When you start planning your business, your primary goal will be its ultimate success but during the first year of doing business, your focus will probably shift to mere survival. Somewhere between these two goals comes growth, and the way your business handles it will determine its long term success. While some plans may give you a great temporary solution, they might not work out that well in the long run, which is another thing for you to consider. With this in mind, here are few ways that can help you scale your small business.
Sharing Responsibility
While you are still running a skeleton crew, it won’t be that hard for you to micromanage everything. Still, this is not the way it’s always going to be. Soon, you will be hiring new people, opening new departments and significantly increasing your workload. Because of this, you need to prepare some of your employees for leadership positions.
This method is preferable to hiring already experienced managers for two reasons. First, it costs you significantly less, and second, you have someone who is already familiar with your staff and your company’s internal structures. Apart from sending them on courses and instructing them personally, you need to start sharing responsibility with them as soon as possible.
Focusing on B2B
When you first start off in any industry, your primary concern will be B2C relationships. Also, once you start growing, you will be compelled to cooperate with others in your business niche and make contacts with other businesses like yours. Methods that work in B2C don’t necessarily apply to B2B and in order to improve your lead generation, you may want to resort to more traditional methods of engagement. Sure, there is nothing wrong with sending an email, but having a telemarketer call your potential partners and associates is much more personal and countless times more professional.
Keep a Steady Cash Flow
Some businesses barely manage to gather the funds to launch their startup hoping that once it starts working, it will carry its own weight. Unfortunately, this is not how things work in real life. In order to keep your business afloat, let alone make it grow, you will have to secure a steady cash flow, which is usually easier said than done. Great majority goes to banks or credit unions in order to acquire these additional funds, but this is usually not the optimal solution. Overburdening your strained budget with a monthly credit payment (interest included) may be more than you can handle. This is why it is always preferable to sell non-business essential assets (personal vehicles or properties) or even account receivables (if you have any).
Build a Brand
Finally, from your business’ first day, you need to think about the big picture and start building yourself into a brand. This means investing heavily in marketing, focusing on quality, and above all giving your business easily recognizable traits. Come up with a simple (easy to memorize) company logo, personalize your relationship with clients and partners, and work on your public image. Naturally, if your business performs admirably, you will do this by transforming some of your customers into your most loyal brand ambassadors.
Conclusion
Through these four steps alone, you can ensure that your business scales as smoothly and gradually as possible. Keep in mind that all of the abovementioned costs, but the price is not always in money. Sometimes, you will have to invest your time, resources, and patience for the cause- which are not less expensive. For all those who put business scalability above all else, these are just few things to consider.
