Deciding to elevate a start-up business to the next level can be an exhilarating time for entrepreneurs. As exciting as it can be to see something you’ve built from the ground up grow, how you approach the expansion can have a huge impact on the long term success of your brand.
Below are three important considerations to help you take your business to the next stage.
1. Have I Sought Professional Help?
Do-it-yourself seems to be the mantra for many startup, but if you think DIY and bootstrapping are the only way to go, you need to re-think. You need to leverage professional help, simply because you need to focus more on growing your business, instead of doing, say, financial projection and creating copies to pitch potential customers.
Have an accountant check your figures and projections and seriously think about engaging marketing support to help manage promotions and communications channels.
If you are putting extra staff on, contact a reputable recruitment firm; they can help you work out how many people you need now and into the future, and also help you think outside the box a little. For example, if you need qualified people for your expansion, implementing a graduate recruitment program might be a way that you can meet your immediate need for assistance while ensuring that you have industry-ready, skilled team members ready to move into management roles in the next phase of expansion. You can learn more about how this could work for you through online resources like the Chandler Macleod site.
2. Do I Really Know My Business?
By the time you’re ready to expand, your brand identity should already be established. But it can evolve. How will you maintain your brand’s integrity as you expand? What are your mission and values? Does this match the image you portray?
It’s important to remember that a brand is not just your logo; it is almost like your personality. It’s what you stand for and what people can expect to feel and experience when they do business with you. Does the service you provide match those expectations? How will you make sure that experience is protected when it’s not just you running the operation anymore?
3. Are My Processes and Systems in Place?
It is crucial to spend some time really working on the business and how you want it to operate both before and during expansion.
Do you have appropriate resources, systems and reporting in place? Do you have documented processes for how things need to be done to ensure that the business performs well and runs smoothly? How will you monitor and evaluate business and employee performance? Asking yourself these questions (and coming up with the answers) is crucial, especially as you start bringing new team members into the fold. It may take time to get everything set up the way it needs to be, but it will be worth it in the long run.
Deciding to elevate your business to the next level is as risky as it is exciting. While it may be tempting to get moving on your growth straight away, giving appropriate attention to the planning and preparation will help ensure your business is really ready for its next phase of operations and help ensure your continued success.
Do you have any advice for start-ups who are ready to go to that next level?