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No matter how quickly your business venture grows, you also need smart scaling for a sustainable future. What does it mean to scale a business? Scaling in business prepares your enterprise for increased demand, which means you can cost-effectively handle the influx of work without affecting product quality, customer service, or employee morale. In short, scaling ensures a business with increased revenue will see increased profit margins. This guide provides scaling strategies to implement as your business grows to smooth and streamline the expansion process.
While no magic formula exists to determine the right time to scale your business, be aware of these indicators that your growth has outpaced your capacity:
You should also have these characteristics in place before you ignite your scaling strategy:
Knowing how to scale a business in advance can help you prepare for this complex process.
Set several time-based growth milestones with profit projections. As you reach each of these growth levels, re-evaluate your company’s scaling needs. For each new financial goal you set as you scale in business, estimate the sales support and other costs you’ll need to get there. Look for opportunities to cut costs and support the needs created by expansion without damaging your brand.
Here are some of the most common methods ambitious businesses use to drive rapid expansion when scaling a company.
Scaling naturally results in the need for a larger team. A strong hiring process can reduce the expense of recruiting, onboarding, and training new employees. Look for candidates with hallmarks of exceptional productivity. In a McKinsey study, these individuals are about 400% more productive than the average employee, increasing to nearly 800% in director and C-level roles. Hiring too quickly because you end up in a bind can damage the company’s mission and vision.
You should already have a fleshed-out buyer persona, but scaling creates an opportunity to further delineate the needs, wants, and pain points of your prospects. A better understanding of your target market is essential to expanding your customer base as you scale. Make sure you can answer these questions:
Tools such as surveys and focus groups can help you fill in the blanks and fine-tune your strategy to speak directly to those in or approaching your sales funnel.
Using technological tools to structure and systemize your business allows you to access significant economies of scale. Take advantage of automation to reduce the manual work and expenses associated with running your company. Countless operational areas are ripe for automation, so you can implement tech that streamlines shipping, HR, accounting, manufacturing, inventory, sales management, marketing, and customer relationship management.
When you succeed at scaling your business, your expenses increase at a reduced rate compared to your revenue growth. Without these strategies, growth does not result in increased profit because the business’s expenses rise at the same rate as its sales. Balancing these factors and learning how to scale your business sets your company on the path to healthy expansion.