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Five Ways to Expand Your Business Post-Pandemic

by Max Cron, Benchmark Payment Networks

As we begin to put the pandemic in the rearview mirror, 2021 provides an amazing opportunity to invest in your business. Many small businesses have pulled back spending during Covid. This is why the opportunity is great. This creates an environment in which investing pays off more than ever. Here are a few ideas.

1. Marketing
The best way to get new business is to invest in a marketing strategy. Spending money to boost your brand visibility, whether that’s through traditional means—billboards, flyers, decals on a truck or digital media, such as Google search results or running ads on social media. Whether you are doing traditional, digital marketing or forming business partnerships, you need to do an analysis of your return on investment. Analyze your current sales funnel and note where new business comes from. Is it from partnering with a real estate company? Is it from renting billboard space in developing neighborhoods? Is it from running social media ads during peak season?

Whichever channel drives the most business to your company consistently, consider increasing spending, rather than trying a new channel. Whatever strategy you use, you will need to allocate part of your budget to developing marketing materials. If you have a great website, that’s fine, but if you can’t book appointments on your website, I suggest looking into that. So, to conclude, analyze your current sales funnel and expand the part that drives the most business. Whether that means a new website, a new truck decal, uniform shirts for your employees and other ideas are worth the re-investment.

2. New Employees
Whether it’s an in-house marketing person, sales manager, accountant, office manager or anything else, it’s wise to invest money into staff. Let’s say during peak season, your office manager can’t keep up with inbound calls, setting up new clients in your database, processing payments etc., then it might be time to hire a second employee—even part time, or to consider using an outside call center for setting appointments.

Many times, the only thing standing between you and more business is being able to make sure you clear the pipeline. The last thing you want is to lose business because your office manager is overwhelmed with bookings and office activities associated with new clients. If you are an owner and are completing the daily office work, you may not be using your time in the most efficient way. Booking new appointments, customer service work, payment processing and more, are tasks that cut into longer term planning—or big picture strategy. By relieving that daily work from your schedule, you have the room to see your business from a new perspective, whether that means going to more trade shows or conferences, forming partnerships, or working with outside companies to drive brand awareness and visibility.

3. Expand to New Territory
You never know which areas or markets are going to “go” for you in big way until you try. Expanding into a new territory does not have to cost a lot in this work-from-home digital age.

4. New Tools
Being at the top of your game means you work with nothing but the best tools. This means every few years or so you need to upgrade. Whether you’re a home inspector buying a new digital level or new truck, making room for these improvements is necessary. Let’s take the above example of expanding into a new territory and looking to hire new home inspectors. Maybe you want all of your inspectors using the same brand equipment. Maybe you want all your inspectors driving a certain type of vehicle to keep up brand awareness and marketing. Whatever new tools you need, you need money to invest (we’ll share a great way to save money down below!).

5. Health Insurance / IRA
While it is not right for every company, being able to offer health insurance, an IRA or even a matching 401k is something that your employees will value. Having a strong employee retention is part of what makes up a successful company. Besides marketing, new employees and tools, one of the most important aspects of your business is creating happy employees. Having benefits like health insurance, IRAs or 401ks are valuable to employees. These employees will work harder and be more invested in your company if you are able to offer even one more benefit than your competition. A good employee is golden. This is definitely more important if you are expanding into a new territory and looking to hire new inspectors.

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Saving Money
All of these activities listed above will help you grow but they also require a financial investment. If you’d like to bring in more business through digital advertising, you need to somehow create that budget. If you need a new truck, you need to figure out a way to pay for one. One way to save thousands of dollars a year is to switch to Zero Cost Credit Card Processing. Zero Cost Processing allows you to eliminate 100% of your credit card processing fees. This is possible with our technology that automatically calculates and adds a fee to your customer’s transaction. So, if you need to create a big budget for growing your business, saving 100% of your credit card processing fees is a fantastic way to do so.

About the Author
Max is the Chief Marketing Officer at Benchmark Payment Networks (BPN), and resides in New Orleans, LA. With his many years of Digital Marketing experience, Max has created an awesome & effective digital footprint for BPN. Benchmark is a leading payment processing company that specializes in bringing your fees to zero dollars per month. You can contact him at MaxCron@GOBPN.com if you want to chat about marketing and payment processing.

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