It doesn’t take long before you realize that your business needs to accomplish more. But, when your resources are tapped at capacity, how does your business achieve more without adding additional assets like time and money. You scale! Without it, you’re merely an employee with overhead and stress…better and smarter but not necessarily richer.
Scaling your small business means multiplying revenue with minimal cost. Doing so allows your business to operate and grow without you doing all the work. What a novel idea! It’s the reason you went into business, isn’t it?
Small Business: To Scale or Not to Scale
Whether or not all businesses are scalable is open to debate. The question to ask is this: Can your business gain 100 clients overnight without adding costs, including your time?
If your next sale requires just as much time and effort as the one prior, your model is not scalable. For instance, in the professional services industry, work is customized. With new clients comes work to customize the solution for them. In many cases, the client chooses the professional — not the assistant — to do the work.
Although not all businesses may be scalable, portions of them may be subject to scale.
Consider Before You Scale
There are several questions you need to ponder before jumping into the deep end of scaling your small business.
- Is your business scalable?
- What would scaling your business look like? How do you want to spend your time? What activities can be outsourced that frees your time to work “on” your business rather than “in” your business? What is your monthly support budget?
- Are there aspects of your business that can be scaled?
- Is my product and business model proven? Scaling a business is not the solution to generate more revenue when the cause of underperformance is an unproven business model.
- How is my product delivered? Can this process be automated?
- What aspects of your business can be replicated quickly and cost effectively? Automating whatever and wherever you can is a must before you scale.
- Are you clear on your “secret sauce”?
All of these questions, and their corresponding answers, allow you to scale different aspects of your business without adding too much more staff. It’s the best first step.
If you would like discuss scaling your small business, request a complimentary strategic consultation for your business. The first one is on us!
