The word scaling or phrase scale your business is often misused among small business owners. We think that in order to scale we need to have passive products and big programs that help us serve many people all at the same time.
The truth is, scaling isn’t about multiple streams of revenue. It’s about growing your team.
Scaling = People
When you scale your business, you’re utilizing other people’s skills and strengths to benefit or grow your business. It’s when you hire an online business manager to help you manage projects and clients. Or when you outsource your video editing so you can focus on creating the content. Or even when you hire someone to take over a portion of your client-facing work so you can be more of a visionary in your business. Which is where you belong as the CEO.
But growth can be hard. And stressful. Especially when you jump into something that you’re not entirely prepared for. If you want the growth to feel good and to scale in a way that truly serves you and your new team, you owe it to yourself (and them!) to do it right.
How Do I Start Scaling My Business?
Scaling goes hand-in-hand with the other strategic objectives you’ve identified as priorities in your business. You’ll want to start scaling and growing your team to support your priorities.
If visibility is a priority for you, grow a team to support that: a copywriter, a Facebook ads manager, a social media manager, a video editor. If you’re looking to get your systems organized, you may be looking at a different team: a tech VA, a business manager and a systems expert.
It’s not realistic to onboard three or four team members at once, so take a look at your gaps as a business owner and hire someone to fill those gaps. For example, I knew I wanted to run Facebook ads so I bought a course to learn how to do it. In reality, I just don’t have time to learn how to do it right–and it’s not in my zone of genius. So I hired someone to take care of the ads for me, and the ads performed so much better than they ever could have if I had been in charge.
When hiring a team, fill in your gaps as a business owner first.Click To TweetTechnology is often a place where business owners get hung up. They want to use a new system or program, but spend more time than they should figuring out how to use it. And then they’re not using it to its fullest potential. Why not hire someone to take it to the next level?
You also want to look at what you love doing in your business and what you resist, or put off. Social media, for example. Are you consistently showing up on social media to connect with your audience? Or do you flake when it comes time to create the graphic, write the post and then schedule it?
If it’s something you need to do in your business but you hate to do, hire someone to handle it for you.
Strategic Scaling = Business Growth
When you scale your business based on your strategic objectives, there’s nowhere for you to go but forward. Your new team members can take on responsibilities that relate directly to your focus this quarter, allowing you to put more effort toward that end goal. This compounded effort is bound to bring you big results!
If you take nothing else away here, remember this:
- Know your strategic objectives
- Look for people who support those objectives
- Hire for big business gaps first
- Then hire for what you don’t have time for or put off
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