I’ve seen business owners balk at the idea of growth, thinking that they should put off scaling their business until they reach some mystical “perfect moment” that never comes. But the truth is that minimizing your risk isn’t hard, as long as you approach your plans with care—and as long as you have a strategy coach to help!
Here are the steps to consider moving forward.
Begin With the End in Mind
Scaling gets messy unless you understand how you want your business to grow. Commit to specific growth targets in advance to make the journey easier, and break those targets into bite-sized plans and concrete actions to make them easier to achieve.
Find Outside Help
Unless you’ve scaled a business in the past, it can be challenging to understand how to reach the next stage of your company’s growth. Outside help can bring valuable perspectives and experience, so don’t hesitate to hire a business strategy coach or legal advisor for added insight.
Address Your Cash Constraints
Growth inevitably requires funding, so start working to secure that funding as soon as possible. Don’t hesitate to get creative: options like joint ventures, bank loans, and crowdfunding sites can help you avoid sacrificing equity unless you want to.
Hire the Right Team
It’s impossible to scale a business with your existing team. You’ll need to invest your time and resources into finding a new team of talented people who share your mission and values. Remember, it’s insanely hard to fix a company culture that’s gone awry once you’ve made the wrong hires. Taking time to find the right talent makes all the difference, even if you’re shooting for rapid growth.
Consider Your Structure
If you can’t be personally involved in all of the significant decisions your company makes, it becomes more critical to create a structure in which seasoned leaders can make those choices on your behalf. Consider how each role and position should work, and structure your company in a way that favors that growth.
Standardize Your Processes
One of the best ways to help your company grow toward the targets you’ve set is to implement repeatable processes that all managers can understand and supervise. This can help all of your teams stay on the same page about what success looks like, though it may require additional training, tools, software, or support systems as needed.
At the end of the day, if you plan to scale your business, you’ll need to create rigorous plans and follow them with dedication. No matter what kind of brand you have, there’s no way to escape the fact that growing your business will require a lot of time and effort for branding, the right talent, extensive research, and effective business strategies. Fortunately, the time you spend strategizing on the front end can pay off in a big way down the road, so don’t skimp on planning!