After successfully launching your small business, the next big challenge is to scale your business for growth. As your customer base grows, you’ll have to improve your business systems, human resources, and infrastructure to accommodate the increase in demand. These changes can cause your business to stumble if not done right, so here are four critical steps to sustainably scale your small business.
Invest in technology
Investing in the right technology is one of the easiest and most affordable ways to scale your business because it allows you to gain more throughputs with significantly less labour. Automation of business processes also helps you run your business at lower costs and eliminates the inefficiencies of human error, therefore supporting business growth.
Secure the sales
Scaling your business requires you to make more sales. Therefore, you must put different sale structures in place to help generate these. Examine your sales process from end to end and ensure that you have the following:
- Online marketing strategies to generate traffic to your website
- Marketing systems to track and manage leads
- Sales representatives to follow up and close leads
- An efficient system to manage sales orders
- A billing system that follows up on invoices to ensure that they are collected on time.
Find the right team
Employees play a critical role in the success of your business. While technology gives you colossal leverage, you still need a team of talented individuals to help you run your business. Therefore, it is crucial that you hire the right people from the very beginning. You can either hire your own team or outsource labour from freelancers.
Find the money
Scaling your business can be an expensive affair. Your growth plan may require you to hire more employees, add equipment, invest in new technology, etc. If you are unable to raise the necessary capital, you will have to find alternative sources of money. You can either take a loan from a bank or borrow from lenders.
Scalability is all about capability and capacity. Therefore, before you start making changes to your business, make sure that it can accommodate the growth. Plan ahead, do your research, and take your time.
Sustainably scale your business – where to find out more
Tower Leasing have supported the investment and growth of over 40,000 SMEs. No matter what your plans are, we have the business finance products in place and the expertise to help you see them through. Find out more about our business finance solutions and how we can help you sustainably scale your business. Or get in touch today to talk to us about your plans.
