How To Expand Your Business Services Without Overstretching Yourself

Sometimes you only need a single niche product to create a successful business. However, in many cases, a limited selection can have the opposite effect – many customers like choice, and without a good range of products and services, they may decide to shop elsewhere.

Choosing to expand your services could allow you to tap into a greater audience. This could include adding vegan options to a restaurant menu or exploring different landscaping services as a patio paving company. You’ll still appeal to your existing customers, but you’ll be able to appeal to other customers too.

Of course, it is easy to overstretch yourself when taking on new products or services. For example, a bigger menu at a restaurant could mean having to train staff to cook more dishes and buy in more ingredients. This could result in more time and more money being poured into your business, which may make the extra revenue not worth it. This is why you have to be careful as to how you expand your business services. This post offers a few tips for expansion success. 

Discontinue products and services that are no longer popular/profitable

Instead of offering a bigger range of products/services, you could simply replace those products/services that aren’t making you money with new ones. For example, if you own a cocktail bar and certain cocktails aren’t selling, you could replace these with new cocktails. This could allow you to explore new cocktail trends without creating a large menu that is harder for staff to learn. 

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Use white label services and products

White label services and products are pretty much services and products that you outsource from another company while still being allowed to put your name on them. For example, a web design company looking to provide SEO as a service could outsource a white label SEO company rather than using in-house tools and staff. Similarly, a bath bomb retailer looking to expand into selling soaps could use a white label soap manufacturer to create their own branded soap. 

Hire specialist in-house staff to handle these products/services

Instead of having to learn how to make a new product or carry out a new service yourself, another option could be to hire a specialist in-house employee to do it for you. This is someone who already has plenty of experience and who can handle the service for you. For example, if you run a tattoo studio and you’ve been thinking of also offering piercings, why not hire a trained piercer? It’s easier than learning to pierce yourself and allows you to focus on your area of expertise. 

Find new ways to automate existing processes

Another solution could be to introduce new automation processes to make existing products and services easier to carry out. You could then find that new products and services aren’t so much of an added strain. For example, if you run a restaurant and you want to offer new drinks or foods, you could find ways to automate preparation of current products such as buying an automated coffee machine instead of using a manual machine. This could put less demand on your staff.