By Alma Robinette
Most entrepreneurs dream of scaling their business. Aside from being able to rake in bigger profits, scaling your business means that your organization is growing and is ready to bring something of bigger value to the market. However, scaling your business is not a walk in the park. Along the way, you’ll face a lot of competition and challenges that might hinder your business growth plans. In this post, we’ve listed below some tips to help ensure the success of your expansion plans.
Ensure that You’re Prepared for Growth
While scaling your business is an exciting time, doing it prematurely can set your business back. Once you start your scale-up plans, it's possible that some points of improvement and weakness will be exposed. If you’re not prepared, these flaws can delay your expansion plans. For this reason, you should be 100% certain that your business is ready for growth before even drafting your expansion strategy. To that end, there are three key indicators that will help you know if your business is ready for growth: being cash flow positive, consistently growing numbers, and an excellent founding team. So, be sure that your business checks off these three indicators before putting your growth plans in action. Ensuring that your business is ready from the get-go saves you the trouble of fixing issues along the way.
Outsource Special Roles
Scaling a business is not a one-man job. You, along with other executives, should be able to work with synergy to bring your scale-up plans to fruition. However, this may not be enough and you may need to expand the team through outsourcing to fill in any gaps. A role that is crucial to the success of your expansion is a business analyst. As one of the most in-demand careers in business administration today, business analysts can provide you with insights to help you optimize your plans for expansion. Aside from that, they can also do intensive research and guide you into making well-informed decisions regarding your strategy. Another role that can significantly help your scale up plans are accountants. Outsourcing accountants for your expansion plans allow you to take a hard look at your finances before undertaking something as challenging as scaling. When choosing freelance accountants to temporarily add to your workforce, make sure you consider applicants that hold a non-traditional degree, as they will be more likely to be working freelance. Graduates who’ve taken an online accounting degree will have studied the same fields, such as financial reporting, ethics, auditing, income taxes, and advanced managerial accounting. The Bureau of Labor Statistics notes that there's an increasing need for accounting and auditing professionals across all industries, with 61,700 job posts expected to open throughout 2029. So do not rule out non-traditional degree holders as they are just as qualified.
For this reason, universities and colleges have decided to bolster their online accounting degrees and make sure that their graduates fully understand how to analyze and ensure financial stability in any organization. All in all, hiring an accountant can certainly help you better manage your finances, especially during the scaling up process where your business is extra vulnerable. Aside from that, accountants can give you advice on the following topics: records, business strategy, audits, taxes — all of which you need to stay on top of while working on expanding your business.
Secure Funding
Adding new technology, hiring more people, deploying facilities and equipment are all part of scaling your business — and these do not come for free. Bootstrapping is a great way to scale up independently, but it usually takes years before you have the sufficient funds to invest in your business’ growth. If your business is ready to scale up and you don’t want to lose momentum, you can finance your plans through other methods. For one, you can easily take out loans from financial institutions and other organizations, especially if your business has an excellent credit score. Additionally, you can join startup competitions such as the 2021 What's Your Pitch: Innovations Competition where you can network with potential angel investors, venture capitalists, high growth entrepreneurs, and more. On top of this, you can also win cash prizes if you join such competitions and one-on-one meetings with pioneer professionals in your industry. Whether you're a new business or have been running for years, such platforms are a good opportunity to advance your company.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Alma Robinette is a freelance business writer. She has spent her career advising new business owners through her articles, and hopes that she has inspired many entrepreneurs to start their own company. In her free time she plays online chess
