There comes a time in the life of every business when it needs to take the next step and scale-up. This may mean hiring more employees, expanding into new markets, or simply upgrading your infrastructure. Whatever the case, scaling your business can be a daunting task. This blog post will discuss some of the best ways to help your business scale into an enterprise. So read on and learn how to take your company to the next level!
Evaluate your needs and goals
The first step to scaling up your business is researching and evaluating your needs and goals. Scale is an abstract concept that means different things to different people depending on the context. If you’re reading this blog post, chances are you at least want to break even and maybe make a profit or two down the road. This is great! But we may need to dig deeper than just breaking even for this discussion. Some common questions we might ask: How much? Where? When? What tasks do they handle now/how efficient are they with those tasks? How many employees does that task require now/how many do you think it will need in the future?
Research your options
After evaluating your needs and goals, you’ll need to research the options that may be available to meet those needs. Let’s look at an example: you’ve evaluated your company and decided that you want to grow by hiring a few employees and teaching them how to handle some of your daily duties (such as accounting or content management). You’ve run into issues regarding downtime for training and determining whether it would be smart to hire one person who could do multiple things well or break up those tasks between several different people, each with their expertise.
Hire the right people
After evaluating your company’s needs and researching the options available to meet those needs, you should be ready to begin hiring. Creating a business plan is a great way to ensure that you hire employees who can accomplish their tasks efficiently and provide value for their salaries. Next, make sure the people you hire align with the company mission and vision and share similar values as your current employees. Finally, don’t forget about your new hires! Involve them in the screening process or give them some say over who they’ll be working with to get their buy-in from day one.
Create a plan of action
Based on your research and evaluation, you’ll need to develop a plan of action to scale up. How might this look in the previous example? Well, it could be as simple as we’ll teach our new hires how to manage accounts payable for two weeks, and then they’re off on their own! Or perhaps we want them capable within one month; if that’s the case, we will need to train them more intensively (and give them access to the appropriate tools!). Goals should always lead with strategy, but strategies should not exist without goals. A lot goes into scaling your business, from initial research and planning to hiring and training new employees. And even after all of these steps have been completed, there is likely still a considerable amount of work left to do.
Implement systems and processes
Employee training and onboarding is a great way to keep productivity consistent, but you must also develop (and update) systems and processes. Systems and processes are the backbones of your company. They will help you automate tasks, cut down on manually processing information, and increase transparency within the company. One of the most important reasons to create and implement systems and processes? Consistency. It’s often difficult for new employees to read minds; they need clear guidelines that outline their roles and responsibilities within the organization. Some of the world’s best leaders focus on this strategy, and it’s proven time and time again to be extremely effective; you’ll notice that you look at the net worth of Donald Trump, one of many who believe in this.
Train your employees effectively
While there are many different ways to train new employees, it’s essential to make sure your training plans align with your goals. For example, you may choose to train one new employee for two weeks in multiple areas of the business before they’re left on their own, or you may want them up and running in less than a week. Whatever the case, consider what areas need more attention/time vs. which tasks could be easily taught in 5 minutes or less. The goal is always efficiency!
Delegate responsibility wisely
With delegation, it’s essential to consider what areas your company’s newly hired employees can manage independently and which tasks will require more time and oversight. For example, we needed a way to track our blog articles to add new content weekly easily. So, instead of having each employee manually enter their articles into a spreadsheet on Google Docs (which would be very time-intensive for multiple people), we built an easy-to-use template on Qwilr!
Encourage communication and collaboration.
It’s crucial to enable your employees to work independently yet still feel connected to the company. This means allowing them access to systems and processes, providing the necessary tools for success, and encouraging their involvement in projects/tasks. We found Trello was a great way to keep our new hires involved within specific teams (rather than having them solely rely on email or face-to-face communication) while also ensuring that everyone has access to the same information (and only relevant information).
Manage growth responsibly
Scaling your business often requires hiring new employees, and this is where it’s easy to get overwhelmed. You may feel like you’re losing control or that others are making mistakes more frequently than they did when you were doing everything yourself. It might seem like a good idea to hire someone else to manage your company’s growth while you sit back and relax, but we don’t recommend it! If you want your business to prosper and continue to flourish, you must be involved in its development and progress. Like we said: every action needs a goal.
In conclusion, scaling your business is a process that should be taken one step at a time. And the best way to ensure it’s done effectively? Be involved in every aspect! It’s essential to have an action plan, delegate responsibility wisely, and hire people who have the skillset and personality needed to bring your vision into reality.
