Career
Ade Olabode: 4 Ways to Generate Additional Income in Your Business
2016 is already upon us and it feels like the calendar is already doing a sprint!
You may have had some personal New Year resolutions like exercising more, becoming more religious or even going to the village a bit more often, these are all very good and noble but I will like you to include this on your list as well; to generate additional income in 2016.
Why is this important? We might have to tighten our belts as things could get slightly difficult compared to 2015. There is likely to be more financial strain on the economy and businesses. Below are few reasons why 2016 could be a year of belt-tightening
Crude Oil price – This is a major nightmare to countries that are almost wholly dependent on revenue generated from crude oil, like our beloved country Nigeria. The current free fall in crude oil price will force the government to implement some economic policies that may impact financially on most This is expected.
CBN ban on naira-denominated bank cards for overseas transactions – From the 1stof January the CBN’s policy to limit “Naira spending” abroad took off. It means you can’t use your Naira-denominated bank cards be it debit or credit, outside Nigeria. This is currently been reviewed and new developments are expected.
Increased prices of goods – the fall out of the above reasons particularly the second one will be increased prices of goods. The CBN ban will almost put a stop to importation of goods, leading to the goods becoming scarce. The end result of scarcity is increase in prices.
So what can you do as a small business owner to side step the impending financial stress or possibly alleviate it? It has to do with you taking a bold step with your business. How can you do that? I will show you 4 simple steps that are actionable (starting from today)
Up sell your customers
This is the low hanging fruits that every business must take advantage of. There’s absolutely no excuse, you can up sell as long you have customers. For example, if you own a restaurant, do you know you can increase your revenue by training your staff to ask diners, ‘would you like to try our <insert name of expensive dish>? Or if you are an accountant already offering audit services, ask you clients if they wanted to ‘try our new bookkeeping service for free’? The truth is that it’s easier to increase your revenue by up selling current customers than trying to gain new customers.
The cost of new customer acquisition is always higher than the cost of retaining existing customers
Offer a new service
You can also offer an additional service. This is preferably related to your current business, but not essential as long as you can make use of some of the facilities/skills you already possess. So if you run a high class hair salon with affluent customers trooping in, it will be a good idea to think of a complementary service to offer them. E.g. maybe start selling quality hand bags to current clientele.
Get more efficient
This is not the time to waste money or resources. You might need a top to bottom review but you want to start asking simple questions like ‘why do we have 4 sales attendants?’, ‘why are we always running out of stock of our bestsellers?’, ‘Is it necessary to move to the bigger office premises now?’ etc. You need to especially watch out for areas where you incur the most cost.
Partner with another business
This can be a sort of franchise or outright partnership with other businesses. The big fast food businesses like Burger King and McDonald’s grew out of franchising. Businesses are growing out of partnerships. My firm PrognoStore has a partners’ programme for those who may be interested in earning either active or passive additional income. Uber operates as a partnership with drivers. Printivo has recently launched a reseller programme for printers. There’s something for everyone, however it’s advisable to go for a partnership which utilises your current skills set or expertise.
Earning additional income can be hard-work but it’s doable! Now that you know you can generate additional income for your business, let me know your thoughts about your plans and how you intend achieving them by adding your comments below.
P.S Don’t forget that you can still get the free 60 days offer to PrognoStore. PrognoStore is Point-of-Sale software for small business which helps you sell your goods/services, track your inventory and gain insight to run your business. It’s all you need to run your small business. Simply go to www.prognostore.com/signup and enter Free4Bella for promo code to get 60 days free.
Photo Credit: Dreamstime
