People often use “scale” and “growth” interchangeably, but while related, they are two different things.
Growing a business means increasing revenue, but you are likely also using more resources (such as hiring more staff to deal with more customers or trying to win more prospects).
Scaling is when revenue increases without a substantial increase in costs, meaning you can support further growth—you could look at it as a more sustainable way of growing.
When is it time to Scale your business?
- You or your employees cannot manage the workload
- You or your employees are experiencing burn-out
- Deadlines are not being met
- Mistakes and errors are occurring
- You are afraid of getting referrals or new business
- You cannot onboard new clients in a timely and successful manner
- Long-term business goals are unattainable
- Leads and referrals are increasing dramatically
What do we mean when we talk about “scaling a business”?
- Growing the operational capacity of your business
- Doing more work without disrupting ongoing processes
- Hiring and retaining top talent
- Developing and growing talent internally
- Automating operations and organization for success
- Outsourcing side activities while focusing on your core business
15 mistakes to avoid when scaling your business
- Scaling too soon
- Being too busy to grow
- Not thinking about the future
- Mismanaging your money
- Messy accounting
- Scaling a business when your product or service still has kinks
- Hiring the wrong people
- Or think you do not need to hire anyone!
- Scaling without a clear goal in mind
- Focusing on short-term sales rather than long-term demand
- Not leveraging technology in your business-scaling strategy
- Scaling a business by competing on price
- Not designing a new management structure following growth
- Not dealing with problems that arise
- Forgetting that scaling your business is sometimes about reigning things in