Scaling a business is never easy. If it were, every business owner would do it and no one would fail. But that is not the case. There are several pitfalls that businesses can fall into while trying to scale up.
So, to be successful with the process, you need to implement efficient scaling strategies that have been proven to work.
Focus on customer experience
Beyond your products and skills, customer service is one of the best ways of setting your brand apart. When scaling up, you will begin to deal with more customers. And if you are not careful, your customer experience may slip.
Even if you are scaling, continue to provide quality products in an excellent customer experience package to build trust and increase your conversions. When making new hires during the scaling process, remember to hire staff with great customer relation skills and invest more resources to train them further to meet your expectations. While you may be looking to lower your costs as you scale up, it is a worthwhile investment that will pay itself over and over as your customers give rave reviews about your products and the great experiences they had working with you.
Leverage risk reducers
Whether you are scaling or not, risk reducers often signal healthy growth. For starters, a risk reducer is any business attribute that reduces the risk of customers and potential investors. For instance, you can share with your potential investors how the number of your customers is increasing over time. You can also share with your customers how the usage numbers of your products have increased over a couple of months or years. This provides a data-backed proof that your products are valuable and make your customers want to purchase or use your products more. For investors, risk reducers can act as proof that your company has greater market potential.
Build collaborations
The scaling mindset should extend to partnerships with peers and other organizations in your industry. Focus on building a network of partners, including suppliers, service providers, sales channel partners, and customers who are willing to help with market information. Some of the best forms of engagements that have proven to work are alliances with established companies, business masterminds, and other successful entrepreneurs.
Implementing the right hiring strategy
As you begin scaling up, the quality of staff that you work with is going to make or break your success. For instance, if you have staff who cannot accomplish the barest minimum of your new goals, you may end bleeding profits. And if your customers get a negative impression about your staff’s competency or honesty, it could spell doom to your referrals, which is essential for your scaling efforts.
Take your time to vet all your new hires extensively to be on the safe side. Go beyond qualification and check if they have other features that may be valuable to your business. Consider putting new hires on a probation period during which you can evaluate their potentials without exposing your business to a lot of risks.
Adopt multifaceted marketing models
Over the years, multifaceted marketing models have been proven to offer the best scaling opportunities, particularly when executed effectively. Consider:
- Selling to multiple market segments (like small businesses, mid-market, and enterprises)
- Selling to multiple verticals including retail, travel, and financial services among others
- Selling through multiple channels like online, direct, or VARs
Remember to adopt this strategy as early as possible in your scaling journey while making the most out of your resources. If it is expensive to dedicate sales marketing teams on a per-industry basis, for instance, you can align your marketing teams with industries with similar business models. And if you are scaling up from enterprise into mid-market, you may simply expand the number of target buyers by leveraging existing lead generation resources.
Automating your processes
Finally, automation allows you to run some of your repeatable processes smoothly and at a reduced cost by minimizing manual work. Additionally, it helps you improve your delivery time while reducing the risks of human error.
However, automation does not mean that you lay off your employees. Instead, it entails integrating a system into your scaling process to reduce the number of checkpoints. So, besides boosting your quality assurance, a good automation strategy should increase the rate at which products reach target markets.
In a nutshell
There you have it; some of the business scaling tactics that have been proven to work. The strategies will certainly help you scale your business with little to no predicaments at all. Needless to say, it is critical to anticipate that things may not work as planned. So, while implementing the strategies, just keep the bigger picture of things in your mind so that you don’t lose sight of the light at the end of the tunnel.
