While some business people may claim they alone hold the keys to your success, the reality is that there’s no one-size-fits-all approach to business. Instead, a broad number of working strategies will be necessary if you want to ensure a profitable company.

To help you on your way, we’ve put together a few effective strategies for operating your business. If they’re right for you, apply them straight away.

1. Find a space to collaborate

Many businesses which go it alone soon find that the skill set they have in-house is insufficient. Cue a long and expensive process to hire fresh blood or find freelancers at short notice. There are, however, office spaces available that are designed to foster collaboration between companies by housing them in the same building.

A great example is the 3M Buckley Innovation Centre. Based in Huddersfield, this business center holds close ties with the University of Huddersfield and aims to unite the SMEs that rents its space with experts and other enterprises like theirs.

That means regular office mixers, highlighting how businesses can work together, and providing collaborative opportunities between companies that benefit their profit margins and the local community. The result is a city that’s reaping more rewards from the business community, and SME owners who are better connected in the long run.

Centers like this are dotted across the country. Join one to find out if it accelerates your financial growth.

2. Get brazen with your marketing

Injecting an extra-sized helping of anarchy into your marketing is a novel way to make your brand stand out from the crowd.

A company like BrewDog is an excellent example. The roustabout beer brand didn’t make waves because of the quality of their beer, but by the implication that they were breaking the rules of how brands were supposed to market themselves.

Founder Ian Watt presented himself as an affable amateur of the beer world, pushing into the mainstream on a wellspring of enthusiasm and a seemingly inexhaustible number of ideas to whip customers into a frenzy.

3. Get your customers’ input

In the age of social media, engaging with your customers outside of the purchase cycle is no longer an optional extra. That means keeping your social channels open to receive customer praise and (more likely) complaints, as well as creating content that is relevant and entertaining for your user base.

Even companies like Innocent, which would be relatively anonymous without social media, have transformed their feeds into a hub of in-jokes and shareable content that constantly keeps their brand at the forefront of their customers’ minds.

Those are our top tips on optimizing your business strategy. What recommendations would you share with our readers? Let us know in the comments below.