According to data from McKinsey, only 22% of new businesses launched in the past decade have successfully scaled.
More than just raising sales and income is involved in creating a successful business. When scaling a firm, an organization must have the appropriate strategy, staff, and processes to support new clients, goods, and services.
While every business owner hopes to see immediate success, scaling requires developing and implementing a long-term, sustainable strategy. No matter the size of your company, knowing what it means to scale and knowing what concrete steps to take are essential to achieving your objectives.
Here are four typical obstacles that prevent small business owners from growing their start-up businesses – and some tips on overcoming the challenges.
Take a close look at your business as you review this list to see which obstacles cost you money.
First obstacle: Stacking the Deck
Most business owners are required to operate according to their organizational structure. In comparison to their actual costs, they charge too little. Customers want them to be directly involved in completing their product or service, or at least actively overseeing its production or fulfillment since they are typically their company’s principal salesperson.
Their enterprises have evolved into a treadmill. Worse, your company depends more on your output when you work longer hours. Additionally, as sales rise, your overhead increases, which causes you to generate more on your own. Is it surprising that scaling your business is so tricky? You assert that you merely lack additional hours to perform.
Second obstacle: The Capability Snare
You are an expert in your field and may even be the most knowledgeable employee in your organization. It’s difficult to delegate jobs you know you can complete more effectively since you’re so competent. But now that you’re scaling your business, that competency works against you.
Seeing a staff member accomplish a task below the caliber you expected could be agonizing. You could feel compelled to take up any small job that needs doing all the time to ensure it’s done right. But when you accomplish more, you must keep doing more, leading to the next obstacle.
Third obstacle: The Need for Control
Your control gland can get inflamed. Perhaps you catch yourself saying, “You’ve got to do it yourself if you want it done well.” These may be the most expensive words any business owner has ever spoken.
You are skilled at what you do. But be aware of the enormous price you are already paying for your desire to control your company completely. You don’t want to shirk your responsibilities; instead, build your organization’s success on a solid foundation of reliable business procedures, a skilled and knowledgeable workforce, and a supportive culture.
To scale, you must improve your capacity to transfer functional responsibility appropriately. This groundwork is essential (not just handing off tasks to be done.)
Fourth obstacle: Lack of business training
The odds are stacked against you in this situation. Possibly, you haven’t had much formal training in business management skills in all the years you’ve been running your organization. You’ve had to learn stuff quickly. You acquired these skills through costly trial and error, including learning to read your financials, market your goods or services, hire and manage staff, and create a budget and strategy.
What can you do about these obstacles if they prevent you from moving forward?
Here are three straightforward ideas to assist you in getting past these obstacles.
- Select one or two specific functional duties to assign someone, and then train them to “own” those obligations for your business. Training Louise to be in charge of hiring new staff, Rafiq to manage crew scheduling, or David to manage all purchases under $10,000 per month are a few examples.
- Keep an eye on your speech and actions. Whenever you tell yourself, whether aloud or just to yourself, “No one can do something as well as me, so I have to do it myself,” stop yourself. Or, “I’ll just do it myself because getting someone else to do it would be too much trouble.” Recognize that by forcing yourself to work harder and harder for your company, you are limiting its ability to expand and scale.
- Each quarter, read one business book. If you don’t enjoy reading, get the audiobook and listen to it instead! You are investing in your business education by doing this.
The importance of a scaling strategy can’t be underestimated
A clear strategy identifying vital benchmarks for one, five, and ten years from now – and beyond – is necessary for scaling a business. It also entails coordinating your short-term and long-term objectives to scale at a manageable rate. Your company will be well-positioned to scale by maintaining the big picture and your company vision in focus and assembling the proper staff.
A key component of your scaling strategy is identifying the right partner to help you.
To find, engage, and manage independent workers with the talents you need to scale your business, SSG is here to support you with confidence. Together, we’ll create a solid, scalable talent strategy and a unique solution to impact your company’s success positively.
About the Author
Since 1991, SSG has been a leading enterprise resource planning (ERP) application and information systems consulting firm. It started as a group of partners who helped manufacturing and distribution companies improve the functionality of their ERP software systems through custom software development. Many older ERP software packages lacked features and reporting tools, so SSG developed customized solutions to meet client business needs.
SSG still works with clients who use old ERP software, but it has also become an expert in ERP software packages that are the most advanced on the market. SSG is an expert at moving companies from older ERP programs to newer, more modern ERP systems for greater efficiency and business scaling.