All successful businesses start small. It takes time and experience to build a profitable company. One way to start is ensuring that the business is scalable.
Scalability describes the ability of a startup to expand. Put another way, a scalable business can adapt to a larger workload without compromising performance or losing revenue. That means setting the stage to enable and support the growth of your company. That also means having the ability to grow without being hampered. This requires planning, some funding and the right staff.
Start Planning
Take a hard look at your business to see if you are ready for growth. You can’t know what to do differently unless you take stock of where your company stands today. Then strategize what you need to do to increase sales. Look ahead – if the volume of your business tripled overnight, would you have the people and systems in place to handle this growth? That’s why planning is essential.
Seek Funding
Scaling a business will not be free. Your growth plan may call for hiring staff, deploying new technology and adding equipment. You may need funds to invest for growth. As with starting a business, banks and financial institutions can provide lending, but if your company is on solid ground it will be much easier to secure financing than during the startup phase. Established businesses also tend to have collateral in the form of assets and accounts receivable. If your company is incorporated, you can seek equity financing through angel investors.
Find the Right Staff
“Surround yourself with the best people you can and give them an opportunity to do what they love to do best,” says John Stonecipher, CEO of Guidance Aviation. “Each one of my staff and faculty are leaders themselves. I cannot succeed without them.”
“Everything we do needs to be scalable,” says Matt Choi CMT, founder of Certus Trading, a trading education company. “I only have so many hours a day and I’m the face behind the business. So I need to spend my time wisely in order to help as many people as possible. You look at doctors and dentists, they work one-on-one, they only attend to one patient at a time.”
Certus Trading’s Matt Choi says his business has to be structured in a way that is scalable. That means delivering education through emails, webinars, live coaching and group coaching sessions. “This way we can help 10 people at the same time, while maintaining the quality of our education,” he adds.
It’s important to think big to become big, says Neil Patel, the founder of Crazy Egg. “Having a scalable business means that you are free to unleash your dreams, make a lot of money and have fun doing it,” he says. “Once you get your mind in the game, scalability becomes a lot easier.”
Scaling a business can be profitable but also very challenging. Before embarking on a business expansion, do your homework and develop a plan for growth to minimize risk and maximize the odds of a successful transition to a larger organization.
