You don’t want your company to grow too quickly, or you’ll have supply and demand issues. But you don’t want it to grow too slowly, either. Finding that sweet spot in the goldilocks zone is critical. There are a lot of factors that can be slowing your growth at the moment. Here are just a few of the complications facing you during the pandemic:

Lack of Clear Goals

Setting goals for businesses is important, but being able to set them correctly is also tricky. Goals have to be concrete, concise, and achievable in order to be useful. Set too high, they seem unattainable and nobody reaches for them. If too nebulous, they are wishy-washy. A Goal must be, instead, specific and within reach. Don’t worry, you can create more long-term goals as you go! You are looking for not just a long-term point, but a specific next step to keep you motivated.

Too Much Debt

If your business is wallowing in too much debt right now, you are not alone, but it can hamper your growth factor. All businesses will hold some debt. You have to, however, have enough capital to buy new products and do the work you need to focus upon. Being overwhelmed by debt is, especially in this past year, not an unusual problem for small businesses. It’s important, however, to make sure that you have a good balance.

Not Charging Enough

Finding a good balance between your prices and what your customers want to pay is complex. Especially when you need more income, it can be tempting to sell your products and time for less than they are worth. Especially if your company makes their products, it’s important to value your time and effort well. Many are reentering the workforce after a delay, and if you are a displaced homemaker, learning to value your time as well as your talents can be especially complex. Remember, if you price things too cheaply, they will be perceived as being of less value!

Doing Too Much

It can be a complex task as a small business owner to juggle all of the tasks involved in creating a functioning business. One of the most complex is the many skills, from social media marketing, to cyber security, which a modern businessperson needs to be able to use. Don’t despair! Outsource some of your time and money to using specialists. For example, you can let your business grow by outsourcing your IT services. This leaves your time free to do the things you love, while allowing your business to still be digitally secure.

Needing New Leads

Generating leads can be one of the most complex things during an economic downturn. Social media marketing is your friend, here. Posting can be scheduled in advance to go out at the times most needful for your personal preferred demographic. This means you can reach the most people at once. Knowing which way your potential leads prefer contact matters as well. Some age groups respond better, for instance, to email than others.

Being Hard to Find

It can be difficult to make sure all those complex tasks are continually taken care of and making sure you have good SEO is one of the most frustrating to manage. You want search engines to be able to find you, and near the top of the list, which means updating your blog frequently. One of the simplest, though, is making sure that you are listed in the Google Business pages, and then paying attention to the ratings there. It’s important to resolve any complications as quickly as possible. Being easy to find and having good ratings makes you much more likely to get new word of mouth business as well.

Unclear Branding

Your branding must be clear and standardized over all social media websites. This means you have to know what image projection you want to achieve in advance of hiring a marketer who specializes in social media. Some brands are formal, some informal, and often you have a specific demographic in mind, all of which means in order to gain an increase in a return on your marketing investment, you need to have your branding match the trends wanted by those specific demographics. This is complex and needs research to determine; even major brands can make big blunders sometimes (baby peanut comes to mind). Think of your brand like putting together a great outfit: presentation matters.

Use Your Expertise and Voice

You already know that using your expertise on your company’s blog helps promote your SEO results. You might even know that recording small snippets of your specialized knowledge is helpful to drive users to your site. Using your personal voice and knowledge is a magnificent way to personalize your advertisement. This can mean doing interviews on podcasts, beginning your own podcast, or filming tutorials for YouTube! Four-minute videos of how to reset maintenance notifications in a car, for example, can say more towards your personality and helpfulness than pages of information on how to do the same thing! You can also offer services Pro-Bono. Besides the great karma you build up, it also brings you into contact with new networking friends. Some of these will become new clients, and can refer clientele to you, already knowing that you both choose to do good work and to be kind. Not only that, but you can increase your expertise, especially if you are working alongside others who can mentor your progress.  

Though it can seem like it at the time, having a slow down period is not the worst thing for a growing business! You want to find ways to grow, and if your hectic schedule is always only upward momentum, there is no time for course correction. Hanging on tight while rocketing to success often leads to just as quick failure in the future. Instead, find ways to shift your perspective, your time and talents, in order to benefit while your growth begins once again.

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