Growth: 3 Key Factors to Grasp when growing your company

Owning a modern marketing agency is no easy feat. I remember the days of doing all the work and wishing I had people to do it. And now sometimes dreaming of it the way it was.

As in any startup, Founders are typically strung out, wearing multiple hats, trying to do everything as well as they can. The mistake they run into is that they hire someone expecting a “mind-reading mini-me” and suddenly are surprised when things in the business don’t continue with the founder's same momentum.

It was explained to me in Impulse Creative’s early days as an “S” curve (pictured above). When it was originally explained to me is was regarding cash flow and profitability with each new employee hired. At Impulse, it was very important to my wife and myself to focus on strong organic growth (vs using loans or investors).

Over the past years I’ve found myself referencing the S’s from a few different perspectives.

• Profitability: With each new employee there is a “time-to-profitability”. It takes them time to get tapped into your company’s culture, rhythm, and expertise.
• Productivity: The company’s efficiency and productivity is also effected with each “S”. You will have people needing to train the new hires, check their work, and nurture them into strong company assets.
• Capacity: This one is particularly important for Inbound Agencies. A majority of our work is on a retainer basis. Understanding capacity, and that you will see capacity dip before it increases with new hires is an important thing to remember.

Over the past few years, we’ve definitely learned some lessons, much of the lessons were about understanding what a good “fit” was, but others that I hadn’t considered in the beginning is carefully outlining duties and responsibilities and providing a road-map for success.

When your at the helm of the ship and have an intimate team of passionate professionals be sure to lead in a way that gives confidence. In many cases it’s often thinking ahead and planning for outcomes, keeping yourself in check with how much you throw at new team mates, and always striving to be an effective communicator.

How do you manage and project the growth of your company?