Retain and grow your customer base

Understanding who your most valuable customers are helps focus your efforts to increase sales, but diversification is also important. Even if you have many customers, it's risky if they are too similar and could be affected by a similar change in business or the market. For example, if your three largest customers are based in the US, an unfavourable change in the exchange rate could see them all drastically reduce their orders.

There are many ways you can diversify and grow your customer base - for example:

• increase your market share by widening your customer base in your existing markets
• use information to understand your competitors and take advantage of any gaps in the market
• growth through product and service development
• growth through strategic partnering with other businesses
• grow through international trade