Due to limited resources, most business owners opt to start their ventures as just small startups, and then grow them with time. When beginning operations, small businesses, especially in the moving industry are ideal, as you can make a good profit and they incur very few expenses. However, with time, a small startup can become frustrating due to limited income or the operation being too small to handle the amount of business it receives. Therefore, as a small home removals business owner, you should start planning for an expansion of your business after some time, to ensure that it is able to bring you more income, and can handle the amount of business that is available.
Growing a home removals brand can seem like a simple matter of just deciding to expand your company. However, it is a long process that requires you to plan carefully and consider several factors. However, given enough time, effort, and resources, you can be able to grow your brand from just a small moving business into a large UK removals company. Below is a summary of growing a home removals brand ().
1. Raise Finances
When it comes to growing your business, finances are one of the main factors that you should consider before you start expanding. As your business expands, it will need additional capital to pay for the additional labour, new facilities, equipment, and other expenses such as licenses, insurance, and advertising. Therefore, you must find additional funds that you can inject into the business to cater for the expansion. These funds can come from the business itself, which is the most ideal situation. You can also use your own savings to finance the expansion. However, if you cannot afford to cater the cost of expanding by yourself, you will have to consider external funding.
External sources of funding include family and friends, but most business owners tend to avoid this to prevent complicating their personal relationships. Alternatively, you can also get a loan from a bank or local lenders, but the interest rates can be quite high. If these fail, you can invite investors and partners who will help you to raise capital for expansion.
2. Improve your Workforce
Labour is another important factor you should consider when you are growing your home removals brand. As you expand your business, you will require more employees to handle the increased responsibilities. It is also crucial that you increase the quality of your workforce, so that the services offered resonates with the reputation of your growing brand.
Therefore, while you are planning the expansion of your brand, you should budget for the cost of hiring new employees. You should also plan for other labour related costs, for example, giving your employees additional training and increasing their salary. This will help to keep them satisfied and loyal, which will increase efficiency and improve the quality of the services delivered.
3. Market your Business
As you transform your business from a small moving business to a large moving company, you will need to bring in more clients to increase the revenue. Therefore, before you begin expanding, you should create a solid marketing plan that will help to ensure that the amount of business you handle increases as your brand grows.
The marketing plan you develop can be focused on growing the awareness of your removals brand in the area you operate in. For this purpose, you can use the traditional marketing techniques such referrals, billboards, radio and TV marketing, and print media. However, if you want to grow your home removals company into a big and popular brand, you should also consider online marketing.
For online marketing, you will first need to create a website for your business to help give your brand an online visibility. You should also implement search engine optimisation (SEO) and other online marketing techniques such as social media marketing (using social media forums), content marketing (creating valuable content such as articles, press releases, newsletters, videos, tutorials), email marketing, paid-to-click (PTC) advertising, video marketing, blogging, and other methods. This will help to increase the visibility of your brand, generate brand awareness, and allow you to target a larger market. In turn, this will lead to more leads for your business, which will increase the sales, thus giving your business a larger bottom-line.
4. Improve the Services Offered
As you grow your home removals brand, you will need to improve the services offered to increase customer satisfaction and gain an edge over the competitors. One of the best ways of improving the service delivery is by tweaking the existing services so that they are appealing to the existing customers as well as the new ones you have acquired. For example, when offering the moving services, you can also include packing and loading services at an additional fee, or free of charge if your business can afford it.
You can also add a new service to your business, and offer it alongside the current services. For example, you can start offering storage services, as many are doing locally, together with the moving services, which will help to cater for customers who need to have some of their belongings stored in a secure place.
5. Partner up with other Companies
Another great way of growing your home removals brand into a reputable UK removals company is by collaborating with other brands that offer services similar to yours. For a moving company, such partners can include companies offering storage services (if you are not offering them) and real estate businesses (they are always in contact with people who are moving and can refer them to your business). Partnerships can help to increase your brand awareness, and bring you more customers, which will help your business expand faster.
6. Widen your Market
Lastly, as you expand your business, you will need to increase your customer base to ensure that the revenue generated increases with the expansion. Therefore, you should target other markets, which will help you to get more customers, thus bringing you more revenue. If possible, you can even open other physical locations, which will increase the area that your removals brand caters for.
Summary
Having a small removals business can be quite satisfying in the first few months of starting operations. However, with time, your business must expand to meet the new business needs and bring you more income. The above information is a guideline on how you can grow your business from just a small operation into a reputable UK removals company.