If you have a business, there will hopefully come a time when you want to scale it up. However, there are situations where this needs to be done quickly. Therefore, planning your growth so that it is scalable is critical for long-term success.
Growing your business should include ensuring your employees have the resources and support they need to do their job well and efficiently. When your employees feel good about their jobs and the company they work for, their output will be higher in quality.
Set realistic goals
It is far better to set realistic goals and achieve or surpass them than it is to set goals that are too high. When you set realistic goals and your company achieves them, it is excellent for morale and encourages future success. However, when they fall short, it can invoke hopelessness if employees feel like they are struggling to meet a goal they are unlikely to achieve no matter how hard they try.
Small steps add up to greater success over time. Therefore, it is important to have small successes as you work toward a larger goal.
Carefully consider the best options for growth within your company
Fast growth is not always the best growth. Although it is important to analyze what products or services have the highest potential reward in the shortest time, you must ensure that your company can handle the growth across all departments. One of the worst things you can do is make promises to customers that you cannot keep. For example, if you are increasing the production of a product, you need to ensure your shipping department can keep up with shipping them. In today’s challenging business world, labor can be difficult to find despite having the funds to pay for it.
Avoid overworking your employees
Sometimes long hours are inevitable, but if employees are asked to work too hard for a long period, it leads to burnout, mistakes, and poor performance. Many companies have trouble filling job openings, so burnout and overworking are, unfortunately, more common than they used to be. Growth may cost more than you expect if you have to offer a more attractive salary to get the help you need. Even if the projected profit seems a bit lower than you would like when you take into account the additional budget needed for higher salaries or more employees, there is a far greater likelihood that your company will succeed at growing.
Regularly monitor progress and adjust plans accordingly.
Sometimes the best plans need to be altered to bring the highest level of success. During scaling up or growth, it is especially important to monitor progress and see what is working and what is not performing as well as you expected. This means talking to employees and project managers and looking at hard data such as sales figures, customer satisfaction surveys, and overall profit for a specific product. Adjustments will then need to be monitored for satisfactory progress, and further adjustments may be needed until you feel like your company is on the right path to success.
Evaluate your website
A lot of business comes from the internet. If a company wants to grow, its web presence must grow with it. No one uses a phone book to find services and goods anymore. An easy-to-find, informative, and simple-to-navigate website is essential for the success of your business.
Even if your website was great when you first started, it can easily become outdated or develop issues that cause it to load slowly. More people access websites on their phones or tablets than ever before, so you need a mobile-friendly website or you will lose customers. Potential customers do not stick around on sites that load slowly or look run-down. There is a good chance they will find another site offering a similar product or service and spend their money there.
It may be helpful to remember that the money you spend on your website is going toward a part of your business that never sleeps and has the potential to make money around the clock.
Restructuring can have benefits, and you don’t necessarily have to hire extra people to achieve them
The way your company is organized and the work assigned can significantly impact productivity and overall success. Figuring out how best to restructure can take some time. It is a good idea to get your employees’ input when considering how to restructure. Those “on the ground” have firsthand knowledge of what type of bottlenecks there may be that affect productivity.
Evaluate your quality control on a regular basis
As you scale your business up, the last thing you want is for the quality of your products or services to drop. A noticeable drop will ensure that any growth and profit you experience is very short-lived. If there is a slight drop in quality in any aspect of your product or service, keep in mind that this can happen. It will not spell the end of your business or even a major drop in revenue as long as you take care of the problem quickly and enact measures to make up for any trouble these problems may have already caused customers or clients.
Offer incentives for employees who go above and beyond
Hard work and dedication should be rewarded. Performance bonuses, commission, and the potential for promotion are just a few ways you can motivate employees to do better. However, if employees feel they will always get paid the same no matter what they do, there is no real incentive for them to do anything beyond what their job requirements specify. More paid time off or vacation days is another incentive to consider offering top-performing employees.
Encourage employees to continue their education
Advanced degrees benefit talented employees by furthering their careers and potential take-home earnings. In addition, your company can benefit from having a more skilled labor force. A no GMAT online MBA like the one offered at Spring Arbor University is a great option for employees who want to keep working and further their careers simultaneously.
Look to other trusted professionals in your network for advice
Sometimes it is helpful and productive to get the opinion of those outside your company. If you have a professional network of friends and colleagues, consider whether they can help you strategize effective ways to scale your company.
Attending a few online or in-person conferences is another great way to get some ideas for your company’s growth.
Invest in training for your employees, especially new hires
If you think you are saving money by letting employees learn the ropes without actual training, you are mistaken. Employees who are not offered high-quality training struggle and often make mistakes that they otherwise would not have. Mistakes can be harder and more expensive to fix than taking the time to train would have been.
It is especially important to offer training to new hires. A well-trained employee will get more done in a shorter period of time. But training doesn’t just stop there; as your company grows and new strategies are implemented, you must make sure all your employees are on board with the changes.
Reconsider your hiring practices
How do you recruit new employees? Are you happy with the results, or does it seem harder to find the quality employees you need? The type of employees you need for growth may differ from who you typically hire. If you hire locally, consider expanding your advertising and recruitment to a broader area. Posting openings on sites that reach people throughout the country does not take much extra time, and it can help you cast a larger net to bring in the most talented applicants. We live in a highly mobile society where more people than ever are willing to relocate for a position at a great company, especially if it is in an area where they were considering moving anyway.
The bottom line
It is important to recognize the right time to scale up your business and do it at a sustainable rate that doesn’t overly stress critical components of your business. Scaling up means considering every aspect of your business and creating a plan with realistic goals. Remember that you can always create another plan for even more growth after you reach your initial goals. It is always better for team morale if you set achievable goals and celebrate milestones rather than creating an atmosphere of failure in the workplace by setting initial goals that are too high.
