Today is the second of our Celebrating Small Business Week at IoSCM articles. Guest writer Varun Datta talks to us about how to grow and scale up the size of your start up. This article comes with a fantastic 15% Discount from any course enrolment this week*. We will be finishing of the week in style by awarding a FREE Corporate Membership, (worth £495!) to one of the businesses we have spoken with during the week!! Every enquiry made will be entered in to the draw. Find more details at the end of each blog!
How to grow and scale-up your start-up
So, after giving it a lot of thought, you have decided to start-up your own business. If starting your business was tough, then scaling-up the size of your business is likely to be a strenuous task. It’s true that becoming a successful business owner is possible however, it takes combined efforts of great teamwork to produce a successful business.
Tips on how to scale-up your start-up
Reassess and reorientate your goals
Assessing your growth rate is greatly important to the success of your business. Scheduling regular meeting to reassess where your business stands will also help, during these meetings always drive home the point of growth. This should be the first priority on your list.
In order to calculate how much traffic your website is generating, you should hire a marketing manager.
At the initial stages of scaling up your business, it is easy to lose hope and motivation. This is the time to have a firm hand and stick to your plans. Being persistent is good, but at the same time you need to be flexible enough to adapt to market changes.
Delegate the unnecessary functions and focus on the bigger picture
Being the founder of your business, you should keep in mind that during the scaling up process you need to focus on the tasks that contribute to the growth of your business. These other tasks should be delegated to team members or pushed back to a time when you can afford to complete them without risking the business.
It is important to not over burden your team members and free up some of their valuable time to dedicate to more necessary jobs. This can be achieved by outsourcing task such as design and marketing. These can be done effectively by another organisation. Both delegating and outsourcing can help you to provide more focus for those goals which help you scale-up. It is also important to be cost effective in the process of scaling-up the size of your business.
Connections VS relationships
At the present time organisations tend to have a strictly professional relationship with their investors. Yes, it’s true that raising funds for your organisation is the sole purpose of the relationship, Right! But what would be a really smart move would be to treat them as your ally as well as your investor. This will help transcend the professional boundary. You should give them reassurance that their money is in safe hands and provide regular updates. This will enable you to establish a trust worthy relationship with your investors.
Outsourcing or Automation
If being labour intensive is an aspect of your start-up then is can be difficult to scale up effectively. In this situation you need to start streamlining each process. Below are some examples:
- Automating marketing
- Creating training videos and processes for new team members
- Automating billing and payroll
If you are unable to automate processes, then cost effective outsourcing would be an excellent way to reduce labour costs. The non-essential roles should be outsourced, this will provide more time for the essential tasks. Once you have become confident at scaling-up then you can start to bring processes and tasks in house again.
Wrapping up
It is true that the most demanding task for any new business is starting-up and scaling-up. This is the main cause of failed start-ups. The article above will help guide you through the process of growing your business and scaling-up.
Author Bio;
Varun Datta is a well know entrepreneur who has been involved in a wide variety of businesses. He is the founder and chairman of 4New ltd and has built his way to success.
CELEBRATING SMALL BUSINESS WEEK AT IoSCM
We are continuing the celebrations with a fantastic 15% Discount for every single business funded training course purchased this month*. To take advantage of the discount you will need to quote SMALL BUSINESS WEEK 2 when you speak to one of our highly skilled course advisors.
To find out more simply contact our team on 0800 1422 522 Email corporateteam@ioscm.com or leave an enquiry HERE.
Don’t forget – Every business enquiry we receive this week will be entered into our draw on Friday to receive FREE Corporate Membership to find out more about the advantages of IoSCM Membership click here.
*15% Discount is available for any course purchased by a business this month. Quote SMALL BUSINESS WEEK 2 to take advantage of this offer.
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