Last Updated on October 11, 2023 by Dave Schoenbeck
Scaling your business is essential if you want to grow and prosper as an organization, but many people don’t realize that this growth starts from day one of your company.
It’s essential to plan to scale your business from day one.
There are a few key areas you can focus on to ensure organized growth as your company learns to walk on its own two feet. Here are 5 actionable tips for scaling up your business early on.
1. Define Your Business Culture
Culture is the cornerstone of any company, and you can’t leverage your time if you have to teach every new hire how to act and what you’re all about. Your company culture should be clearly outlined in a guiding core values document so there are no surprises.
Work on defining and documenting your organization’s culture statement, guiding principles, and behavioral expectations now instead of later. You will need to use these written documents as the touchstone for growth.
2. Design Your Future Organization
When learning how to scale your business, building a functional organizational chart in the first year is critical. It would be best to have a box for each role’s current and future functions, even though those responsibilities will be shared among the early hires. Clarity on a new organizational design helps you evolve the company in a more structured way.
3. Document Your Business Processes
Document and archive all of the work processes of the business. You can expect to change them frequently, but establishing the discipline now will help you handle fast growth later. Not to mention, you won’t have to reinvent the wheel every time an employee leaves—you should have every detail of their duties outlined in your records.
4. Hire Strategically for the Future
Look for high-potential people in your first hires for critical roles. The problem with most new companies is they hire more affordable, less-experienced people early on and then need to upgrade the talent as the business grows and becomes more complex.
If that’s how you operate, the people you hire initially may not have the capacity and horsepower to lead a larger organization. Keep growth in mind as you hire your first employees. You want people who can stay on and grow with you as you scale your business.
5. Work on the Future You
Finally, please remember your role and how it will change over time. In the first days of your business, you’ll need to work on every aspect of your business. As you scale your business, you need to delegate those tasks to your employees. It’s hard to surrender control, but you must accept that you can’t do every job once your business grows.
Growth can be intimidating, but it will come easy and feel natural if you put the suitable structures in place from the start. After all, scaling up your business early on is essential for long-term growth. If you’re stumped about planning for growth at this early stage, click on my contact form, and I will teach you how to build a plan to scale your business.
Coach Dave
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