As a proud small-business owner, you’ve established your company, taken the time to build your finances and discovered what has worked and what has not. Now, you are ready to move onto the next phase of small business ownership: business expansion and growing your profitability. As a leading small business lender with branches in Massachusetts, Connecticut, Vermont, Pennsylvania, New York, New Jersey and Rhode Island, Berkshire Bank can offer helpful advice on creating a business case and ironing out the details of your business growth strategy.
While you undoubtedly learned a lot when starting your business, growing and funding an existing business requires a different strategy than financing a startup. These simple but essential steps can help you grow your small business and set you up for success.
Expanding your small business
There are several ways to grow a business. You may be looking to launch a new product or service, expand to a new location, merge or acquire a business, ramp up production, franchise, hire new employees, streamline your processes, license your products or expand into new markets.
You can also grow your small business through marketing strategies. Aligning yourself with a similar business, expanding marketing efforts, building your online presence, targeting new markets, and winning marketing contracts can all be helpful in increasing your business presence. Your next big move could involve several of these expansion strategies. With multiple business growth strategies in play, you’ll want to ensure your business can withstand expansion and achieve success.
Seek business advice and do your research
Before you embark on your business growth strategy, you may want to seek advice from a trusted and experienced business counselor, such as a
Berkshire Bank business lender. The
Small Business Administration also offers several free resources to small business owners.
With the help of a business lender from Berkshire Bank, you can discover growth strategies that suit the vision for your growing business and get insights into how to present your business case when seeking funding. With branches throughout New England and the Tri-state Area, Berkshire Bank’s business bankers are here to support your bottom line through cash management, merchant services, as well as other services and tools.
Having worked with a multitude of business owners, Berkshire Bank can provide a realistic outlook of the local economy and recommend next steps, along with resources to help you streamline operations and understand the types of funding is best for your needs.
Before moving your business forward, take time to assess the past and current business climate. Timing is everything in business, so if you’re planning to launch a new product line or service or expand into new markets, do your research to ensure there’s sufficient demand before investing valuable resources.
Update your business plan
Return to your original business plan and update it to project future growth. If you’re looking to scale your small business, hire more staff or perfect your processes to be sure you can grow steadily without sacrificing quality or your core business model. Once you’ve worked out the details, update your business plan to outline your expansion.
Update or develop a marketing plan
Once you’ve determined your business expansion plan, consider updating or developing a formal marketing strategy. Growing your business will involve new internal and external audiences, as well as stakeholders. Outlining how you’ll communicate with these new audiences, both online and offline, is necessary when change is imminent.
Investing time and money in developing a scheduled marketing plan, with a dedicated budget, is essential. Focus your marketing efforts on the tactics that deliver the highest return on investment and align best with your brand image. You can also run this by our Business Banking team for objective feedback.
Seek financing to expand your business
When you are ready to grow your business and have developed your updated business and marketing plans, a Berkshire Bank business lender can help you understand your financing options.
Depending on your goals for small-business expansion, you can consider applying for a variety of funding options, including working capital loans, short-term or long-term business loans, equipment loans, real estate loans, credit cards and other small business lending options.
Trust Berkshire Bank to help you grow your business. With a team of expert business lenders and years of experience, Berkshire Bank offers small business lending solutions and other business financing resources so your business can thrive.
Contact us today to learn more about how we can help support your business expansion and business growth strategies in Massachusetts, Connecticut, Vermont, Pennsylvania, New York, New Jersey and Rhode Island.