Though it may seem impossible, even the most humble of experts will tell you that scaling your business is really just growing what’s already there!
While it may be difficult to envision your business as a race, that’s exactly what your business is. You are racing against similar businesses, you are racing against expenditures and mostly, you are racing against your own learning curve, however steep or shallow it may be.
Each day owning a business is an opportunity to jump the shark and avoid stagnation, which is why to scale your business, you need to have a growth mindset and do the following:
- Hire employees
- Spend more and be fast
- Fulfill managerial duties
- Automate simple tasks
These three elements are key in bolstering the bulwark of your business and propelling you forward as a manager or CEO.
Get Some Experienced and Hardworking Hands Onboard
There is no business in the world that is run and operated by one person. There are independent contractors who operate in that fashion, but that is different. In order to be a business, you must flesh out the multifaceted way in which your operation functions.
While your business may take a financial hit from hiring employees, even hiring one person will, quite literally, double your production, and hopefully, double your KPIs as well.
You don’t even need to hire the best of the best for the overwhelming majority of tasks you wish to delegate. You can hire overseas work and plausibly pay less for even skilled workers who operate on a different pay scale. You can take in an intern. If you’re at the early stages of your business, you can even hire a younger family member who wants to get their foot in the door with business. Whichever path you choose to take, even full-time, high-wage employment will yield better results than you doing all the heavy lifting, thinking, planning, scheduling, and tasking. You should also be privy to employee software that maintains accounts, handles payroll, filters tickets or handles EIN verification.
For certified employees, even a simple glance at Craigslist or Indeed can get you a local and qualified helper.
Avoid a Conservationist Mindset
Scaling your business is not the same thing as gambling. It is not throwing your finances down a dark tunnel to never be seen again. Each time you spend money on your business, you are investing. Spending money on your business is basic resource allocation, and it pays dividends when it’s not paying lump sums!
You should be downloading software, hiring help, outsourcing IT, upgrading packages, refining materials, using office space, etc. The list goes on!
The reason this seems counterintuitive is that, especially in modern times, we are taught that a penny saved is a penny earned. While this is true, in the business world, in order to make clean shots and achieve goals, you must sacrifice and take calculated risks. In order to mitigate the risk factor in each purchase decision, many small business owners enjoy the presence of a financial advisor. If you can find one who supports your plucky, go-getter attitude while keeping on foot firmly planted in caution, you’re set!
Use Your Administrative Power
You know the ins and outs of your small business. You know how it operates. You know your employees. You know how to access every piece of data that isn’t readily available to you.
This makes you the head honcho.
Opportunity and prosperity should be flowing out of you like a fountain onto your business. Get all the software your employees need. Set them up to win with you by offering investment packages and employee benefits. Offer opportunities to move up in the company wherever applicable, and write glowing reviews for prior employees. By being this fountain of pure creation, you are manifesting better employees and bigger successes that you can all enjoy together as a team.
As People Friendly as You Are, Don’t Hire People to Do Robot Jobs
When RPA first arrived on the accounting scene, some people didn’t even believe it. It was both wondrous and absurd at the same time that a robot could cross-reference different documentation applications while performing a specific task with little to no error. It was like a person – but better!
This is how most modern business automation software is. So much of the precision needed to operate mental legwork is entirely accounted for in even just accounts payable and receivable software, like Quickbooks or Xero.
Conversely, you never want to assume that you can solely use software to scale a business, and the software does not and cannot do the critical thinking to grow. Software is a tool and does not have a growth mindset. Only you, and those you collaborate with, do. Because of this, hiring a managed IT service provider is also an excellent way to scale a business in an extremely controlled environment, as just one example.
Be Ahead of Your Own Game
While you are creating, and that creation has innate value, you are also competing. You are competing with other companies and growing businesses for resources, employable team members, advertising space, and clients. Because of this, you need to tackle your growth from the outside in.
Employing these tactics are surefire ways to expand your business quickly, and browsing for more information as you go is one of the best ways to maintain the necessary business plasticity to keep moving forward.
For more information on small business management, consider perusing expert pages!
