shoemaker who also sells socks?
. Skills. You will inevitably need new skills for your new
offering. This includes the softer skills of selling and
servicing the offering. The fewer skills you have to acquire,
the smoother your rollout will be.
Modest investment to start
The only guaranteed way of minimizing your risk is to minimize
your investment. Remember: investment doesn't just mean money,
but also your time and energy. Choose an expanded offering that
won't be all-consuming.
Strong existing demand
Face it: your small business already has its hands full with its
existing business. You can't afford to break ground on something
the world doesn't know about yet. Look for an unfulfilled demand
on the part of your existing client base.
Hypothetical Case Study: B2B Service Expansion
Lisa is a virtual assistant who has expanded from data entry to
helping her clients organize their internal records. But
offshore companies are taking away record-keeping clients just
as they did with data entry. Getting new record-keeping clients
would be an uphill battle against offshoring.
What does Lisa do?
1. Lisa gets into a few long telephone calls with her favorite
clients. One client mentions his secretary is tired of handling
payroll. Another says he is fed up with being put on hold with
his current big-name payroll processing company.
2. Lisa researches payroll processing outsourcing. She finds
it's a business where offshore companies have not made great
inroads. Domestic businesses have not glutted the market,
either. Traditionally, the technology needed to run a payroll
process business was so expensive that only a few large firms
could compete. The new software that allows any small business
to offer payroll processing services has only been on the market
a short time. Meanwhile, the cost of startup is only the cost of
the software, plus a portion of her sales. Best of all, the only
training she needs is to read up on a few payroll manuals, and
do a test run with one or two of her most supportive clients.
3. Lisa gets a few of her clients on the phone and asks them
point-blank if they would be interested in outsourcing their
payroll processing to her. They sound interested.
4. Lisa finds a reputable payroll processing software company
founded by someone with extensive experience in the field. She
calls the company up and confirms that they have not sold a
franchise in her area yet.
5. Within six months, Lisa has taken over the payroll processing
of about one-fifth of her existing clients. Though she has lost
two large clients to offshore virtual assistant services, her
business income has grown by fifteen percent, since she has
gotten more work without having to invest in marketing.
Of course, Lisa's success took hard work. But she was able to
maximize her effort by choosing an offering she could expand her
business into easily. Payroll processing is one example of a
value-added service that many B2B small businesses can
transition into smoothly. But whatever new offering you go with,
just make sure to choose your new offering carefully.
About the author:
Joel Walsh recommends you check out this site for expanding your
business with payroll outsourcing: <A
HREF=http://PayClerk.com/?%20payroll%20outsourcing>http://PayCler</A>
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Article Source http://www.money-4-work.com
