If you’ve been running your business for a while, you might be thinking it’s time to scale to the next level. Before you do, make sure your business is ready by considering these three things:

 

1. Assess Your Current Operations

• Evaluate your processes: Are they efficient and scalable? Growing without established and efficient processes could be a recipe for disaster. More orders, more team members, more customers, and more revenue is more to manage. Make sure you have processes in place to efficiently manage this new volume and identify bottlenecks that could hinder your growth.
• Review your team structure: Do you have the right people in place? Sometimes the people who “got you here” aren’t the people who can “get you there”. Review your organizational chart, ensure you have defined all roles and responsibilities. Then, review your team and make sure you have the right people in the right roles. As a small company, you may have people who have stepped up into roles due to necessity, without having the true skills to be able to perform the role at scale.

2. Understand Your Finances

• Analyze your cash flow: Do you have enough to support expansion? Growth takes cash. If you’re processing more orders, you’ll have more revenue, yes, but, you’ll also have more costs. Often those costs come before the cash. If you’re hiring more staff to handle the additional volume, payroll is due, even if customers haven’t yet paid. Put together a detailed cash flow forecast to ensure you’ll have enough cash to handle the growth you’re projecting.
• Review your financial projections: Are they realistic? Understand the additional costs that will come with the growth in revenue. Consider costs for new hires, marketing, and infrastructure.

3. Know Your Market and Customers

• Research market demand: Is there enough interest to support your growth? How is your industry expected to change in the coming years? Consider any changes you’ll need to implement to support those changes. How will your customer needs change? Make sure you aren’t investing in expansion in a dying market. If changes are on the horizon, adjust your business to grow in the right direction with customer needs.
• Keep an eye on competitors: What strategies are they using to scale? Has it been working? Or, do you need to adjust?

 

Scaling your business is often the best way to remain sustainable long-term. However, ensuring your business is ready to scale, is important to successful growth. Don’t just grow for the sake of growing. Be strategic. Be intentional. And, plan!

 

Co-written by: Haylie Ridenhour & Shauna Huntington