When looking to grow a business, the first concept that might jump out at you is social media. After all, there are more than 3 billion accounts worldwide.
Yes, it is a necessary part of business growth, but it’s not going to get you to scale right away. No, to make that possible, you’ll need to commit to the following four principles.
1. Know Where You Are Going
Any journey to scale business must begin with a clear roadmap of where you hope to end up. Flying by the seat of your pants may be fun for a Saturday hike, but it’s a recipe for disaster when it comes to yours or other people’s money.
Sit down with your business partners. Have a heart-to-heart regarding the business’s goals. Do you see it as an indefinite revenue generator or a company to be grown for 15 years and sold at maximum value?
The answers to these questions are important. They will inform potential partnership issues before they have a chance to get out of hand. They will also help you chart a course for incremental growth.
2. Study Who Your Customer Is
One could make a case that this should be the first factor in how to scale a business. However, we chose to go with a timeline because you presumably have enough of an idea of who your audience is to know you want this particular business model in the first place.
Regardless of where you put it, it’s vital to growing a small business into something bigger. Your customer is the person who will pay money for your product or service, but they’re also so much more.
To get them to part ways with those dollars, you’ll need to understand their motivation, wants, pains, and needs. In other words, you’ll need to add value, and that only happens if you know them intimately.
3. Take It One Stage at a Time
Learning how to scale a business fast means learning how to break out the broader goals into individual action steps. If you’ve done your homework on Nos. 1 and 2, this part should be easy.
Just align the buyer’s path with your business’s goals. From there, you can create several smaller action steps to push you closer to meeting each milestone.
This method also keeps you from over-committing to the wrong path before you’ve wasted tons of dollars. Lastly, it enables you to pivot into the right direction instead of having to start over whenever obstacles arise.
4. Time Your Investments Appropriately
Finally, understanding how to grow a business really depends on your ability to let go. And by “let go,” we mean to let go of two things specifically: money and responsibility.
The Avitus Group, a company that specializes in helping small businesses grow past their capacity barriers, notes that many of the challenges to growth include a hesitance to outsource ancillary tasks and a fear of technology. Being able to turn over the things you’re not good at or don’t have time for to the people who are can get you over the growth humps.
Grow a Business Through Principles and Action
Having the right principles and an action plan in place before you start will enable you to grow a business quickly. However, you have to commit to thinking some things through before you get started. For more small business tips and advice, check out some of our additional posts.
