How To Grow Your Business: Designing Your Processes

Can your business handle 10x the work? Have you designed your business to scale?

Do you think your business is ready to scale? Then what is holding you back? CEOs, entrepreneurs, and founders often have big dreams - and the ideas to back them up. They hit the ground running, build a successful business to a certain point, and then they need to grow their business.

That’s when scaling comes in - and the fear that comes along with it. What happens if the scaling fails and that money goes to waste? Will scaling just result in so much work and overwhelm that you cannot enjoy your new income? Will a team be able to do the same work at the same caliber that you do it?

As business consultants and COOs, we often see these fears come into play when growing a business. But before these leaders even make it to the point of scaling, they have often made a fatal mistake that will hurt their efforts before they start. Take the following situation as an example.

What Can Happen When You Try To Grow Your Business?

An entrepreneur starts a service based business as a one-man show. As their reputation grows and they start to take on more work, they add members to their team. Over time, their business gets larger and larger. Their revenue is well into the six-figures and they start aiming for that seven-figure mark.

They decide it’s time to scale. They look at different ways to scale - a digital offer, a larger team, and more - but they quickly realize the amount of work it would take to make that happen. They don’t have the time to answer every email that comes in. They can’t manually create an invoice for all these purchases. They can’t handle all the sales calls and proposals. And that is just the start - not even getting into the team management and responsibilities side of it.

Quickly the idea of growing their business becomes daunting and overwhelming. They now have to make a choice: grow their business and take on an insane amount of work with the risk of it all falling through or stay at their level of success.

What Is The Ultimate Problem?

When this entrepreneur started their business, they started with a small mindset and did not account for future expansion. They developed all their methods and processes around manual labor and input. Without them being actively involved in each exchange, interaction, and transaction with a new client, there would be no business.

To make scaling feasible, they would need completely new processes across the board.

But, as consultants who help entrepreneurs grow their business, we see another issue in this situation. The founder has become so entrenched in their business that they mentally can’t be hands-off. They must now overcome the practical problems of fixing their systems to scale, but they also need to address the mental load of scaling and being more hands-off.

How Would We Resolve The Problem?

First, we would break down each process and determine how to make it more efficient. Where can humans be less involved? How can we increase efficiency while maintaining a personalized touch? What softwares and systems should we invest in to make the most of each dollar and increase productivity?

In this scenario, the entrepreneur is already established and needs help. So we would help them tackle their systems, implement new ones, and adapt their business to scale without being overwhelmed. In the process, we would make sure to set them up for future scaling, as well.

Second, we would need to tackle the mindset problem. The entrepreneur in this situation needs to learn how to trust their team to run their business without them being involved in every decision. One person alone will not be able to run a million dollar business. It takes a team. And for a team to work, the leader needs to be able to effectively delegate.

Once the practical and mindset problems are tackled, we can set towards scaling!

What Is The Ultimate Take Away?

No matter where you are in your business, the future should be taken into account.

The best way to scale a business is to think big from the beginning. When you develop your processes, ask yourself, “Will this hold up when I have 10x the amount of work?”

If you are already years into a business and you are now considering scaling, don’t lose heart! It will take more work at this moment to adapt to scale but it is possible. As you adapt your system, you can implement everything you have learned so the next time you seek to grow your business, it’ll go far smoother.

At the end of the day: always be thinking about tomorrow. So ask yourself: Where is your business today? Where do you want your business to be tomorrow? Where do you want to be 10 years from now?

Growing Your Business Starts From The Ground Up

Wherever you want to take your business… Start working with that mindset today. Then set up the right processes.

But when you have only worked with a business at a certain level, it can be hard to figure out what you will need to grow in the future. You know how to get your business to 6-figures, but what is really involved in getting to 7-figures?

Every software or program you sign up for has multiple tiers and each one has a top-tier that is absolutely crucial to scaling, right? But how important are integrations in your email service? How many recipients should you really set up for? What about invoicing and bookkeeping: how important are all those perks they offer?

The reality is that you don’t know what you don’t know. You’ve done an excellent job getting your business this far, but if you want to keep setting yourself up for success, you shouldn’t go at it alone.

So before you keep working, ask yourself… “Do I know what the details of my business will look like when I am doing 10x the business I am doing now?”

If your answer is “no” or even “I don’t know,” you should consider talking to a business consultant or COO who has helped other businesses get where you want to go. Don’t waste another 5 years working in your business just to hit the growth roadblock you could prevent now.

If you want to make sure your business’s future is set up for success, consider reaching out. We offer hassle-free, no obligation 30 minute discovery calls with our founder to see how we could help you. Just email us today.