Daily Biz Solutions

As a busy professional, it’s likely that you’ve spent some time considering whether or not you’d benefit from earning a graduate-level degree. While you may think that it’s too late for you to go back to school and earn an advanced degree if you’ve been out in the world of work for a while, nothing could be further from the truth. It’s never too late to invest in your education, and you can benefit from advancing your professional skills and knowledge at any point in your career. There isn’t an age or experience limit on the benefits of higher education for professional and personal development.

No matter what your circumstances are – whether you are considering making a commitment to take time off from your career to go to graduate school full time or if you’re looking for a flexible graduate-level program that you can attend on a flexible basis while continuing to build your career, there are plenty of options for you to consider. Whether you opt for a full-time graduate school program such as the University of Denver’s Daniels College of Business DU Full Time MBA program or something that you can complete fully online, you’re likely to be pleasantly surprised by the wide variety of options.

As a small business owner, you are certainly aware of just how important it is to get the word out to prospective customers about what your company has to offer. There are many different ways to approach promoting your company, including advertising on radio stations that target consumers in your local market to broadcast television advertising on a national, regional or local market basis, cable television advertising, online advertising, social media promotions, out-of-home media and much more.

With so many different options, it’s easy to get overwhelmed when you are trying to make decisions about where and how to advertise. Rather than just purchasing ads from whatever sales representatives contact you the most frequently, it’s important to put together an advertising campaign that allows you to make the most of the funds you have available to use to advertise your business to target customers.

Choosing the best method for your business is a function of clearly indentifying your target market in terms of geographic region, demographic characteristics, psychographic traits, and media consumption habits and preferences. You must have that information in order to make a wise decision about what media mix represents the optimal use of your marketing dollars. You have to know who you are trying to reach before you can design a campaign that will ensure that your message is delivered to the right people at the right time.

While attracting new customers is an obvious way to expand your business, it’s not the only way to go about increasing your revenue. If you’re looking for ideas on ways to grow your business in the New Year, consider expanding the product mix your inventory to offer additional items likely to meet the needs of your current customer base.

People who already do business with you likely have needs that cannot be met by the items that your organization currently carries. However, if they are loyal customers who have a positive experience with your company every time they do business with you, chances are that they would do business with you more frequently if your product mix included additional items that they might need or want.

For example, if you operate a store that carries evening wear, consider what items your customers might need beyond the items you currently stock. If you already carry dresses, undergarments and shoes appropriate for evening attire, consider adding evening handbags, fur jackets for women, rhinestone jewelry, and upscale hair accessories.

Doing so can allow you to evolve your store into a one-stop shopping resource for all of the needs that your primary customer base might have. What a great way to expand your business, making the most of the customer relationships that you have already established.