How to Scale Your Business
So you’ve decided to take the leap and scale your business, huh? Congratulations are in order! Speaking of order, there are also some key areas to have in order to support this growth! Here we share how to scale your business for growth, based on the numerous clients and case studies we have helped also build their business while boosting their bottom line!
We assume you are now selling products and services at a high demand and contemplating one of two options – bring on staff or outsource to assist with the demand for your highly-coveted goods. With new customers, comes more responsibility and operational fluidity.
Scalability is about more than just people and profit. It also prompts questions about capacity and capability.
Ask yourself: Does my business have the capacity to grow? Does my business have the systems and staff in place to effectively accommodate growth?
Having the numbers, staff-wise doesn’t always mean scaling is an effortless transition. Sometimes, growth can cause your company to fail forward, in a sense, because even as you gain ground, you also learn lessons when issues of confusion, undertrained staff, or poor systems surface.
If the whole purpose behind scaling is to bring in more revenue, you certainly cannot afford to gain new clients at the cost of losing the loyal ones who helped build your brand, to begin with. It’s vital that you have systems in place that can help enhance what already works and revises what doesn’t.
This might mean a fine dance between what was once manually processed and now needs to be automated or at a minimum, digitized, to serve a greater volume.
Scaling your business requires a foundation to enable and support growth in your company. This means moving forward smoothly. It requires financial and operational planning, tailored processes, and well-trained staff that can act in your absence at the caliber you would.
Here are our four most important steps to scaling your business for growth:
Firstly, a good hard look comes before any long-term vision.
This first focus is all about evaluating then planning. We want you to dream, but we have to build that dream on reality!
Take a genuine look inside your business to see if you are ready for growth. This oftentimes is best suited for an outside third-party that can assess with unbiased yet constructively critical eyes. You can’t know what to do differently unless you consider just how your business operates in the here and now.
Secondly, increase sales with a strategy in place.
What if your orders doubled or even came in seven-fold overnight? This isn’t just reserved for the few companies that make it onto Shark Tank, but can also happen for your business when you utilize PR services like guest news appearances or ramp up your Google Ad visibility. If you truly did have an “overnight success” type of popularity soar, would you also have the people and protocol in place to handle the influx of orders and inquiries? That is, without failing or losing reputation just as fast as you earned it? This is where and why a solid strategy is essential. At Two Sense, we are specifically trained in both evaluating how to scale your business, as well as, how to implement change to support success that follows scaling.
The short and skinny of what we can do for you is provide a detailed sales growth forecast with specific KPIs. Then we focus on goals to enhance the number of new customers, orders, and revenue you want to generate. From there, strategy commences and measuring begins. With the plan also comes updated protocol like appropriate technology, people, infrastructure, and systems to handle all the new business!
Thirdly, budget accordingly for the costs of growth.
If only success is shown as a straight trajectory up and to the right. Scaling a business doesn’t just skyrocket forward without any overhead. Your unique strategy for scaling your business may prompt the hiring of more staff, investing in new technology, adding equipment, and more. You will want to consider where you can find money to make money!
Consider grants and other options, of course, but keep in mind that the fastest way to grow is also the one you have the most control over. The beauty of owning a business is that you tell your money where to go. You decide. What’s even more beautiful? That we, at Two Sense Consulting, happen to be very good at digging our way through financial reports to find where money can be saved, and conversely, spent on your scaling strategies.
Lastly, hire staff or strategically outsource to assist with time and budget.
Many hands make for light work. This is especially true and helpful when you need to focus on how to continue to scale your business from that 30,000-foot view. Don’t get caught up in, or have to return to, day-to-day operations. This takes you from the vantage point where you are most needed – the top! Technology and trained staff are the resources you need to handle the basics. Then, you can grow beyond your original business goals.
Do you have enough customer service staff to effectively handle issues while maintaining a solid reputation? Do you have a solid social media plan in place that is intentionally marketing the areas you are measuring for profit? Let’s be realistic – even if you want to manage everything – you simply can’t be in all places at once. The secret to scaling your business is essentially duplicating yourself as best you can. Money may not be able to buy happiness, but it certainly can, in a way, buy time. Outsource the areas that you need to so that you can stay open and available for opportunities for growth. Not only does outsourcing cost less in terms of payroll, but you also can find specialists that are paid per project. This helps your business get maximum talent for one-time or as-needed only support!
Scaling requires realistic assessments, an increase in sales, and a budget as well as staff to support such growth. We at Two Sense Consulting can help you uncover each of these areas easily and on an as-needed basis! Give us a call today for your free consultation and learn all the ways we can help you discover how to scale your business!
