Rebound Growth Hacks: How to Pick The Right Tools to Grow Your Business

In this episode of The Rebound, we discuss the tools you can leverage to scale your business and support a growing customer base.

In competitive markets where people, brands, and companies compete for scarce resources, only the strongest and biggest survive. But this shouldn’t be the default in business. If you’re serious about your business growth, you must decide from the outset where you want to be in the “pecking order” and how you want to get there. 

In this episode of The Rebound, Australian futurist, author, and entrepreneur Steve Sammartino; Creative Director Tommy McCubbin; award-winning television presenter Rad Yeo; and APAC Marketing Lead at Shopify Bertie Ocampo explain how ecommerce brands can grow and flourish using the right tools, systems, and technology. 

Simplify your processes to support scale

When a business is growing there will always be multiple tasks to carry out at the same time, so how can businesses simplify things to unlock scalability?

Bertie Ocampo of Shopify says this:

You are only as productive as your processes. Having the right systems and processes in place is key to the success of your business and your time management.”

When feeling “under the pump,” businesses should ask themselves these questions: 

• Do I have a process document? Make a simple, easy to read, and shareable process document for you and your team to refer back to.

• Do I do this set of tasks often, and is there a process in place for this? This is essential when delegating at scale.

• Did something go wrong? If this occurs, re-evaluate the process and make adjustments where necessary. 

• Can this be automated? If so, automate it using the right tools and technology platforms.

Setting global growth targets

Ecommerce brands have the capability to sell online through their site globally. However, many pass up the chance due to logistical issues. 

Bertie says if you can get over that hurdle, there are numerous advantages and a bigger slice of revenue waiting for you across international markets.

However, expanding into international markets is not without its challenges. If you’re considering or preparing to open up your ecommerce store to international consumers, Bertie says there are several things to consider doing:

1. Offer more ways to pay.

2. Increase international search visibility.

3. Open additional shops in multiple regions.

4. Make your brand recognizable.

5. Avoid cultural taboos.

6. Segment and localize your ads.

7. Be clear about delivery times.

8. Manage landed costs, duties, and taxes.

9. Speak their language.

10. Research labelling requirements.

11. Create a good returns management system.

12. Offer customer service across time zones.

Who is getting it right?

Founders Andy and Hayley Worley decided to create The Sheet Society after being unable to find “the perfect sheet.” With the humble beginnings of a shared office, news of the best night’s sleep ever spread and scale was the order of the day. Fast forward to 2021, and all fulfilment is now done out of their warehouse. 

Hayley explains their business growth came in three stages. “The first stage in launching the business was figuring out the product,” she says. “I’ve got a background in product design and development. 

“The second stage was building our brand and marketing. Do people want to buy what we are selling? The last stage, which we’ve come out the back of, was the warehousing and operational side.” 

Hayley has a specific idea about growth:

It is such a big term that implies you have to do everything at once. For us, it’s about the different stages and what you need to level up and grow. Is it your operations? Is it your marketing? And what can you focus on?”

Andy says you can’t put all your eggs into sales and marketing without making sure your back-end operations are taken care of. “It is about making those incremental growth stages across all your business so it grows together as a whole, rather than chasing one particular element,” he says. 

Andy and Haley have been partners with Shopify from the get-go and have grown with the ecommerce platform. 

“They have been there from day one, when we were making $10 to $20 a day, to now. It’s one of those systems that we’ve really grown with,” Andy says. “Shopify is continually developing what they do, so I was finding more value from that platform, particularly when we opened more retail stores, with their POS solutions.” 

Quick tips

• To support workflows when scaling your business, have thorough systems processes in place. 

• Make incremental growth across all departments in your brand while keeping your customers at the centre of everything you do.

• Opening up to international markets is exciting but prepare for all the possible risks.

• Don’t put all your eggs into sales and marketing without ensuring your back-end and logistical processes are scalable.

About The Rebound Season 2 

• Episode 6 of The Rebound Season 2 aired in Australia on Saturday, August 7, at 12:30 p.m., on Channel Nine. New episodes are released every week.

• Each new episode of The Rebound will cover a different theme to address the most pressing opportunities and challenges facing entrepreneurs today.

• The themes, in chronological order, are: Skills, Design, Storytelling, Pricing, Culture, Growth, Future of Work, and Crypto.

• For more information about The Rebound, visit the website, where you can watch all episodes of season 1 on demand.