Article written by Phil Spensieri
As a business owner, there must’ve been a time when you were convinced that you had to grow your business in order to be successful. This couldn’t be further from the truth.
Through my experience working with other business owners, I’ve learned that how they define growth varies. While some business owners measure growth through the number of clients they obtain, or types of clients they add to their roster, others measure it through ROI.
Regardless of how you measure growth, determining whether or not you want to grow your business is a key aspect in establishing your long-term business goals.
Here are my recommendations to maintain quality of service while keeping your existing clients happy.
The importance of maintaining quality
If you are looking for growth, it can be helpful to have specific resources in place in order to get you there. However, regardless of whether or not you’re looking to expand your client roster, or if you’re simply looking to sustain your existing clients, maintaining quality of service is an essential aspect of retention.
The Pareto Principle, or the 20/80 rule, states that approximately 20% of your clients account for 80% of your revenue. With this in mind, I find that providing your existing clients with the highest quality of products or services will ensure that you continue to see a growth in revenue, even when you aren’t actively trying to bring in new clients.
Creating a plan for quality
Even if you are implementing a strategy to gain more profitable clients, it’s crucial to ensure that you don’t neglect your existing clients in favour of finding new ones. I often recommend that business owners create a concrete plan that details how to provide greater quality services to both new and existing clients.
By writing this plan, you will have a better understanding of any quality issues in your business, ensure that you can implement a strategy for correcting these issues, and can make the necessary steps toward safeguarding your business against making them again. This is also beneficial when tracking your progress, which I find to be particularly helpful for business owners who may wish to review their business growth in the future.
Keeping up with client demands
Many business owners that I work with are interested in growth, especially in terms of growing their client roster. If this is the case for you, you may be wondering how to keep your clients happy. What can you do to make sure that you are providing the same exceptional quality of products or services during your business’ period of growth?
It can be challenging to keep up with client demands, especially during transitional periods. However, I’ve found that delivering personalised solutions, offering incentives or rewards to current clients, and demonstrating your appreciation for their business are all excellent ways of ensuring that your clients receive the same quality of service that they’ve come to expect.
Whether you’re providing a limited time offer to loyal clients, or a subscription model to facilitate a better client experience, keeping up with client demands is something that I find helpful for all business owners.
Growth takes on many forms. In order to determine what you want growth to look like in your business, and how you can maintain a level of quality of service, I recommend aligning your perception of success with your perception of business growth. Although your goals may change, your personal vision of success will act as a compass as you navigate through any period of growth and transition.
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