8 Strategies For Building a Multi-Million Dollar Business

Do you sometimes dream that your business starts making millions of dollars every year?

There’s no one single path to building a multi-million dollar business, but there are some tried and true methods used by the biggest brand names in the industry.

In this article, we’ll share eight tried and tested strategies to help you build the multi-million dollar business of your dreams.

Let’s begin!

1. Increase Your Average Order Value (AOV)

You might think the first step to building a multi-million dollar business is to get more shoppers. However, customer acquisition costs are on the rise. According to Lightspeed, it has increased by 222% between 2013 and 2022.

What can sometimes be a better approach is to increase your AOV so both new and existing customers spend more hen browsing your business. It can increase profits without the need to spend more on marketing. It will even improve other metrics, such as customer lifetime value and return on investment.

How to get started:

• Offer product bundles and upsells.
• Personalise the shopping experience based on order history.
• Increase your free shipping threshold.

2. Raise Your Average Selling Price

Your average selling price is the total revenue divided by the number of items sold in any given period. Increasing this figure leads to better margins due to the costs of sourcing and selling products decreasing proportionately.

The best part is that you don’t need to raise your prices to implement this strategy. You can continue providing the same product at the same amount by launching a premium range, creating value bundles or removing inventory with a low average selling price.

How to get started:

• Introduce a premium range featuring high-quality products or features.
• Offer bulk offerings for your top-selling products.
• Include product bundles for items with refillable or replaceable components. For example, electric toothbrushes and makeup kits.

3. Negotiate Better Terms With Suppliers

If you have a good relationship with your supplier and they value your business, they’ll likely be willing to renegotiate payment terms. In most cases, you’ll only get one shot at it. They will accept it, or it can sour the partnership.

The key is to make your proposal mutually beneficial. Your suppliers are more likely to agree to your terms if they get something in return, such as an increased order supply or advanced payments. If you can find the right middle ground, it will improve your working relationship and help you achieve your multi-million dollar aspirations.

How to get started:

• Research market costs, demands and supply chains before initiating a conversation with suppliers.
• Calculate your requirements while ensuring the terms remain beneficial for your partners.
• Have backup proposals ready if your preferred terms are rejected.

4. Perfect Inventory Management

Understanding how to manage your merchandise is critical. You never want the words sold out to appear on your website for your most popular items. You also don’t want to be sitting on excess stock.

Managing your inventory doesn’t need to be complicated. But it does require thorough analysis to gauge the right balance. Using historical purchases can help you with your forecasts. It’s also vital to have safety stock. Calculate this amount by taking the average number of products you sell during a reorder lead time.

How to get started:

• Review your historical purchases to forecast future sales and stock needs.
• Calculate your safety stock volumes by averaging the number of products sold during reorder lead times.
• Bundle overstocked items together to get rid of them and increase average order values.

5. Broaden Your Digital Marketing Strategy

Digital marketing is more than posting on social media. It incorporates many other facets that generate revenue for your business. Some of these strategies can also be more effective in getting your brand in front of your target audience.

For example, a study by Litmus found the ROI on email marketing can be as high as $US36 ($AUD56) for every dollar spent. There are also lucrative benefits to using online ads and affiliate marketing as part of your strategy.

How to get started:

• Run Google and Meta ads to automate your audience targeting. These services allow you to choose the demographics who see your ad, so you’re not wasting your marketing budget showing everyone.
• Optimise your website for search engines. Conduct keyword research, ensure you’re using headings correctly and add meta information to your web pages so it’s easier for customers to find your website.
• Create a monthly newsletter showcasing trending products and upcoming promotions.
• Launch an affiliate marketing program. You can tap into the established following and only pay commissions when a referral is successful.

6. Implement a Brand Marketing Strategy

In addition to promoting your products, you must establish your brand with audiences. Multi-billion dollar businesses like Apple and Amazon use the weight of their name to drive sales and attract customers.

There are multiple approaches you can take. One popular strategy is influencer marketing. Rakuten Marketing found that eight out of ten consumers purchased a product as part of an influencer marketing plan. Other alternatives are to launch PR campaigns or attend industry events to showcase your business.

How to get started:

• Connect with an influencer marketing agency to find potential partners to promote your brand.
• Launch a PR campaign through social media or a cross-promotion strategy with other channels. Create press releases and send them to media companies to gain coverage.
• Invest in booths at industry events and offer product demonstrations. Provide attendees with testimonials and customer reviews about your brand.

7. Utilise Your Customer Base

Did you know Trustpilot found that 72% of Australian consumers are likelier to buy a product based on a mix of reviews? That’s why you must ask your customers to leave testimonials after purchasing. Many ecommerce brands automate emails to shoppers after a few months to get their most honest opinion.

User-generated content is another avenue you should explore. A Stackla report found customers are twice as likely to view UGC as authentic compared to the content created by brands. Rather than coming up with ideas for your next social media post, connect with your audience and encourage them to spread the word about your products.

How to get started:

• Send surveys to your customers one to three months after their purchase and encourage them to leave a review. Offer monthly prizes to drive responses.
• Showcase user-generated content on your social media accounts, particularly Instagram. You can also add it to your product pages to improve conversions and demonstrate customer-centricity.

8. Master Conversion Rate Optimisation

Improving your conversion rate is about more than just increasing sales. It lowers your customer acquisition costs because you’re gaining more value from your existing visitors. It increases your revenue per visitor metric and gets you close to building a multi-million dollar business.

Some of the best places to start are by reviewing your product pages, add-to-cart buttons and completion rates. Review the metrics for each page and gather feedback where possible to determine how to improve the purchase journey.

How to get started:

• Optimise the part of your conversion funnel that receives the most traffic or generates the highest number of conversions. You’ll see results faster, leading to greater impacts on the business.
• Review high-value pages and compare the conversion to the rest of the site.
• Study underperforming pages and look for ways to replicate them against the best-converting parts of your website.

Start Your Journey to Building a Multi-Million Dollar Business

By implementing these strategies, you can forge a path that leads to you running a multi-million dollar business. These techniques are proven and utilised by some of the biggest brands in the world, including Amazon, Apple and Shopify.

Start building your strategy by implementing these methods. Regularly review your metrics to ensure you’re on the right track, and don’t be afraid to make adjustments along the way as your customers evolve with your brand.