Expanding your business is a straightforward goal. It makes sense that as you find success, you want to take yourself to further heights, and you’re not going to be able to do this without increasing your means.
The idea of expansion can be uncomfortable for some businesses because of the costs that come with it. This is a natural uncertainty, and it’s part of the reason why some businesses hold off. However, there are more pitfalls than this to be aware of. Learning about these shouldn’t discourage you, just make you more aware of how you can handle your growth in a way that’s beneficial to your success.
Are You Ready?
The first hurdle is still an important one to consider, however. While some businesses might do their best to put off their business expansion for as long as possible in order to hold onto the success that they’re currently experiencing, others might be a little too keen to jump into it.
In the case of the former, it could risk putting you in a situation where, if your current success dips, you’ll find yourself struggling once again. A potential expansion or growth could give you more of a safety net in this regard, distributing your success and making you less dependent on one area of survival.
On the other hand, if you’re too keen to jump into it, you could risk bankrupting yourself just by making the expansion in the first place. It’s a move that can be costly, and if you try too hard to force yourself into it, you might find that you’re unable to sustain yourself as a result, for reasons such as you’re having to cover the costs of two sites instead of one.
It’s a big process. One that you likely won’t be thinking about too lightly, and conducting the proper research also means having a thorough understanding of where your business is, and what it means for the road ahead.
New Standards
Another element to think about is how the expansion is going to affect what you know about your business. At the moment, you might be operating within a certain comfortable zone, meeting all the standards that you know you have to meet and being knowledgeable about the market as a whole.
Once you expand, all this could change. Not only would you then have to comply with what you’re already used to, but there could be new legal standards that now apply to you as well. As your business expands, it’s natural that there’s going to be more for you to think about, and simply more of your business to oversee. This is daunting, but it’s also why people end up hiring more and more staff as their business grows, especially people they can delegate to.
However, it also helps to have third-party professionals on hand who can guide you through some of the more uncertain areas. Enlisting help from experts in Compliance and Risk Management, for example, can help you to consistently meet these legal standards and keep your business on track throughout your expansion, which can be comforting when you’re specifically trying to avoid the problems that can come with it.
A Different Market
If your business expansion comes in the form of opening up a new branch in a new location, the theory might be different from the practical reality.
In theory, it might just feel like you’re going to double what you already have, seeing the exact same level of success that you’ve found at your existing branch. However, the market in this new area is undoubtedly going to vary in one way or another, meaning that things will unlikely be the same. You might not get the same number of customers, you might need to appeal to a different audience, or you might just be too close to your competitors to seem like a viable option.
Of course, this is all stuff that you’re going to come across in your market research. In fact, a lot of these questions will be answered during that time and will help you to decide where you’re going to go instead. Even when you do find an ideal location, though, expecting differences and potential difficulties can prevent you from creating a forecast that’s too optimistic in the first place. After all, while the term ‘expansion’ might imply just straightforward growth, it might be better to think about it as a change. While your customers might see it as the former, it will be different for those behind the scenes.