What are your plans for growth for your business? The sooner you start preparing yourself for growth, the easier it will be to take your business to the next level of success. Because, the truth is, while most want to grow their business, not everyone can do so. In this blog post, I want to help show you how to prepare yourself for business growth.
Eliminate distractions and focus on what matters
I’ve started a few different businesses over the years and I know how difficult it is to let go of controlling everything. It’s your passion, your baby, in a way, so of course you’re tempted to supervise every single thing and do as much as you can by yourself.
But the thing is, you can’t do everything and grow – there just isn’t enough time. At some point, you need to be able to give away some of your power to others, so that you can focus on the most important tasks – the tasks that bring in revenue.
Over the years, I’ve learned two important lessons about focusing on what matters:
- That you need to organise all of your daily tasks and focus on the ones that bring in revenue first
- That you need to find good employees to help, or you need to find outsourcers to handle some of your task
When I look at my to-do list every morning, I’m always overwhelmed – even after many years of being a business owner. So, I always prioritise my most important tasks, the ones that will make a real difference to my business (talking with a potential client, following up on my quality leads, and so on) and focus on those first.
This way, because I manage to achieve something from the start of the day, it always motivates me to work better, more efficiently the rest of the day.
The other issue is with being able to give away the reigns to some projects to employees or outsourcers. You know what you want best, so it’s difficult to trust someone else; but the thing is, if you want to have enough time to grow, then you need to pass on some of your workload to others.
You might look at it as a waste of money; but, I’d urge you to look at it from a different angle: you’re freeing up your time, which you can then use on the things that only you can do: selling.
The saying “you need to spend money in order to make money” couldn’t be truer in this case – at the very least, in my experience, as well as that with the clients and business owners I’ve worked over the years.
Save and grow your money
In order to grow your business, you’re going to have to invest money: for opening up a new location, developing a new product or service, revamping the entire product line, and so on.
If you’re successful and making a profit, it can be quite easy to find funding for your business by getting a loan from the bank, or by finding investors who are willing to pump money into your business. But, loans and investments always come with strings attached – either you have to pay the money back (and with a pretty hefty interest, to boot!), or you have to give away a stake in your business and you won’t be the sole owner or decision-maker any longer.
That’s why you should think of your business growth as soon as possible – and start saving your profits and take better personal financial decisions to prepare for this step.
If you’ve got a decent amount already put aside, you could consider investing it to make it grow in time for scaling your business. If you’re going to try this route, then you need to inform yourself; check and read resources on how to invest your money, find out what all the different investment options are, and decide on what type of investing you want to do.
It will take time to build up enough funding for your business, and there can be issues along the way – but, the other alternatives are to depend on others, so it’s a question of whether you’re willing to accept giving away a stake in your business, or if you have the capacity to pay back a loan with interest.
Your employees
While finding funding for your business can definitely be tricky, what’s even more difficult, in my experience, is finding and keeping good employees: hard working, forward thinking employees.
I can’t even tell you how many times I struggled with finding the right employee, or how many times I thought I had them, only to be disappointed. It’s difficult to find good people and even more difficult to find people that share your vision.
And this is so important when you’re growing your business; you need people to help you every step of the way, and most importantly, you need people that you can trust once the new and improved version of your business is live – you’ll have so many other things to worry about, so a good employee that you can trust can make a huge difference to your success and your overall sanity.
Dedicate as much time as you can to finding the right people to work with; then, make sure to train them properly, talk to them, involve them in the business, and make them feel a part of the family – you’ll want to have loyal employees once you’re taking the next step in scaling your business.
Conclusion
Growing a business can be an incredibly exciting time – but, it can also be a bit of a nightmare if you’re not truly prepared for it. You need time, money, and good people to help: focus on getting these three and your job will be much, much easier.
