You’ve got an understanding of your market, the right services or products to sell to them, and the kind of support and marketing to keep customers coming. All of these things combined are excellent signs that your business is growing. Growth is great, however, beyond providing new opportunities for a new business owner, it also brings about the first real challenges. Its incumbent upon every entrepreneur to know the signs and to learn about what to do when their business becomes too big to keep functioning the same as in the past, and how to scale their role in proportion, before it all becomes too big to control.

Delegate

When this type of growth occurs, you are no longer going to be able to be the only leader. As you relinquish control over and responsibility for growing teams, you’re going to need other people to step in. That’s why every effective leader should be delegating and giving employees the chance to prove their own leadership skills. It gives you the opportunity to see how well they’re able to direct others in group projects. You have the chance to observe how well they’re able to handle new responsibility and interact with others. Examine their ability to account for errors within the team and proactively manage them without outside intervention. It is imperative that you begin to identify your future leaders proactively because as your business grows, you won’t be able to be the hands-on leader for everyone anymore.

Outsource

Business demands will grow in a multitude of areas, but they won’t necessarily occur all at the same time. The textbook example of this problem is in your technology. You might have to switch from using only a few separate computers into using a linked structure of multiple devices all on the same network. But your team isn’t yet big enough for you to justify using an in-house IT team, so you might need to outsource to groups like Red Key Solutions, instead. The same goes for your marketing, your accounting, perhaps even your HR. In time, you might want to outsource all of these functions. The key is to be aware of your needs and whether your business capacity is positioned to take them all on or not.

Change Is Good

As the business continues to grow, you will likely not have the person-to-person relationship with everyone that you once had. Your other managers and leaders can pick up the slack and make sure that the teams are as productive and working as efficiently as they should be. If you really want to streamline the business, it would be in your best interest to look at the processes in place instead. Start systemizing the workflow, setting processes and procedures that standardize the work that everyone is involved in. This switch would mean that you no longer rely solely on individual “experts” in their current positions so that in the event they leave and go to another company, your business isn’t impacted by a sudden void in talent. You instead create the knowledge by which any new employee can learn the ropes and start immediately, working in the most efficient, and productive manner. Strive to focus on a process-driven rather than employee-driven business.

The transition from being the person that handles everything in their own business, to the person who now oversees the managers who are completing these tasks, can be a hard one to make. Your business is your baby, as you started it from the ground up. However, if you want to succeed and continue growing, you have to be ready to make that change. Learn to work more on your business and less in your business.

Much success!

*Collaborative post