Scale Your Business for Sustainable Growth
Every major company in the world, whether it is Apple or Virgin, was a start up once. Even companies that are now worth billions once started with a vision, an idea and only a handful of people. Bill Gates started his business working out of his garage. How did these small businesses turn into profitable multinational blue chips? Obviously hard work, expertise, dedicated staff and timing played a huge role but so did the ability to scale and grow. All companies no matter their size need to focus on sustainable growth and on how to scale over time. Only by scaling will you be able to perform under an increased workload and improve profit margins. Here are tips and tricks from the best in the business that will teach you how to scale your business.
1. Keep your Business, not just your Clients Happy
Many entrepreneurs are so busy focusing on keeping their clients happy and working for other people that they forget to keep their business happy and work on those vital activities that will allow them to expand and scale their business. A basic rule of thumb, if you want to scale your business, is to set aside time to work on accomplishing expansion, through marketing, overseas activities, social media and other activities, and scaling the business to match increased demand. Without dedicating time to this the business will stagnate. Make a plan ahead of time. Scaling means making, predicting and being ready for demand, not responding to it last minute.
2. Keep your Processes Simple and your Foundation Strong
Nothing is more precarious than a house built on stilts on a windy street. The business world is volatile, it is therefore important that you build your business on a rock solid foundation, using a tried and tested simple business model. If you overcomplicate things, or build your business on a shaky premise, chances are everything will come crashing down once your business is under pressure. Consistent growth and scalability are dependent on solid, simple, systematic processes that can expand easily with time and demand, without having to be drastically changed over and over again. This will ensure consistency of quality for your clients from the get go.
3. Just another brick in the wall
There is sometimes a negative view attributed to the notion that someone is just another cog in the wheel or brick in the wall. In today’s society, many individuals seek to flaunt their own unique characteristics. However, when thinking about scalability, individuality should not be a priority, in fact quite the opposite. In order for you to scale your business, you need to de-emphasize individual importance. It may sound heartless, but a company's ability to grow exponentially should be independent of any one individual's input or persona. Obviously a strong leader is needed at the top and hiring and retaining talented employees is important. However, if your company seeks to systematically offer high quality goods and services, your business model should be designed so that the replacement of any individual team member has a negligible impact on your firm’s success. If the ground shook every time one employee left and another arrived, your company would not be able to grow or offer consistent services or products over time.
