10 Things To Know Before You Think Of Scaling Your Business

joyous.roma05
5 min readApr 11, 2017

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It’s 2017. And, everyone may have started planning new strategies to scale his business and upsurge the growth bar. Hold on! Hold on! Scaling business considers everything amidst you and your company.

Customers, company professionals, focus area, services you provide, competitors, approach you use to run your business, everything.

You have definitely heard a few of these quotes while starting your business, if not, scroll down…

“There is only one boss. The customer. And he can fire everybody in the company from the chairman on down simply by spending his money somewhere else.” ~ Sam Walton, Founder of Walmart and Sam’s Club

“Get closer than ever to your customers. So close, in fact that you tell them what they need well before they realize it themselves” ~ Steve Jobs, Apple

“Learn to look after your staff and the rest will follow” ~ Richard Branson

Stay focused, go after your dreams and keep moving towards your goal” ~ LL Cool J

Growing and scaling a business is not a task of a day or a month. It’s an ongoing process.

As stated above, customers, company professionals, approach you use, services, etc… are the major aspects to focus on.

These aspects either help in positioning you as a pioneer or melt your efforts and dreams like ice into water.

Don’t be scared… Consider the below points before you think of scaling your business

→Develop a public profile: Who do you think has made a huge impression in your mind, Steve Jobs or Apple? Even if you think of Apple, it’s his brainchild after all. Steve Jobs was the master in doing big things. In order to develop a public profile, you need to think big like him.

Your company that you are running is because of you. If your company’s website does not define the basic information about you as a founder or as a director then you are on the wrong track.

Just think of it… How would you feel if your customers won’t recognize you?

→ Set standard processes: Ability, quality and reliability are the three important parameters that accelerate your business growth. Simultaneously, it is also required to stay updated with the business trends and changing demands.

If you are planning to scale your business, anticipate the probabilities and introduce a smart approach which is actually the best idea. This not only sets a standard for business processes but also streamlines the functioning.

→ Hire the right people: Before thinking of business expansion, take a look around you. Do you have a solid staff who can help you in doing so? Yes? Move forward! Else halt for a while and hire the right people. Plan out the strategies, involve your people and start executing.

With a small business to grow, it’s essential to have the right people who are actually not afraid of toiling hard and do the best they can to take the company to the next level.

Even the words that we hear or say “That’s not my job” hinders the set goal. Instead, the team should have the approach to work on whatever task is assigned respective of their designation.

→ Identify USP of your business: If you and your competitor are providing the same services what is that unique factor that differentiates you? Think of it. Don’t execute any marketing strategies that disbenefits you.

A research recommend that it’s essential to underline those unique factors that helps you in competing so that you can focus on scaling and growing your business.

→ Do have leadership skills: In order to become an entrepreneur, first and say the primary requirement is to have leadership qualities.Leader is the person whose task is to, a) get his people from where they are to where they have not been. b) work with goals and vision. c) hire the right people who invest their time in taking the business a level up. d) maintain the team’s synergy.

→ Coherent competitive strength:As said by Michael Leboeuf, ”A satisfied customer is the best business strategy of all”. But many companies fail to perceive their business from customers’ viewpoint. Research notices that a few of the companies have contorted their self perception based on the quality of interaction with their customers.

Is that a proper analysis of your customers’ purchasing pattern? No. In order to grow and scale, entrepreneurs need to develop a coherent competitive strategy and put in front of their customers. It should be planned and executed in such a way that it improves customer experience and simultaneously leads you to the successive path.

→ Think big and act smart: We usually hear this saying written by Seth Godin ”Think Big Start Small”. We have with us great examples of famous people, Steve Jobs and Bill Gates. What if Bill Gates would have sat simply day dreaming of turning a small company into a $100 million dollar, would have he achieved it? NO. He dreamt and acted on what he wanted to achieve and that’s how he created Microsoft and made what it is today.

Remember the SWOT Analysis? It‘s a study undertaken by companies to identify the strength and weaknesses as well as the external opportunities and threats. You can use it as it helps you in achieving your goals and lead your business to success.

→Establish a good network: This is the way we do our business marketing, Word of Mouth. Isn’t it? While starting your business you spread a word of mouth amongst your friends and relatives about the services you gonna provide. This helps in expanding your network and you get good people who indeed do some sort of investment in improving your business processes and reaching to the large group of potential users.

→Be flexible and adaptable/Learn, learn and improve: While starting your business there are various challenges you face. You may fall after a short span and lose your impact on people.

Trends keep on changing, demands keep on changing. Hence, you have to remain updated with the bandwagons and play the game. Every step you take is a learning step. No one enters into the business with an experience certificate. Everyone is an amateur. Gradually, facing the challenges and adopting new changes helps you in growing your business by leaps and bounds.

→ Invest in customer retention: Customers are the valuable asset of your company. Therefore, it is important to retain customers and provide them with what they want before even they realize it.

Well! The matter here is how much money can you invest in marketing to retain your customers? You can adopt various approaches to your marketing strategies that can help you in leveraging customers’ purchasing power. Wait! Don’t expect instant results. Marketing takes time to show up the results. But if you are planning to grow and scale, you need to focus on this area of your business else you can lose your influence on your customers and money… simply on the table

Originally published at www.openxcell.com on April 11, 2017.

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