What Is Organic Growth?

If you run a business, growth is what matters most to you and your investors. Growth metrics can vary by person and company, but the only ones that truly count are how many customers you have and how much you sell them.

There are two ways to measure that growth: organic and inorganic.

Organic versus inorganic

Organic growth is created by adding new customers or more business from existing ones. In essence, it means expanding your company from the inside using the resources you already have, including skills, knowledge, experience, relationships, and other tools. Organic growth is healthy for a company and reflects a solid, long-term commitment to building a business. It is not, however, a get-rich-quick approach.

Inorganic growth is the growth generated by mergers and acquisitions. Inorganic growth relies almost entirely on available resources and capital. Mergers and acquisitions can quickly increase a company’s size and revenue, but they often create complex brand-building challenges that require a methodical approach to integration.

Methods to generate organic growth

1- Define your right audience

Many people jump into business without knowing who their audience is. They assume that once they open the doors, people will rush in to buy their product or service. The reality is that no one trusts a brand-new company, so it is critical from day one to know who you will target, why, which need you will fill, and which problem you will solve.

Research is your first step toward organic growth because trends, markets, and people are constantly moving. They change without warning, and you must run studies regularly to make sure your offer is still what your audience is looking for.

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2- Focus on a well-defined business niche

Once you have an audience, a product or service, and a clear idea of what you want to do and how to do it, it is important to focus on a tightly defined niche. Many people think the bigger your audience, the better your odds of sales. But there are key advantages to narrowing your reach at the start of a new project.

1. Marketing costs: You cannot do business without a marketing strategy. And the larger your audience, the more money you have to invest in campaigns. Defining a specific niche lets you save a lot of money and get high returns with that audience.
2. Business base: There are 3 types of customers when you want to launch a product or service.
   1. The first is the one who dares to try new things, the initiator, the “influencer” in a way. It is the most restricted audience but the one that later lets you reach the general public.
   2. Next comes the one who follows the trend, the follower. Once they start seeing that something is going “mainstream,” they will follow the influencer and begin to buy. That market base is the broadest.
   3. The “late bloomer” is the one who, once a product or service is already trendy and people have known about it for a good while, finally gets convinced. It is a very large part of the market, which is why it is not worth spending so much on marketing from the start with a very general audience: they will make you burn a lot of money on campaigns that will never convert them. They keep buying from you long after the influencers have moved on to the next trend.

3- Look for a differentiator

As I always say, especially here, one of the main mistakes new businesses make is copying what is working for the big players in the market. Copying a business will not give you success, and your organic growth will almost certainly stay very low. If you are going to step into entrepreneurship, one of the first lessons you must understand is that if you are going to sell a product or service, do it intelligently.

What is a differentiator? It is a feature or benefit that sets you apart from the competition. Companies with unique differentiators have a much easier time communicating their value to potential customers, standing out (and positioning themselves above) the competition, and winning more business.

The least effective differentiators are those that do not offer a direct benefit to the customer. No one particularly cares how long you have been in business, how many charitable causes you have supported, or your claims of having “the best people” or “the best pizza” …etc.

The best differentiators address the needs and concerns of the potential customer. These include demonstrable claims about how your unique services, products, or expertise can specifically benefit the customer.