Growing Your Business Large

Growing Your Business

March 13, 2024

Now that your business is up and running, it's time to think about growing it. Unlike other steps when starting your business, you'll be revisiting this step regularly.

The first thing you should know about growing your business is to never stop growing. While we mentioned this in the previous article, we can't stress enough how important this is. Growing means constantly changing, expanding, and evolving. Never let your business become stagnant. If you do, it could spell bad news, after all.1

There are several ways you can grow your business. Here are a few examples to get you started.

Watch Market Trends

One major way to grow your business is to stay on top of market trends. Because business and industry are constantly changing, it pays to be "in the loop." For example, the trend of self-driving cars is very relevant to the insurance industry. Less accidents means less need for insurance, and insurance companies will need to avoid being caught off-guard.1

As a business owner, it may be hard to avoid these kinds of industry changes. However, if you stay on top of them, you can make the best of them. Being in the loop prepares you to adapt to these changes and keep your doors open.

Get More Funding

As you grow your business, you may run into situations where you need more money to do what you want to do. For example, you may want to:2

  • Buy some new equipment.
  • Renovate your location.
  • Offer a new product or service.
  • Open a new location to draw new crowds.

Also, your business goes through "slow periods" occasionally. During these times, you may need funding to stay afloat.2

Either way, you'll need a
business case to get more funding. A business case is a statement that tells the funder why you need more capital and how much you're asking for. As funders want to make sure the money is being managed well, the business case is crucial to getting more funding.2

When you prepare a case, be persuasive and make a good case. Tell the funder about your management and professional skills. This way, they will be certain that funding you will be a good investment. Also, you should add this new funding to your business plan if you go through with it.2

Open New Locations

Expanding locations is a common practice for many businesses. Even small businesses may want to open more than one location in their city or state to increase their reach.

Note that when you open a new location, you're serving a different market. In earlier articles, we stressed the importance of location and how it affects your "crowd." So, before you expand, have an idea of your new customers and how you will serve them. If needed, update your marketing plan to handle these changes.3

You'll also need to know about any licenses, permits, zoning laws, and other regulations specific to the new location. These especially apply if you're opening in a new city or state.3 However, you should keep them in mind even if your new location is in the same city. Some of the aforementioned things (like zoning laws) still affect different areas in a city.

If you open in a new state, you might also need something called
foreign qualification. To clarify, your business is considered
domestic to the state in which you originally open and register it.4 Foreign qualification gives you the right to operate as a foreign entity in another state. To get this, you'll need to file a
Certificate of Authority with the state in question and pay the applicable fees. In some states, you'll need a
Certificate of Good Standing as well.3

Finally, if your new location is in a new state, your business will have to pay taxes to that state. Before you open, learn as much as you can about the tax laws and guidelines in the new state.

For more information about expanding and relocating, check out these Illinois Department of Commerce resources.

Merge or Acquire

You may have heard the term "mergers and acquisitions" at some point. With that said, both can be ways of expanding your business. While similar, there is a major difference between the two. When two companies
merge, both combine to form a new super-company. When a company
acquires another, the latter stops existing as its own entity and becomes part of the acquiring company.5

Before you merge with or acquire another company, you'll have to do several things. These include finding out how much the other business is worth and making an agreement with them. Also, you'll have to figure out if and how your ownership will transfer.5

What's Next?

Now that you know the basics of starting your own business, you might be left wanting more. After all, these articles are not a comprehensive guide. It would be easy to fill up an entire book or two with all there is to know about starting a business.

Because of this, we highly suggest seeking further resources. For example, you can visit your local
Small Business Development Center. If you live in the Chicago area, you can contact the local SCORE location. Both places are great centers for getting advice and guidance. As for online resources, some great places to look are the
Small Business Administration and Illinois Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity's
Small Business Assistance hub. Additionally, SCORE offers plenty of resources on
its website.





Sources


1Kevin Lust, Director, SBDC (Springfield, IL)


2https://www.sba.gov/business-guide/grow-your-business/get-more-funding


3https://www.sba.gov/business-guide/grow-your-business/expand-new-locations


4https://www.delawareinc.com/ourservices/foreign-qualification-for-corporations-and-llcs/


5https://www.sba.gov/business-guide/grow-your-business/merge-acquire-businesses

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