Scaling Your Way To Success
Start small, think big. Everybody knows that you can’t just blink and achieve everything you need in life. Everybody wants the ability to scale and grow, but very few can say they’ve succeeded. There are countless factors that play a role in scaling your business - people, lucky, product culture, public perception, etc. unfortunately, we can’t control everything aspect of business, no matter how hard we try we can’t wish something into the limelight or wish another £500k into the bank account. So Instead, focus on the aspects of your life and your business that you can control, and scale it up from there.
Like with any challenge we face in life, we should try break it down into small digestible pieces first. It’s like building a lego house brick by brick. According to Harvard Business Review, scaling becomes a problem of less because humans, but human organisations can only handle so much cognitive ability. In other words, successful scaling in life and business means finding ways to limit the number of things that people are expected to focus on and execute.
There is no magic formula to growing, but there are several key areas and best practises you can focus on:
Be proactive
A study conducted by Startup Genome made a deep dice as to why most high growth startups fail and they found that 74% of high-growth internet startups fail due to premature scaling. In order, to avoid the pitfall of radical growth stop for a second and go over the following points.
Identify competitive positioning: Without knowing your core competence it’s difficult to create strategies. Many start-ups have evolved by doing certain things without articulating their core competence.
Analyze threats and opportunities: Demand will certainly play a large role in how or when a business decides to scale, but having a competent growth strategy in place is crucial.
Consider unique capabilities and the investments needed to protect them:
How customers move through your sales funnel?
How long it takes to convert?
How long they remain a customer?
What causes them to leave/stay?
How they engage with you?
What attracts their attention?
What their pain points are?
What the biggest complaints or issues with your product/service are?
What they love about you?
Create a shortlist of prioritized work to advance your position: Ask yourself “Is scalability baked into the company's business plan and is it ready to handle the flow of 100x clients? What are the steps you need to take to make sure you are ready for growth?
Find a mentor
This one is pretty easy to accomplish - did you know, you’re 3 time more likely to succeed if you have a mentor along your journey.
Make sure you have a mentor who has successfully scaled themselves. For example, imagine trying to find a killer engineer if you’d never single program. In addition, make sure you meet with your mentor at least once a quarter and make the best use of that time.
Simplify your business model
“Another key component of successful scaling is to ensure that goods and services are delivered systemically. If someone goes to McDonald's to order a cheeseburger, they can expect an almost identical experience from any McDonald's, anywhere on the planet.”
Therefore, when something works, don't just high-five your team and move on to the next thing on your to-do list. Instead, figure out exactly what you did, step-by-step, to achieve that result. Write it down, and then try to repeat that result following your newly-created, step-by-step process.
Also, try to remove clutter by finding what was once useful, but maybe is in the way now. Secondly, emphasize the value of moving fast. It is very hard to grow and scale when people don't have an agile mindset.
Hire forward
According to a Business Coach and Mentor, it may seem scary, but hiring forward, before the demand catches up, is often the crucial action in a scale-up strategy. If you’re only doing things that are a little bit scary, you’ve only going to have a small bit of growth.
In order to do that, you need to create a great culture deck that already describes very well what kind of person you are looking for. A great example is the Netflix culture deck.
Also, Kristen Hamilton – CEO of Koru, has some advice on what qualities to look for in a person who are great for startups. They are: grit, rigor, impact, teamwork, ownership and curiosity.
Hold your team responsible
Whether it’s your employees or just you, tracking engagement and task completion can help ensure your business is running as efficiently and effectively as possible.
According to the co-founder of CloudFlare, using a simple tracking system helps to foster employee accountability, and identifies bottlenecks within the company. It also helps to keep note of what needs to get done this week and reach the goals you’ve set.
There are many solutions out there, but if you are looking for a great online reporting that gives you an instant overview of what anyone is doing, I recommend Weekdone. It also, allows you to give feedback and an opportunity to get a weekly report on your e-mail.