Image by mohamed Hassan from Pixabay

By Matt Gregory

There are so many things you need to invest in as a small business in order to stand you in good stead for growth and success, but some are more important than others. We’ve put together our top four things your small business should be spending money on in the early days.

– Building a loyal and talented team

As a small business, the only way you’re going to grow and continue on the path of success is with the right team supporting you. Money can be tight for smaller companies which means there’s often a temptation to either take on multiple job roles yourself or hire cheap staff, but neither of these are the right option. Your team can make or break your company, so if you want it to get off on the right foot, you need to trust experts in their fields to assist you, and you need to be prepared to pay the price for their expertise and experience.

This means choosing employees who have relevant experience in working with smaller brands and who have a proven track record. As your company develops, you can look to welcome fresh talent and train them, but in the beginning when you’re trying to build your brand and your client base, it’s best to be able to lean on people who know how to do that and who have lots of experience in it.

– Creating brand awareness through visual merchandising

Depending on your business type, you may need to engage in visual merchandising. This is most common with retail businesses, but even if you’re setting up an office for your employees to work from, you still need to work on creating brand awareness. This is key to growing your business profile and networking successfully, so it’s something you should invest heavily in during the early stages.

Creating brand awareness involves getting your branding sorted, so it’s worth speaking to a professional design agency to do this for you. You will then need to think about visual markers that make your business identifiable, such as installing acrylic signs outside your premises so people know who you are, as well as thinking about things like signs and stickers inside the premises to re-affirm your branding. If you’re a retail brand, you may also want to think about branded bags and labels so that you can build brand awareness indirectly, too.

– Digitally marketing your brand

When money gets tight, marketing is typically the first thing that gets cut from the budget. Many businesses underestimate just how valuable marketing is and what it brings to their success. With this in mind, we recommend investing a considerable amount into digital marketing.

No matter what sector your business is in, the internet is one of the most powerful tools and is where a lot of people find prospective clients and raise their profile. From social media to email marketing, digital marketing is a minefield and is well worth looking at. You can create PPC ads and build revenue through organic SEO, all the while reaching an almost unlimited audience.

– Organizing your data early on

An unorganized company is a company that is set to fail, and yet getting things in order is something that often comes as an afterthought. If you want to get off on the right foot, it’s a good idea to invest money into a comprehensive CRM and a good data storage system that is both accessible and secure. This will ensure when things start to grow, you don’t lose control or find yourself in a muddle trying to locate important data.

Summary

These are just four suggestions of things we’d recommend you invest in as a small business, and whilst they don’t seem like much, they will make all the difference.

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Matt Gregory is an experienced and varied writer with a keen interest in sharing knowledge and information on a range of topics. He has a background in digital marketing and research spanning over 10 years.