If your bug and stressful time for you. Revenue and profits are up, but so is the pressure of managing and maintaining the growth.
This is where proper planning and knowledge really come into play. You’ve worked hard to get to this point, your marketing strategies have been spot on, and the last thing you want is a simple mistake to bring it all crashing down.
But how do you maintain and manage the varying aspects of growth?
While we can’t provide enough tips in this article to cover every possible angle, there are several things we wanted to pass on to help you manage your growing business.
Keep Spending in Check
Since revenue is up, you may be tempted to make purchases you have put off in the past. While this may well make sense for some areas, you still need to be a little frugal on spending.
It’s all too easy to get complacent when profits are steadily rising but if you don’t plan properly and allocate funds where necessary to sustain growth, you risk financial difficulties down the road. When it comes to rapid growth, money management is as important now as it was when you were a fledgling startup. If not even more so.
With your growth, you’re liable to run into unforeseen costs such as needing to repair or replace equipment or other surprises that can be rather costly. Unless you want to see your growth grind to a halt and the company possibly needing a business loan to sustain momentum, you need to curb the instinct to spend, set benchmarks, stay organized, and forecast upcoming sales, profits, and the financial outlook for the organization.
Additionally, while you will likely need to hire additional staff to accompany the growth, you should consider affordable offsets wherever feasible. Things like outsourcing certain aspects and utilizing enterprise time and attendance software can save both time and money while serving to complement your growth.
Keeping spending in check, spending where it is needed now, and planning a strategy for the unforeseen future will make it much easier to maintain the growth you’ve worked so hard for.
Setting Those Objectives
Defining goals and objectives will help ensure that your growth can continue unimpeded. Without such planning in place, you may see growth in certain areas, such as an expanding customer base, while at the same time, growth in other areas is overlooked—at least until it’s too late.
Areas that you should define and monitor for growth are:
- Gross margin
- Customer lifetime value
- Recurring revenue
- Increased account tallies
And don’t forget to set a timeline for achieving your goals and objectives. What will it take to achieve your objectives? Keep in mind the capital, workforce, and the time necessary to get there.
Be Prepared to Scale
It is critical that you are able to scale your staffing, service, support, and infrastructure to keep up with growth. While certain procedures and policies may have been successful when you were starting out, they may not be effective or even work at all now.
Having a plan of action and the ability to scale as necessary is crucial to maintaining your growth. You may have to consider a new marketing plan, rearranging or hiring new management, revamping duties and responsibilities, and otherwise evaluating the effectiveness of your current operations.
With your growth, it’s more than a possibility that you will face a new set of risks and opportunities that could affect your cash flow. Monitor the benchmarks as discussed earlier but have plans in place to cover the need to scale if and when necessary.
