When you’re managing a small business, you’ll often find yourself either focusing on things like sales figures and web traffic – or the bigger picture strategy for your long-term success. It’s perhaps most difficult, therefore, to focus on that medium-term in which you are going to need to scale responsibly and carefully become a medium-sized business with the clout to become well-regarded inside your particular industry. This article is all about how and when to scale your business, offering three all-important tips to help your growth become sustainable and exponential into the future.
Cash Flow
Scaling is primarily about cash flow. If you have too little when you elect to scale, you’re likely to run out of money and you’ll be forced to take out cumbersome loans. If you have too much money, you’ll have wasted an opportunity to scale sooner. Finding that balance – of when to make the move to reinvest profits in scaling operations – is one of the biggest decisions you’ll have to make within your first two to three years in the market.
In general, it’s going to help to have some financial advice at this point in order to understand the risks you’re taking and your ability to sustain growth with cash from increased sales. Financial services recruitment agencies can be useful here in providing you with the necessary skills to make a sensible and informed decision as to when to scale your company.
Skills Onboarding
As touched upon in the last tip, scaling isn’t only about increasing your sales machine and growing your customer base – it’s about onboarding the skills necessary to make that happen in a speedy and efficient fashion. As such, you’re going to need to put the feelers out fairly early on to see what skills are available on the labor market to help you and your company go from strength to strength.
You should consider the following skills as absolute musts for start-ups and small businesses:
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- Financial modelling and forecasting skills
- Sales acumen and a desire to improve customer relations
- Administrative roles to help keep you ticking over
- Web design and social media experts to give you a solid presence on the web
- Marketers who’ll help you drum up more custom
With all of these additional helpers in place, you’ll be best-set to scale your business successfully.
Look for Investors
As you begin to scale and begin to see some improvements in your sales data and profit forecasts, you’ll have something to take to potential investors in order to make your company look like a juicy and desirable prospect to invest in.
To get the appropriate level of funding for your business, you’re going to need to approach individuals and funds that are interested in your area of business. Draw together a portfolio of your work, create a solid pitch, and have the confidence to present your company in the best-possible light to these individuals in order to really get your business ramping up the scale into the future.
This article is all about scale – the hows and the whens that’ll bring you and your company to a place of long-term profitability that’ll guarantee your success.
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