Most senior executives would likely agree on the need to find new revenue streams.
However, many mostly focus on scaling up sales in various channels of their existing offerings or acquiring another company to buy more growth.
We ask a different question:
“What if you could find & grow new revenue and product opportunities organically?”
Today, we'll be covering five different strategies you can employ to find new revenue streams to grow your business organically.
If you look at your business right now, you're executing on a combination of variables that create your current business model:
Changing any one of those variables creates a new business model.
Netflix grew by continually changing their business model, going from mail-order DVD rentals to streaming digital content. Now they even produce their own films. Like Amazon, they start with the end customer and innovate on their behalf - even if it means a new business model. They are also working their way backward in the supply chain. Netflix shifted from distribution to distribution + studio model, which completely changed their entire business.
Walmart and Target created new revenue streams by leveraging its customer base and adding new private label products like Up & Up. Like Netflix and Amazon, they started with the customer and worked their way backward in the supply chain. They went from pure distribution to distributing their own product lines within their stores.
Your company has many existing assets baked into your current business model that you can leverage. One of the strongest of those is likely to be your current customer base.
Most companies get stuck in thinking,
“We understand our customers really well.”
The truth is, they actually don’t.
Your business is only solving a small slice of all the real challenges & decisions of your customers’ experience. This is because when you look out into the world, you are viewing things from a certain perspective - which is the inside of your company, looking out. That vantage point offers the best insight into your business, but a limited perspective into your customers’ real world.
Your business is complex. Life is complex. So also is the life of your customer.
We suggest sending in a team to embed with and deeply understand your customers. You must dive deep into their world, their many contexts, workflows, decisions, mental models, and more. And most importantly - you need to know what to look for.
At first, it feels humbling to admit you don’t know enough about your customers. But then you realize the benefits of going deep, learning, and surfacing all the key insights that are critical to growing your business.
We do this all the time and are still amazed at how many opportunities we can discover. We inevitably find that there are so many hidden opportunities within existing customer bases - they simply need the right team to surface them and bring them to light.
Check out our video on discovering the truth about your customers and their needs.
Learn How to Understand Your Customers
If you can identify more significant problems your customer is facing, you can uncover potential opportunities to up-sell to them in new ways.
How might you innovate on behalf of your current customers?
Download our free guide to begin implementing feedback loops in your organization.
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In this free video series, learn how the best startup growth teams overcome common challenges and make impact.
In this free video series, learn how the best startup growth teams overcome common challenges and make impact.
In this free video series, learn proven tactics that will impact real business growth.
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Everything you need for a killer DIY audit on your product.
We live in a rapidly advancing world, where new technologies are available nearly every day. These new technologies continue to re-shape business and entire industries several times over.
The great news is that these new technologies are becoming readily accessible. From satellite imagery to machine learning, sensors, ultrasonics, cloud, image detection, the opportunities seem limitless. And while the buzz words can be hype, there is real credence to many of them in the right applications.
Here’s the challenge:
Corporations struggle to leverage these new technologies.
Not only can these cause many problems within a company -- they also make corporations very slow to react to changes in the market and emerging opportunities.
In the startup world, almost anything is becoming possible. Amazing things can happen when you bring together the best technologies + the best market opportunities + the best teams who can move fast.
One of your most vital assets is likely your knowledge of your industry - the inner workings, how it operates.
So leverage it! That’s your moat against outsiders who might want to innovate in your space, but aren’t sure where or how to play.
What if you could you bring a new product or service to market that creates value in your industry, and also enhances the experience for the end customer?
Expanding into new markets can be a great opportunity, but comes with challenges. This is because different markets have different contexts.
Just because your offerings are working in one market, that doesn't mean you can simply pick them up and drop them into a new market.
No.
Could you sell a Chevy Suburban into the European market? Sure, it classifies as a motor vehicle, but it’s unfit for that market. Why? The driver’s seat is on the opposite side of the vehicle. They drive on a different side of the road. There’s limited visibility. It's way too big for narrow lanes and tight parking.
It’s a great vehicle in some places - but it’s not a match for that market.
No.
GoPro cameras are different from mirrorless cameras with interchangeable lenses, which are different from outdoor security cameras with infrared night sensors. Where you mount them is entirely different, lenses are entirely different. User interfaces are entirely different. Yes, they all have a camera inside - but their uses are fundamentally different in a thousand ways.
New markets have a new context, so have to evolve. To succeed, you’ll need first to take the time to deeply understand this new market and its customer segments. What you’ll very likely find is that different contexts drive new product innovation.
How will you innovate on behalf of the new markets you want to enter?
If the history books and 2020 have taught us anything, it's that any market can become an unpredictable place. Adding new product revenue streams to your business can help you achieve:
By finding & creating revenue streams, you can build more confidence in the future growth of your business.
Schedule a free consultation to see how Headway can help you identify the best opportunities to expand your business.
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