The 5 Minute Guide To Building A More Profitable Business

You learn a great deal after failing – especially having 3 failed companies under your belt. The important thing is that you learn and move on. From those failed attempts comes a stronger understanding of how to take advantage of market trends and new technology to drive profit.

A general rule in financial success is that it’s not possible to directly increase profits. Building a more profitable business happens indirectly: you implement and improve the variables that have an impact on your bottom line.

If you want to make your business more profitable in 2016, start with this quick guide.

Focus on Providing Value

Your goal is to improve revenue – that’s the nature of business. Your customers, on the other hand, don’t care about your bottom line. They want something of value, and that can go well beyond what they get when they purchase something from you.

For example, it’s easier than ever for your company to provide value through content marketing. Don’t do it just because it’s the “in” thing to do; do it because it works. Content marketing takes a lot of forms, including blogging, video, infographics, articles, and white papers, to name a few.

Each form is an opportunity to provide a little extra to your audience: to let them benefit from your expertise, to entertain, to let them get a glimpse inside your organization.

The benefits of value-oriented content marketing, done right, can be significant and include:

• More referral traffic
• Higher conversion potential
• More social traffic and brand followers
• Elevated brand reputation
• Improved visibility in search engines
• Tighter relationships between brands and followers
• Improved ability to compete with the big dogs in your industry

Best of all, marketing costs are reduced because it only costs time. Value-oriented content marketing is incredibly cost-effective with compounding returns. While remarketing campaigns and paid ads have a recurring cost, content stays online after being published and continues to generate traffic and revenue at greatly reduced costs.

Find what makes you different

The key to understanding what separates you from the competition in your market is your customers. No one knows you quite like your customers. They’re the source for creating a killer strategy to build more profit this year. Customers know what sets you apart in ways that matter to them.

Call on your best customers and have an open dialogue about what they think you do that makes you different. Every customer will have something to share, and those stories will be the key to redefining your public face.

Any company that is truly different has no competition, because it offers its products and services in the most remarkable way. When you have the ability to be different that is powered by the validation of your customers, then you fortify that difference and make it a primary business objective.

Never shy away from differences, even if they seem insignificant. What may not be important to you could be mind-blowing to your customers.

Empower your team to propel you forward

To grow your profit, you need to grow the loyalty and investment of your employees. Recruit your team to contribute in bigger ways, and give them some ownership in your business. Since your team is in the trenches, they have the front-line view on what’s working and what isn’t. Tap into their expertise.

Get your team to schedule time in their day for brainstorming. Encourage them to contribute ways to improve workflow, communication, product and service fulfillment, new product ideas, marketing ideas, and more. Let them own the projects they come up, pitch them, and work them. The more your team feels like an integral part of your brand, the more they’ll work feverishly to help you grow.

One of Google’s most famous management philosophies is something called “20% time.” Founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin highlighted the idea in their 2004 IPO letter:

“We encourage our employees, in addition to their regular projects, to spend 20% of their time working on what they think will most benefit Google,” they wrote in their IPO letter. “This empowers them to be more creative and innovative. Many of our significant advances have happened in this manner.”  

They’re talking about advances like Google News, Gmail, and even AdSense.

Invest in your team

For any business, you can usually identify whether or not employees are satisfied on a basic level fairly quickly. The warmth of the workplace, shared engagement, and tone are palpable. When you have a happy team and a healthy environment, you’re going to see hefty profits from their labors.

That’s not an assumption – revenues increased by an average of over 22% for the 2014 Fortune 100 Best Companies to Work For. Not only is it the right thing to do, but it clearly pays off to invest in your team. That doesn’t mean you need to dole out hefty raises quarterly to keep everyone motivated. There are a number of ways to create a workplace that is fun, productive, and highly-profitable.

Paying fairly is just one factor. If you’re a smart leader, then you’ll pay your talent well so they earn a fair and competitive wage. It’s true that employees are there for a paycheck, but benefits are important, too.

Great benefits and perks come in a variety of forms:

• Childcare
• Fitness center access
• Free lunches or free drinks and snacks provided at work
• Group outings, events, or gatherings
• Fun activities in the office (nerf wars)
• Extended vacation days and sick days
• Creature comforts (lounge seating, quiet rooms, massages, television, or video games)

SC Johnson & Son offers perks that help employees find better work/life balance. The makers of brands like Glade and Windex offer on-site concierge services for their employees to help them tackle smaller time-eating tasks such as picking up groceries, comparison shopping, taking vehicles for oil changes or servicing – even standing in line to buy tickets for special events.

If it’s not working, fix it or kill it

Ever feel like no matter how much time or money you throw at a marketing campaign or project, things just aren’t panning out? If you have, don’t let it worry you. It happens to everyone. But you need to do something about it.

Giving it more time is not the answer. Part of your strategy for 2016 should be a deep review of everything you’re doing to generate revenue. What are your key performance indicators? Are you hitting milestones and reaching your goals? Are you generating revenue and traffic at all?

If the answers are no, then find ways to fine-tune what you’re doing and refine your goals. If that’s the road you’ve been down already, then make the decision to pull the plug and move on. There’s no sense in wasting more time and money on activities that don’t provide a return.

What are you planning to do this year to build a more profitable business? Share in the comments below:

This post was originally posted on Forbes. 

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Sujan is the co-founder Narrow & Content Marketer, tools to help marketers build their Twitter following and scale content marketing efforts. Sujan is an avid writer and to publications such as Forbes, WSJ, Inc and Entrepreneur Magazine. In his 13 years in digital marketing Sujan has helped companies like Sales Force, TurboTax, Sony, Mint, and hundreds of others acquire more customers, build brand awareness, and grow their businesses. Sujan took everything he learned in his career and wrote a book to help marketers with growth with his book 100 Days of Growth which has sold over 30,000 copies last year alone

Download his latest ebook:  Content Marketing Playbook