By Erin Daniels, The KNOW Women
Due to the Covid-19 Pandemic, according to Forbes, 2.2 million women left the workforce. This drastic change was due to the combination of many variables; business closures, increased need for at-home child-care, reduction in demand for certain goods and services, along with many others. The pandemic also laid off many from their jobs leaving them searching for new streams of income. At the beginning of 2021, the number of applications for new businesses in the United States went up 73% from the previous year, many of which are women-owned.
Despite the setback, many of these businesses have exploded and grown immensely. They have scaled with intention, persistence, and connection. This is true for Sunshine Foss, co-founder of Happy Cork, a wine and spirits store that opened in Brooklyn, NY right before the pandemic. Since opening, Foss has grown her business to have a successful e-commerce website along with her physical store all while supporting many other women and minority-owned businesses. She has been featured in the New York Times, BBC World News, and many others. In order to grow, she adjusted to the pandemic demands by hosting virtual wine tastings. This adjustment led growth and allowed to her feature celebrities such as John Legend and Mary J. Blige on some of her episodes. As many of our KNOW women mention below, she saw a need and created a solution resulting in major growth in her business.
In order to scale successfully, you need to evaluate your current offerings and the needs of your customers. How can your business become the answer to a problem?
At KNOW, we understand the importance of knowing when and how to scale your business! We asked our dynamic KNOW their advice on knowing when to scale, what tools to use, and what personally led them to grow their own businesses. Follow along to start scaling smart!
How do you know it’s time to diversify your offerings?
Customer needs. As we opened up more about ways to self-care and self-love through different energy healing practices, we received an overwhelming response to offer energy infusion services. We started offering Reiki and crystal healing, which is what we infuse on our body care line. We added chakra readings and balancing along with intuitive readings at local events. All of these are now services we provide and are working on adding more.
–Arianne Ortiz and Tara Raj, Earth’s Farmacy
In my opinion, it is time to diversify your offerings when you see a change in your customer’s goals and problems. Your customer should be the focus of your business. If their needs are changing, your offerings must be able to solve their needs and problems.
–Nadia Kaminskaya, Branding Bosses
Too often start-up entrepreneurs want to offer several products or services at the outset. It’s better to begin with one offer to one avatar for one year or until the total revenue is $1m. Then, additional, diversified offers can be added to improve the scalability of the business.
-Teri Crenshaw, Teri Crenshaw Consulting LLC
When working with your ideal clients you will begin to notice that they have a common problem or issue that needs to be solved. However, the issue is something that can’t be solved with your current offerings. If this is something that you could easily expand your capabilities to offer you know it’s time to start scaling.
– Caroline Tanis, Tanis Financial Group
To some extent, it depends on your products and/or industry but for me, and anyone else in a service-based industry, the answer is simple. The services you offer should match the needs of your clients. For example, when multiple clients ask me for materials or training on the same topic, I know that this is something I need to offer.
-Juliet Burgess, The Burgess Law Group
