Why Your Small Business Growth Stalled — And How to Kickstart It Again

By Charity Hudnall | Edited by Micah Zimmerman
Entrepreneur
Originally Published: November 13, 2024

It’s possible to scale sustainably even in uncertain times.

For small businesses and young enterprises, size represents both challenge and opportunity: while it’s difficult to get a foothold in the market, relatively new players also have the agility to scale up quickly. Not only that, but they usually don’t face the burden of modernizing legacy systems.

But what happens when that growth plateaus and there are no obvious suspects?

I have seen the fear among small business owners that stagnation may cause revenue to fall off a cliff. With small businesses employing 61.7 million Americans (or 46.4% of private sector employees), having the resilience to withstand fluctuating market conditions is a matter for the economy as a whole. We may not be in an official recession, but consumer sentiment matters. People are feeling the pinch and being careful with their discretionary income.

Locally based small businesses with fewer than ten employees and income under $1 million are especially constrained by local consumer incomes — and the perception of an economic downturn. As CMO of an enterprise that helps businesses of this size in the beauty and wellness space, we know it is possible to scale sustainably even in uncertain times. Here’s what to consider when your growth flatlines.

Get your services mix right

We really need to get the obvious out of the way first. If a hot dog shop is selling smoothies — and the smoothies aren’t selling — the owner is better off focusing on expanding their hot dog offerings. You might be surprised at how often solopreneurs and small businesses persist with a product or service that isn’t selling out of a misplaced loyalty to an original vision or an attempt to get a return on their investment.

As I tell people, the beauty of being small is being nimble enough to more easily adjust according to demand, trends and seasonal variations. Here’s where data is your friend. Use your reporting tools to analyze which of your current services generate the most revenue and consider removing the underperforming ones. If possible, benchmark your service mix against the market leaders by:

• Analyzing successful businesses: Study the service offerings of similar-sized competitors in your local area or niche. What range of services do they provide? How do they balance core services with specialty treatments?
• Doing your social research: Use social media and review sites like Instagram, Yelp or Google Reviews to gauge trending services.
• Talk to your customers. Learn their pain points, gauge the services they value the most and identify what’s missing.

I recommend “auditing” your service mix at least quarterly. In my experience, successful small businesses in our industry often find that elusive sweet spot — an ongoing balance between diversification and…[MORE]

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To read the entire article by Rachel Davies at the Entrepreneur website, visit: Why Your Small Business Growth Stalled — And How to Kickstart It Again