Lee Frederiksen — January 4, 2019 — January 4, 2019
What are the best ways to grow your professional services firm? Take a look at five time-tested strategies for business growth.
TRANSCRIPTION:
I’d like to talk to you about five time-tested strategies for business growth. What are the best ways to grow your professional services firm? I’d like to start first with increasing market penetration. This is using the same services, offering the same services to the same target audience you’re currently offering. This is the easiest one to do and involves the least amount of risk because you’re not going after new services or new markets. However, it can be challenging unless you can find a benefit, a new way of marketing or a new benefit you offer to increase that.
The second way is to develop new markets. This is a very common one. You are the same service you’re currently offering but you offer it to a new market. That can work. The key difference here is that you’re adding more risk by going into a new market where you’re not known. If you can choose a market that’s similar to the old one, where you can get some cross-referrals, that helps the process and removes the risk.
The third strategy is to develop alternate distribution channels. That’s the same product, same offer, but a different way of doing it. Sometimes people have gone with online strategies or partnering with an association to offer their services or even finding someone who offers similar services and packaging yours. The key is it’s the same services, same target, but you found another way to address the market.
The fourth strategy is to develop new services. This is something firms do a lot and comes pretty naturally to firms, but it is a relatively…there’s some risk involved with it. So it’s not without its risk to develop those services. It keeps the risk less if there’s services that are already desired by your current clients, that helps reduce the risk in this strategy.
And that gets us to the fifth strategy, which is new services to new markets. This is by far the riskiest strategy and it’s actually one that a lot of firms use. The keys to this is make sure you understand that new market well, as best you can before you enter it as well as the new services, try it on a small scale and then expand.
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