5 tips for dealing with it right the business growth and avoid critical…
As any business owner, you also dream the day when you got a steady stream of customers look forward to working with you. But what can happen when business growth is too fast and the workload becomes heavier than you can bear? Sure, apparently it is a “desirable” problem, but a too rapid business growth can be as dangerous as a business that never took off. In both cases the result will be the same: the failure.
If you decide that the company’s priority is growth, then you need to plan everything with care and attention. The growth has its risks, but a correct strategy can provide long-term stability and security can make a difference.
We wanted to suggest some signs that you can make people understand when your business is growing so risky and some solutions that can help you plan a coherent and secure growth path.
#1- Following too many clients and you are no longer able to guarantee everyone a quality service
Meet the expectations of your customers is the best way to interline tight and if your reputation is well established, acquire new ones. But when you’re too busy to follow every single customer, risks to disappoint, to undermine a relationship maybe built in, and losing it.
A specific time deadlines are not met, quotation requests or orders left open too long, responsible unreachable on the phone for weeks are things that a customer is willing to tolerate for long. Then he springs.
Solution: Make a selection of customers you care and really quite got rid of the ones that you create problems like late payments, constant requests for discounts, or who claim that you can go to their home, perhaps distant, making you lose a day a question that could be answered quietly away.
He spends most of your attention to customers who really care, and possibly please contact someone to handle externally ones no longer essential and likely to signing more a hindrance than anything else.
#2- Your current resources are not enough and you have to recruit staff and / or purchase goods or additional tools
A business in too rapid growth can lead you to having to make crucial decisions even so sudden and unwise, perhaps under stress or in the wake of an excessive enthusiasm. But if a temporary boost your business does not prove fruitful as hoped, you risk finding yourself with the expenses and investments that become inevitably leak.
Solution: Take your time and take every decision considering all the factors, the cost / benefit ratio in the upcoming employment opportunities in the long term planned. Here are some questions you must be able to answer:
- How many people and what instruments I really need to support the current workload?
- I can trust, at least temporarily, some of the work to independent contractors?
- What is the growth pattern of my business?
- With which customers can count to be able to continue working in the future?
- In the long run, I could share / delegate part of the work, taking on a role less operational and more managerial?
#3- Manage emergencies and unexpected always at the last moment and in person
When you notice that something is missing, it is already too late. It may be a software upgrade, purchase of goods and tools, to choose the right CRM, an upgrade of IT services, a new employment and more. Instruments and determining solutions for your operation, but that may be outside of your direct responsibility. If in addition you find yourself having to take certain decisions when you are with the water in the throat, the risk of making bad choices is huge.
Solution: Avoid find yourself at the last minute, and on the basis of your model of growth plans in advance every move to not get caught unprepared. Organizing for growth steps can also optimize costs, avoiding, for example, you face an unexpected expense when maybe they have just done another.
Do not be afraid to entrust to those who are more experienced than you, it can provide the tools, advice and best suited to your business solutions.
#4- You are no longer able to manage the company’s cash flow
Is coming true what you’ve always dreamed about: your client base is growing visibly, work orders are always the most prestigious, in a nutshell you are making money hand over fist. Well, no?
Certainly, but remember that strengthen cash flow means more complexity in the financial and administrative management of your business. And inadequate or superficial management can take to errors and very dire consequences, including sanctions, fines, problems with employees and so on.
Solution: Rely immediately to a professional management software and in case of need not postpone hiring an accountant and / or rely on one study commercialism that is not limited to mere fiscal management but it can offer business advice giving you a complete overview of the current situation of your company, providing different scenarios and suggesting you probably ignore practical solutions and even the existence, such as notices, deductions and tax breaks.
In the meantime, you can concentrate entirely on your business without distraction and without the risk of making mistakes and missteps, and decide whether and when to capitalize with a view to growing your business, or save and accumulate resources waiting for the right moment.
#5- Do you feel a turning point but do not know which way to turn
You seem to have achieved the objectives that you had preset, your company and your professionalism in your industry are recognized and well established, your customer base is rich and your finances are solid. What to do?
Better further settling on the position reached in the market as a reference or expand by increasing the corporate structure and the range of products and services offered and / or opening up new markets? What’s the old saying? Who leaves the old way to the new one, knows what he leaves, does not know what is …
Solution: If you have never had a mentor, or at least a reference model, it is the right time to find it. Search for other entrepreneurs in your same field, studying their path, analyzes their success stories but also their eventual failures. Learn from what has already been done by others and Compare it to your situation and your future goals.
If you can afford it (and if you’re actually thinking about growth should you can afford it), consider investing in an Advisory Board, gathering the consultants that help you develop a successful strategy to expand your business.
#6- You have decided to explore new territories
Every entrepreneur, sooner or later, feels the desire to go beyond the borders of their business model to start. Consider, for example, for a small construction company that has always operated in a residential area, which also sees an opportunity to expand the commercial and industrial sector. He is able to maintain its current customer base and simultaneously accouterments new, and, moreover, in a field where it may not have enough of experience?
Solution: When you think about the entrance into new markets, the simplest solution is often the replica of the original business formula adapted to the new environment, area or sector, bearing in mind that look out over your local or sectoral level, should provide for the loss the link with the territory, area, or the original field.
You do not have to think about a radical change in the business plan on which so far have you based your business, but an extension of it. Also assess the possibility of a partnership with those who have more experience in the territory, in the field, in the market where you want to enter.
Obviously, there are no fixed rules. Each path of growth is a story of its own and with its own peculiarities. It can be based on the quality of products or services, research or innovation, or even on diversification. But it is possible at least three conditions are indispensable: a particular contractor; a structure height; an investment program calibrated to the business project.