Scale Your Business
Did you know that it is possible to grow your business and reduce your hours?
Or do you think to yourself, I should keep my business small and manageable so I always feel in control?
But does this mean that you are so involved in the detail that you loose sight of the big picture?
I talk to many business owners on a weekly basis and this is a question I love to ask. We, well ok, I used to make a lot of assumptions about this. Of course you want to grow your business, don’t you?. You will make more money, you will have more customers happy with your product or service and you will build a team so that you can delegate all the bits of your business that you are not passionate about.
But Sarah, I am often told, I love everything about what I do, and I don’t want the hassle of employing people and delegating work to others that I know won't do the work as well as I do.
We are all different
I do understand this. Some business owners want a lifestyle business and that is fine, nothing wrong with that; but I want to show you what growing a business can do for you if you have the right skills that you need.
I am not saying it's easy, I know it's not. But what I do know about business owners that I meet is that they love a challenge.
When you grow a business, the most important part becomes your team, and the culture that you create within your business. This is hard for a competitor to replicate. You (and I) have many competitors out there doing very similar things to what we do.
So how to compete in a competitive market?
💰 You can compete on price - quick way to low margins
🍏 You can compete on product - how many original ways are there to do what you do?
OR
🛎️ You can compete on service.
To compete on service you need to have the best people in your team, people who will deliver to the customer over and above their expectation, in the way you would if you were looking after every single client yourself
So what’s in it for you?
A little story about my first business. Take yourself back to 2003 (if you are old enough to remember that); we found a niche in the market and Google PPC was in its very early stages. Bingo - our business grew quickly. So quickly that we were recruiting people within 6 months and turning over £500k in revenue within a year.
Stressful - yes. Exciting - very.
Fortunately I had many years of previous experience of recruiting and managing teams (that’s not to say some mistakes were made - which is often the way when you have not planned for growth….)
The thing is I loved the business and I loved building the team and getting to the point that not only were we growing but our team was growing too. They were learning new skills, and loving their work.
That is win-win in my book.
Not everyone can find a niche in the market and not every business is scalable, but even a small business needs good people, if it is not going to be dependent on you doing everything yourself.
So how can you be sure that your people will do things just the way that you do them?
This is a 3 Step Process:
Recruit the right people
When I grew my first business, we recruited people reactively which led to a lot of problems. We just didn’t take the time to ensure that they were the right people that fitted with our core business values. Getting the right fit is essential. They need to have the skill set and experience, but more importantly they need the right values. They also need to fit with the existing team and have the right innate skills; in other words their natural skills which they will find effortless. Don’t rush into recruitment decisions as I did. It is better to have a gap than recruit the wrong person.
Motivate your team & build a company culture
One of the things I learnt from my first boss when I was taken on to set up a business unit from scratch for an international travel business was the importance of understanding the individual motivations of your team. Everyone is different. He knew I was self motivated and wanted to do the best possible job I could; and frequently asked me “what do I propose?” Of course, it may be that he actually didn’t know the answer himself!
Building a company culture is all about effective delegation which can be very hard for business owners as they don’t want to let go of control. So how do you delegate without losing control? Well it’s all about knowing your people and understanding whether they are ready. Delegating without first giving direction, providing coaching and facilitation is not delegation, it is abdication and is bound to end badly.
Implement process
This is essential for growth and you need to automate or outsource wherever possible, but don’t forgo the personal touch. All of your processes should be enablers in that they take all the leg work out of the task but ensure that the customer/client still has a brilliant experience each and every time. It’s never too early to start implementing systems and processes.
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