Smart Steps To Diversifying Your Start Up Business

Smart steps to diversifying your start up business. Diversifying can take your business into new territory, build a bigger reach, and increase your long-term profits if done correctly. Do not rush into anything until you have done your due diligence and know that the new endeavor is indeed the best one for you and your business.

To get more business growth through diversification, you don’t do more of the same; you do something different. Whatever your business or background, here are five smart steps to help you diversify.

1. Find your limits

 Look at what you have to invest, both financially and in terms of resources available to you. Consider the initial funds needed to get the expansion up and running as well as the ongoing funds needed to support the expansion, the new employees and so on. Ask yourself what are the limits you are facing and which are the limits you need to self-impose?

2. Find your possibilities

 Finding possibilities os never really the main problem, rather finding the right possibility is. Start where you already are, and think both vertically and horizontally.

• Vertically. These are the questions to ask yourself;  How can you go deeper into what you’re already doing? If you own a particular niche, how can you drill down and provide even more to your customers? Or how can you step up to the next level of product or service offering? What is the next “step up” in your industry? Can you get there with your business?
• Horizontally. What are your competitors offering that you are not offering? What are the related businesses in your industry? What niche is directly connected to yours? What product or service offers a complementary fit?

3. Figure out what fits

 The first two steps should leave you with a list of options that meet two requirements: they fit within your defined limits, and they are related to what you currently do. Do not start from scratch because that could cripple your business completely. Diversification means to grow in a new direction; it doesn’t mean fragmentation. As a final test, compare each option with the company documents you’ve produced and ensure that whatever you are branching into next sort of represents your existing vision and mission statements. You might not find a perfect fit. That’s okay. You should, however, insist on correlation.

4. Balance growth with maintenance 

New things are both thrilling and demanding. Be sure to enjoy that, but don’t lose sight of the maintenance and ongoing attention that your current business needs. A good business doesn’t run on autopilot. Get good people in place to help manage both your new growth and your foundational work, so you can oversee both.

5.Engage Your Customers

A second or third opinion could help you in figuring out your next move when it comes to diversification. And sometimes the best people to ask are your customers as they know already what attracts them to your business and what else you might need to introduce to them Getting their opinion can be as easy as engaging them in light conversation as they frequent your business or setting up a suggestion box.