Time to Grow - Growing Your Business by Jim Spinney, Spinney and Huber LLC

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Growing Your Business

If you have been operating a successful records center for some time, it may be time to start considering areas that can help grow your business. Growth should be approached with caution with special emphasis on financial constraints, staffing and training needs, facilities capabilities, and technology needs.

These risks should be assessed completely before moving forward with your growth approach. If your decision is to move forward, then there are several growth strategies to consider.

Growth Strategies

Increase Sales
One of the least risky methods for growth is to review your present marketing efforts. Are you using all of the tools available to you to the best of your capabilities? Prospecting, internet lead sources, interactive web site, telemarketing, advertising, association memberships, direct mail, - these are all tools used successfully in our industry to grow sales.

Grow Existing Clients
Another low risk way to grow your business is to look for opportunities to get more business from your present clients. Are your clients aware of all of the services provided by your records center? When was the last time you held an open house at your records center for your existing clients? Do they know you can provide file indexing services and what the value of that records management tool can be to their program?

Diversification
A growth strategy with moderate risk is to diversify your business. Adding services such as vault media management, digital imaging, destruction services, forms and inventory management, or electronic vaulting can add revenue sources as well as offer more service opportunities to your existing clients.

Acquisition
Acquisition opportunities don't only exist for the big players in our industry. Look at the current competition in your market place and evaluate how you think they are doing in comparison to your growth and stability in your market. Are they out of space and needing to put additional financial resources in the business? Are they out of step with today's technology requirements? Are they reaching retirement age with no family coming up in their business? Are they too small to reach a reasonable break-even point with the present business? Did they recently lose a large key customer? These are all keys to deciding on acquisition targets to approach in your market.

Open Additional Markets
One of the higher risk methods for growth is to consider opening additional markets with additional record centers. You really don't want to be back in the startup phase in new cities if it can be avoided. Some of the keys to mitigate risk are to look at acquisition opportunities in the new market, find a large base startup client, or maybe some of your existing clients have branch or subsidiary operations in the new market.

Current Rates and Operating Efficiencies
The least risky method for growing your business is to be sure that your service rates for present and new clients are keeping up with inflation and current business costs. Your business expenses do not remain fixed, neither should your service rates. Focus on your operating costs for reducing expenses as well as looking at your service rates. The larger your organization gets, the greater the opportunities for waste. Assess your Standard Operating Procedures, purchasing decisions and current vendors for processes that can cut waste, reduce costs, and improve your bottom line.

These are some, but certainly not all, of the growth strategies for today's record storage providers. Your growth may mean reassessing systems, procedures and suppliers. The results of this reassessment will be your guide to planning the next step in growing your business.