Thank you for listening to the Champion Forum Podcast with Jeff Hancher! If you want to grow your business, you have to be willing to scale it. Many entrepreneurs struggle with delegation because they feel like they are the best at managing many of the individual aspects. However, holding onto control for too long will prevent you from necessary growth and even cause your business to become less profitable. Today, we’re talking about the signs that it’s time to scale your business and the steps you can take when you are ready to scale your business.
Five Signs That It’s Time to Scale Your Business
1. You are turning down potential business opportunities.
2. You are surpassing previous goals
3. You have a strong cash flow and repeatable sales
4. Your current team is reliable, effective, and proactive.
5. You are taking minimal risks.
Q: Have you seen any of these signs in your business? Describe the situation. How did it feel when you realized that thing was happening?
When preparing to scale your business, you should have the following long-term goals in mind:
An established value ladder of products and services
High customer retention rates
Diverse income streams
Predictable revenue
Q: What are the short-term goals for your business? What are the long-term goals? Which goals tend to take precedence in your mind? Why do you think that is?
7 Steps to Scaling Your Small Business
Overcome Cash Constraints
You will need increased funding to scale your business. Some sources of income include conventional loans, crowdfunding, joint ventures, invoice factoring, and creating new products and revenue streams.
Develop Management Skills
Your business cannot grow beyond your ability to manage it. As you plan to delegate, be prepared to lead by example and develop leaders who have tact, emotional intelligence, and confidence.
Build Your Team
Evaluate what needs to happen for your team to be productive. You may need to consider outsourcing some work or hiring new team members. As you evaluate your needs, spend some time ensuring you have the right people in the correct positions.
Standardize Processes
If you walked away, how would the business function? Make sure that you have a clear process for each of your tasks and that you have people well trained in how to execute those processes. This prepares your team for growth and reduces your need to get involved if an issue comes up.
Focus on Core Offerings
Don’t get distracted by the new products before your core offers are secure. You should have a strong process for onboarding, delivering your product, and following up.
Capitalize on What Sets You Apart
For your business to be successful, you must have a competitive edge over other companies in your market. Think more about the overall experience you offer than the product itself.
Put a Strategy in Motion
If you want to scale your business, you need to be able to draw up a big picture strategy that shows where you want the business to go, target revenue, and what share of the market you want. A clear plan is the only way to achieve your goals.
Q: Which of these steps feels the most daunting to you? Why? What benefits do you think you will see if you can carry out these steps?
Application Activities:
Identify 3-5 processes that you need to standardize in your business. Start by looking at the problems your team is bringing to you. You can think about recent discussions and email conversations to help you brainstorm. Then, write down a process as clearly as you can. Finally, test your process by having someone from your team work through it. Have them add any steps they needed to take into the process and present ways to simplify or clarify the process so that anyone on your team can use it. Investing a few hours at the beginning of the year could save you dozens of hours, reduce frustration, and increase your productivity by the end of the year. Eliminate unnecessary roles
Many people probably offer the same product and service that you offer. The key to making your business scalable is to capitalize on what makes your business unique. If you’re not sure what that is, send out a survey or conduct an interview with your best clients. Ask questions like, what makes you trust us with X, Y, or Z? Have you ever tried another company for this issue? What makes us different? If we could do more of one thing, what would it be? Then, work with your team to come up with a plan to do more of what you’re good at!
If you don’t have your own business, you can use a lot of these tips to help you determine when you need to scale your team. Remember that what got you to where you are today will not keep you here. You may need to add more employees to your team or simplify what your team does in order to keep growing and becoming more productive. Identify which steps you can take of the ones presented today, and set a deadline for implementation.
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