Starting your own business is an accomplishment in itself
and if you have had success for a few years you might want to start expanding.
Those who look to expand do it gradually rather than ramping things up quickly
as they need to scale processes and keep current clients happy. Even if growth
is not going as planned a profitable company is nothing to frown at and a
proactive approach to growth is always important. The following are things that
you can do to start getting your company ready to take profits and company size
to the next level!
Optimize Your Processes
Before growing optimizing processes needs to be done and processes tested so the growth does not impact quality of work. Automation has become a huge help in some industries by allowing staff and a dedicated team to concentrate on what they are paid to do rather than doing repetitive paperwork. There are so many productivity tools available to businesses that things like time tracking software can help keep people on track as well as help in training future employees.
Target Larger Clients
Targeting larger clients will take practice as interacting
with a small business owner is much different than dealing with a large brand’s
executive. One of the first things to tighten up is that of social media
presence and the company website. Larger companies are not going to want to
enter into a partnership with a small company that cannot even afford to pay
for a good website design and usability. In many industries that have high
turnover rates a former employee or colleague could be the introduction that
you need to close a sale. LinkedIn is the perfect tool to find these
connections that might be able to help.
Hire Slowly and Fire Quickly
Keeping the staff as productive as possible might take
getting rid of some employees that never seem to produce numbers in favor of
new hires that can hit those numbers. There is a family vibe at many small
businesses so making sure to take care of long term employees when they are let
go is important. You want to stress a family environment without putting this
in the way of profits as accountability needs to be present.
Market Online Creatively With Quality Rather Than Quantity
Smaller companies are not going to have the marketing budget
that a larger corporation is going to have. What they do have is the ability to
be more flexible when marketing in specific ways as there usually is some kind
of line of approval at larger corporations. Podcasts are growing in popularity
and are reasonable to budget for after the proper equipment is purchased.
People want to feel connected with the companies that they work with and even
current customers might become more loyal due to them listening to the podcast
and even being a guest.
Scaling your business up can come with quite a
bit of stress if there is a significant monetary investment in the venture.
Take care of th