There it is, your business – the doors are open, the customers are rolling in, and the mountain of money in your office could impress Scrooge McDuck.
You’re living the dream, or rather…
You’ve opened your doors, a small tumbleweed blows by, your staff are idling around the reception area, and you’re imagining the gap in your finances as though it was a black hole in a diagram by Stephen Hawking.
So goes the panicked mind of the businessperson. Your opening day is a roll of the dice, no matter how much money you’ve set aside for promotion or how many freebies you’re doling out.
The fear of opening day is greater in oversaturated industries. After all, why should a customer visit your premises if there are a thousand different versions of you on the high street?
In other cases, your business may just be a slow burner, dripping into your public’s subconscious through word of mouth and stealth marketing. You may simply need to evolve your brand.
To elucidate this point further, let’s watch how a business evolves and improves on its opening day.
For this exercise, we’ll imagine you’re in the cosmetic surgery game, a crowded industry that can reap huge rewards if you develop your enterprise effectively.
So, how can you move beyond a disastrous opening day and make sure your business moves from panic-button-red to billion-dollar-green?
The first year: build your client base
In the first few months, you’ll be scrabbling for clients like a pauper searching for pennies. The truth of the matter is, an unestablished business will have to do a lot of persuading to make a client trust their brand.
You can achieve this via a few methods. The first is exceptional marketing, whether that means a billboard campaign or an effective social media strategy.
While marketing is necessary for the duration of a company’s lifespan, it’s integral to gaining a foothold in the business arena.
The second is to figure out your preferred demographic and gear your products towards them. If you have an older client base, for instance, you may want to focus your plan on Botox injections and dermal fillers. A younger demographic, on the other hand, might be more interested in breast augmentations.
With the correct focus and an impressive marketing campaign, you’ll enjoy a slow trickle of new clients who, if you offer them a good service, will trust you for years to come.
The second year: develop your talents
If your client list is healthy, you should be flush enough to develop your talents. Not only will this provide you with a greater depth of experience, it’s also a highly marketable commodity.
The cosmetic surgery industry is teeming with accreditations and qualifications to reassure patients, but the Postgraduate Certificate/Diploma in Facial Aestheticsis at the peak of educational attainment when it comes to Botox and dermal fillers.
Once you’ve attained your diploma, you’ll be able to plaster your new qualification over your social media feeds, on your site and in your marketing brochures. You’ll go from being a reliable surgeon to a company owner who’s constantly adding more skills to their bow, someone who can offer clients an ever-broadening repertoire.
The third year: diversify
Old clients will leave, new ones will (hopefully) take their place. But what if you could retain the oldies while new ones continued to give you extra revenue streams?
This might sound like a pipedream but there’s every chance you can manage it if you diversify the range of products you offer. That might mean adding hair loss treatments to lure in the male demographic, or selling dietary supplements in addition to offering liposuction.
With new products you’ll retain the interest of old clients while puling in the new.
