Like countless other business owners, you probably weren’t born into money, never really planned on running a business, and didn’t have much of plan in growing your start-up once it was established. While a lot of new entrepreneurs think that growth is a universally good thing, this certainly isn’t the case. If you don’t handle a growing business carefully, rapid expansion can be more of a detriment than a benefit. Whatever industry you’re in and whatever separates your business from the competition, you need to manage your growth in the same way. If you’re starting to see a lot of growth in your small business, here are some tips to make sure it goes well…
Know Your Strengths and Your Weaknesses
One of the most fundamental lessons you should learn about managing a growing business is that you can’t be all things to all people. If you spread your resources too thin, you’ll wind up without any real strength that you can leverage. Yes, now that you’re growing, you’ll have more opportunities to experiment in other areas. However, this doesn’t mean that you should always take those opportunities. It’s a big mistake to start running far-reaching services, develop products that are too far outside your comfort zone, or reach out to new target markets simply to generate a little more revenue. If you do these things, you’ll risk the strength of whatever it is your business is actually good at, and create new, probably unnecessary pressures for your whole workforce.
Keep an Eye on the Prize
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Just like anything in business, you need to be very strategic in approaching your growth. Set your business plan with measurable and realistic goals, track your work against those goals, and modify things wherever necessary. If you don’t give yourself these milestones, you’ll have no real way of telling how successful your business is being. You’ll also risk becoming distracted by unnecessary frills and investments. Yes, if you keep on growing, you’ll eventually have to look into commercial properties and setting up a physical office. However, is this really the most pressing thing you could be investing your time in? When you, your management, and everyone else at the company has a crystal-clear understanding of where the company should be going, it will bring everyone together, and encourage everyone in the workforce to take pride in accomplishing their individual goals.
Remember that People Work for People
One of the biggest, and unfortunately most common mistakes that entrepreneurs make when their business is growing is neglecting their staff. It’s near impossible for a business to grow and operate effectively without a good team. As your operation expands, you need to be on the lookout for ways to improve your company culture, the benefits your staff are receiving, and the reasons why your employees would want to keep working for you. A lot of expanding entrepreneurs tend to forget that real loyalty comes out of making it clear that the higher-ups at the company truly care about everyone on the staff, both on a personal and professional level. This ultimately results in employees who are in for the long-run, which has a very real and positive impact on company growth.
Running a Larger Business Well is Different to Being Good at your Job
You may be a great PR rep, but that doesn’t mean that you have it in you to run a successful PR company. You may be an excellent chef, but this doesn’t mean that you’ll be good at running a restaurant. What I’m getting at here is that as your business grows, you’ll have to wear a greater number of hats, juggle different roles, and keep it all together. Right now, your role as CEO may be fairly limited compared to other business owners. A lot of small entrepreneurs start off in a self-employed, hands-on position, and only manage the nitty gritty of the business when they need to. You may have a great skillset in your area of expertise, but you’ll need to combine this with a sharp mind for business if you want your company to grow at a healthy rate. Managing recurring processes, taking care of people, dealing with billing and managing a good supply chain, are all things that you’ll need to fit into your calendar as your business expands. If you don’t feel you’re up to this, and there’s no major risk in staying in your current state a while longer, you may want to hold off on any major expansion.
Forget the Phrase “Build it and they will come”.
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When their finances are strained, a lot of entrepreneurs will look at marketing as an unnecessary expense and cut it from their budget. Yes, you may have a great product and a loyal customer base. However, if your growing business lacks the support of good marketing, it can be at more risk of going under than you realise. Never say “build it and they will come”, or put so much faith in your product that you think people will automatically flock to it. Consumers, particularly when the economy’s uncertain, will be extremely picky about what they spend their money on. As a result, they’ll typically pay for products or services which they’ve either sampled in the past, or have been referred to them. With this in mind, you need to make sure your marketing is perfectly aligned with your R&D. Nothing should ever be considered fit for the market until you’ve considered the demand, and how you plan to tell your target market about what you’ve just released.
Although growing your venture can certainly be a good thing, there’s no airtight way to guarantee success. It takes a combination of logical, strategic thinking, creative, out-of-the-box ideas, and a fair amount of luck as well. As you gain traction and expand, you need to be applying all of these tips, and looking out for any pitfalls that may be exclusive to your industry or niche. Growing a company effectively is rarely easy, but the work is certainly worth it!