• Invest in your employees: Build up your employee’s skill levels and knowledge by investing in training for them. You could also hire new employees who are already trained in different areas. You can then offer these new services to your customers.
• Use marketing: Remember the different marketing channels we mentioned? Using social media, your website or advertising is the perfect way to let customers know you are now offering new services.
• Upsell current customers: Listen to your current customers whenever they mention another part of their home or premises they are unhappy with. If you want to promote new services, upselling these customers is a great option.
• Buy new tools and equipment: If you are planning to offer different services you will need to purchase some new tools and equipment to deal with the demand.
• Partner up: Find someone else who offers a different service and refer them work – it’s up to you if you want to do this for commission or not. In exchange they would do the same for you, helping raise awareness of your services too.

Choose Checkatrade

Choosing to join our large community of valued tradespeople is a decision you won’t regret. With a unique profile page that you can enhance with customer testimonials and photos of past jobs, reaching new customers has never been easier. In fact, we make it easier than ever for customers to find you with our dedicated search feature, connecting customers and tradespeople in seconds.

What’s more, Checkatrade offers free van vinyls as well as other marketing materials to our members. We will even help to improve your visibility through Google. Plus, our Checkatrade Buying Club can save you money on business essentials including tools and workwear.

To make use of these excellent benefits, and more, visit our join Checkatrade page to sign up today.

FAQs

What new services should I offer?

The best way to choose new areas to branch out into is to speak to your customers. It may even be that several of your customers are considering the same new project. You could also look into the services offered by similar companies to yourselves or do market research to identify potential areas for expansion.

How can I bounce back after lockdown?

During lockdown, many people put off renovations for safety reasons so it makes sense that there will be an influx of new customers once restrictions are lifted. If your business has suffered during this time, now is a great time to look into marketing.

Why not update your website with more examples of your work or start building your brand? You could also invest in new tools for greater efficiency or speak to past customers to see if they know of anyone looking for help.

Another brilliant option is to consider advertising (such as paid ads on search engines, adverts in local papers, even radio ads if you have the budget). This will help you get ahead of other similar businesses in your area.

Summary of business expansion strategy options

• Joining Checkatrade comes with a range of benefits and will help give your business credibility.
• Pursuing a market expansion strategy is a great way of finding new customers if you are looking to grow your business.
• Another way to build up your small company is to develop and promote new services so you can reach new customers and upsell existing ones.
• Business expansion strategies, such as outsourcing and franchising, are ideal if you have an influx of customers but don’t have the capacity to take on new work.