How To Level Up Your Business In A Few Simple Steps

Thursday, 8 December 2022, 11:47 am
Press Release: Hugh Grant

After launching a new venture, entrepreneurs focus on promoting the brand, growing the customer base, and turning a profit. While those things may not happen overnight, expanding market share is typically linked to company survival. Unless your brand can generate enough popularity to level up, competitors are likely to nip at your heels until the organization eventually fails. Consider the trajectories of two companies from different industries —Toms Shoes and Groupon. These businesses took ideas that hit home with consumers. But one continues to achieve long-term goals while the other appears to be floundering.

Founded by Blake Mycoskie and Alejo Nitti, Toms Shoes was built on commercial philanthropy. While traveling in Argentina, Mycoskie reportedly met a woman who provided shoes for needy children. The volunteer often ran low on materials, so the American entrepreneur took action. He launched Toms Shoes using a business model that delivered one free pair of shoes to South American children for every retail item sold. After the Los Angeles Times published an article about the “one for one” concept, Toms Shoes leveled up quickly and expanded to eyewear, coffee, and apparel using its charitable giving model.

By contrast, Groupon started as a small-time company marketing a two-for-one pizza deal in Chicago. The organization deployed a digital marketing strategy that left consumers eager to learn about daily deals. Unfortunately, Groupon co-founder Andrew Mason made several critical errors that upended its upward mobility. He turned down a $6 billion offer from Google, saying, “we felt like it was fun to do an independent company, and we thought we could make more money doing it that way.” Business visionaries launching startups today have more resources than ever before to level up and enjoy long-term sustainability. These five steps can help you grow your brand and avoid critical missteps.

1: Craft a Marketing Campaign

Groupon’s early years serve as an excellent model for newly minted businesses that typically operate on shoestring budgets. In 2008, the company promoted its two-for-one pizza deal by putting together a 500-person email list. They sent out electronic messages, and value-seeking Chicago residents were required to take action.

For people to get great deals, a certain number of people would need to sign up within a relatively short period of time. This spurred a sense of urgency for Groupon users to notify their friends to join the email list, share in the discounts, and earn Groupon Buck through referrals. To say the marketing campaign was successful would be something of an understatement.

Soon, Groupon had the resources to roll out paid advertisements across social media platforms. In fact, that initial marketing strategy onboarded enough deal seekers and businesses to pay for traditional television and radio ads. Groupon had successfully leveled up using an organic email campaign. Today’s startups can utilize similar outreach through platforms such as Omnisend

and others.

2: Hire the Right People

When visionaries create brands such as Facebook, Toms Shoes, Groupon, and Ben & Jerry’s, hiring the right people is crucial to deliver sustainable growth. Ben and Jerry’s ice cream founders hired activist-minded CEO Matthew McCarthy to lead the organization in 2018. Following its sale to Unilever, McCarthy continued to run the operation largely because he fit the brand, including its team members and consumer base.

“Ten or twelve years ago, I started getting much more interested in the sustainability and impact side of business in addition to growing brands and businesses. The more I opened my eyes to the opportunity and urgent need for businesses to take responsibility for their externalities, the more I realized it was not only a good thing for communities, people, and the planet, but it was becoming more central to my brand identity and my ability to compete,” McCarthy said after receiving the Botwinick Prize in Business Ethics from Columbia Business School’s Sanford C. Bernstein & Co. Center for Leadership and Ethics.

Leveling up and maintaining growth has a great deal to do with hiring people who are both passionate about the brand and clear-minded about market forces.

3: Handle Legal Elements Smartly & Cost-Effectively

One of the challenges thought leaders face is dealing with legal issues and sometimes tedious business minutia. Hiring a law firm to handle necessary corporation formation filings and related documents cuts deep into startup budgets.

But the good news is that reliable platforms such as Tailor Brands offer step-by-step instructions that walk everyday people through the LLC process. Tailor Brands also provides insights regarding business-friendly states that can reduce expenses.

The user-friendly website also allows you to register the company name across multiple states. This strategy prevents competitors from taking advantage of your brand just over a state line. Saving money on these nuts-and-bolts items leaves additional resources to fund necessary expenses such as insurance, business cards, brand merchandise, and logo creation, among others.

4: Maintain a Customer-Centric Focus

Two of the driving reasons people get behind a brand involve cost and loyalty. New business ventures typically have a reasonable amount of control over how much they charge for products or services. The ability to provide a service or sell a better product at a lower cost is the foundation of capitalism. By that same token, not every consumer selection is based purely on its price tag.

Toms Shoes is a perfect example of customer loyalty that is not necessarily motivated by cost. Back in 2006, Toms Shoes sold a reported 2 million pairs at an average price of about $54. The brand’s products ranged from $44 to $140. If you factor in inflation, those shoes ran an average of $108.31 in 2022 dollars. Although the U.S. is experiencing higher-than-usual inflation, the average cost of imported footwear was under $20 in August. All other things being equal, straightforward math demonstrates that people who continue to purchase Toms Shoes are not necessarily bargain shoppers. Toms did not appear on a recent Esquire list of the best men’s shoes under $150, indicating customers are paying more because of the business model.

People could purchase better shoes for less money, but Toms gives its customers more than footwear. It sends millions of shoes to underprivileged children in mostly Third World countries. And people who pay retail are inherently part of their global good works. That’s a priceless consumer-centric benefit.

5: Keeps Your Brand in People’s Minds

Attending networking events does more than create business relationships with like-minded industry leaders. These and other public-facing gatherings remind others in your orbit about the brand, what it represents, and why it could prove beneficial.

The same holds true of community-based gatherings. Sponsoring holiday festivities, a concert series, or backing non-profit food pantries are opportunities to integrate your logo. Potential customers will see the logo and draw a positive association between your organization and the good works being conducted. In many ways, the positive vibes people experience are akin to buying a pair of Toms Shoes, knowing a child will benefit. It’s also similar to signing up for Groupon emails anticipating a two-for-one deal at your favorite eatery.

Bonus Tip: Always Dream Big!

There are entrepreneurial success stories all around us that people may not know. Brothers Dick and Mac McDonald started the fast-food franchise based on their “Speedee Service System,” 15-cent burgers, and iconic Golden Arches logo. They would sell the rights for $2.1 million in 1961 dollars. Amazon founder Jeff Bezos started his e-commerce platform in 1994 as an online bookstore.

And it may surprise you to discover Ben Cohen and Jerry Greenfield took a $5 ice cream correspondence course before opening their first shop in Burlington, Vermont, with $12,000 and a pocket full of dreams. Good ideas can level up to successful businesses if you possess the determination and insight to grab your rightful share of the market.

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