Scaling a business

How to scale a business

What is the ultimate goal for your business?

The approach you take to scaling your business will depend on where your business is heading. Are you planning to build your business to then sell it on? Or do you plan on running your business indefinitely? The answer will affect your approach to scaling. 

Whatever type of growth you want or need, you’ll need to make sure your business can cope with it.

Startups with a goal of being bought out will generally look to scale quickly and prove excellent traction in the market, to appeal to buyers. If your goal is to keep running your business, you’ll most likely want to aim for more slower, steady growth.

Whatever type of growth you want or need, you’ll need to make sure your business can cope with it. Manual processes that work fine on a small scale might not cut it when you’re trying to move at pace and on a larger scale. 

How do I scale my business?

There are five key stages to scaling your business successfully:

1. Review your current business

If you’re going to scale your business, you need to understand where you’re starting from. Step back and take a look at every aspect of how your business operates. Will your processes and systems still work when you ramp up the volume and speed of demand? Where do you need to make changes?

Make a plan of what you need to do to increase sales. How do you foresee generating the increased demand? What efforts will that take? Then go into the detail of how many new customers, orders and revenue you want to generate. Being as specific as possible will help you build a more realistic strategy to achieve your goals.

The more you plan, the better prepared you’ll be to scale your business.

Do the same for your expenses. As your revenue increases, so will your costs. Make sure you’re as specific and realistic with your forecasts for spending as you are for your earnings.

Then comes the important part. Sit down and imagine your customer orders doubling or tripling overnight. How would your business cope? Do you have the people and systems in place to deal with the demand? Where do you need to make improvements or changes? 

Make a list of everything you can think of that would be affected. Be thorough and start to build your business growth plan. The more you plan, the better prepared you’ll be to scale your business. 

2. Find the funds

There’s no two ways about it, you’re going to need money to scale your business. Whether it’s budget for hiring staff, buying equipment or upgrading your technology, you’re going to need funds. There are two ways to proceed: bootstrapping or finding external investment. 

Bootstrapping involves building up your business using only your personal savings and money from initial sales, i.e. you’re totally self-sufficient. And we’re all for this approach, as it allows your to grow steadily and within your means. But be warned, it typically takes years to grow through bootstrapping alone. 

If you’re looking to scale, then unless you’re generating cash quickly, you’ll want to look for external investment. The funding sources are similar to those for startups, with the most common being loans, grants, angel investors and crowdfunding. Research your options to find the best source of funding for you and your business.

3. Generate sales

Scaling means selling more. And selling more requires a sales strategy and structure that facilitate growth. The areas you need to focus on are:

• Accessing a sufficient amount of leads
• A system to track and manage your sales leads
• Dedicated sales staff to follow up on leads and generate sales
• A robust sales system to process customer orders and manage billing

4. Invest in technology

The right technology gives you the power to scale your business with a lot more ease, and often at a reasonably low cost. Investing in technology can:

• Reduce your dependence on labour and costly manual processes
• Streamline processes and minimise inefficiencies
• Gain economies of scale
• Lower your business running costs
• Integrate numerous systems to make operations more manageable

Some areas to look at include CRM, marketing automation, sales management, inventory, manufacturing, accounting, HR, shipping and other technology systems. Don’t forget to also look at your networks and hardware, such as servers, computers, printers and telephone equipment.

5. Expand your team (or strategically outsource)

Growing your business means you’ll need more hands on deck. Technology can help you scale, but you’re still going to need a bigger team to manage the increasing demands of growth. Evaluate where your business needs the additional resource and hire team members who will have a direct impact on your ability to scale. 

Do you have enough customer service staff to deal with an increased number of customers? Will you need an IT expert to manage your technology and IT systems? Would your business benefit from having a coordinator to look after the day-to-day tasks that take up your time?

Take time to find and hire the best candidates for the roles you need to fill.

Make a list of roles you need to enable business growth and then think if you need them to be a part of the team, or if you could outsource the work. If a role is going to be integral to the running of the business then hire into your team, making sure you take time to find and hire the best candidates for the roles you need to fill. 

Outsourcing can offer a great solution, with third party organisations already having the resources and specialist knowledge to handle specific functions. The key is to find a reliable partner that can offer what you need to position your business to scale better, faster and cheaper.

Is my business ready to scale?

Your business is running smoothly. You’re able to comfortably handle demand and do so in a profitable way. And, as a founder, you’re not dealing with all of the day-today. Sounds like your business is ready to scale.

Scaling your business requires having solid foundations to scale – production to support increased demand, a solid infrastructure and standardised, repeatable processes that can be delegated as you scale. 

Ask yourself a few questions. Is your business working well right now? Are you comfortable with operations and meeting current demand? Is everything under control? If the answers are yes, then chances are your business is ready to scale.