Tag: Scale

Struggling to Scale? Your Business Might Need The Following Help

Two focuses of my blog are Financial Literacy/Money and Business/Entrepreneurship. An important aspect of business is scaling. If you can scale your business, you can put it on the road to profitability. The following contributed post is entitled, Struggling to Scale? Your Business Might Need The Following Help.

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You are at a stage in your business whereby you aren’t in a place to hire full-time employees, but you have a lot of interest in reducing your workload and delegating the tasks that are out of your zone of expertise. Honing in on your entrepreneurial skills and finding freelancers and professionals that could help you to free up more of your all-important time might be the key to escaping your ever growing workload. With that being said, there is nothing wrong with doing things by yourself for a while, especially when it comes to financial security. You can muddle through certain tasks and get by for a certain amount of time, but soon enough you will need some outside help so that you can focus on business growth. You started your business so that you could experience freedom and do something you’re passionate about, so it’s important to carve out time to pursue the tasks you enjoy. This often means outsourcing specific jobs that are beyond your skill set.

Although, the idea of relinquishing control over certain aspects of your business, it may just be one of the best entrepreneurial decisions you make. Gaining outside advice or hiring experts for short-term projects can help you to scale your business and give you more time to work on growth strategies. With this in mind, here are a handful of areas that your business may need a little extra help with.

Financial Expert

Getting to grips with the finances of your business isn’t something that comes easily to some entrepreneurs, but having a clear overview of your financial health is pretty important if you’re hoping to scale someday soon. Bringing in a financial expert or accounting professional conduct an audit of your business will give you clear answers as to whether you can afford to make certain decisions regarding the growth of your company.

Fractional Chief Technology Officer

If you have little to no experience when it comes to technology, but your business is heavily reliant on innovation and tech, this is the type of support you could use to help you reduce costly errors in the near future. Working alongside an experienced fractional cto, you can edge closer towards your goals and receive some much-needed tech expertise without having to hire a permanent chief technology officer. With the leadership and guidance from a freelance fractional chief technology officer you will have the opportunity to develop your business tech efficiently.

Copywriter

Connecting with your target audience and using the right language to communicate with them has never been more important. Consumers are becoming more and more savvy and will quickly lose interest if you aren’t speaking to their pain points and providing them with a clear solution. Hiring a professional copywriter for one-off projects such as website updates and marketing campaigns will help you to engage your audience quickly and effectively.

Graphic Designer

When you have high quality and engaging copy for your business you need to match this with professional imagery and graphics. You can manage for a certain amount of time with your own basic graphic design techniques, but in order to take your business to the next level you will need to create consistency across all platforms of your business. Hiring a graphic designer to tweak your website and re-do all of your business branding will uplevel your company aesthetic and build trust with potential clients instantly.

Virtual Assistant

There are certain tasks you have to do on a day to day business in order to keep your business running smoothly .Whether you’re gathering data, or replying to emails, all of these administrative tasks take up valuable time. Hiring a part-time virtual assistant will transform the way you work each day, as you will have more time to dedicate to growth strategies. You can outsource all sorts of tasks such as customer service, social media content creation and much more when you hire a reliable VA.

Accepting help and support for your small business can be a huge challenge to overcome, but you will soon start to reap the rewards once you get started. Whether you’re aiming to develop your business tech as quickly as possible, or you’re hoping to overhaul your website with an expert graphic designer, you can start to scale and professionalize your business by bringing experts on board. Use your budget for freelancers wisely and focus on the areas of your business that require the most attention; soon enough you will begin to notice growth and positive changes occurring within your business.

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How To Scale Your Craft Biz

Two of the focuses of my blog are Financial Literacy/Money and Business/Entrepreneurship. When you start your own business from scratch, it’s important to know when and how to scale up your business. This is particularly important when you have a unique product and there is an increased demand. The following contributed post is therefore entitled, How To Scale Your Craft Biz.

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It sounds like the biggest oxymoron in the business world, because the idea that you can scale a handmade sounds ridiculous. After all, a handmade business is just you, doing your thing and making cash from it, so how can you scale a business that you create with your hands? Some people paint, some write and others make jewelry. The good news is that even if you are a small business with a labor-intensive production, you can still achieve scale – you just have to be willing to work for it.

Most people start out their crafty biz on sites like Etsy and Amazon, and as they’re involved in the production of the items, it’s a good place to start small. The issue comes along when the product takes off, and if you are in the position where you know your product is going to be a hit, you need a plan in place to take on the additional volume without trying to stay awake 24/7 to manage the workload. You need to learn that you have had an idea for a side hustle, and while you’re doing everything right now from the comfort of the spare room, you may well be inclined to start watching the reviews of Boss laser for equipment to invest in later – particularly if what you create requires cutting on a large scale! You should put as much effort in as you can – of course – but always have a back up plan for when your business booms. Below, you’ll read all the ways that you can scale your handmade business and stay balanced while you make it a success:

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Don’t Try To Be Perfect. You are going to get a lot of interest and orders, and you can’t always have total perfection with a handmade product. The thing is, perfection doesn’t exist with handmade products, and that’s why people love them so much: they’re unique. So, you need to ensure that you have put the customer experience first so that your business thrives for the right reasons.
Streamline Your Process. You cannot take on more volume if you haven’t itemized your production process and identify the glitches. You need to know what’s taking up your time, what the biggest causes of waste are and how you can get your process from setup and creation to fulfillment and shipping. Timing your process to perfection is important before you try to grow and potentially stretch yourself out in the wrong way.
Find A Partner. In manufacturing, not life! Diversify your product offering before you scale up from the spare bedroom, then partner up with a manufacturing business to speed up your processing times. Not only can you up the amount of product that you have in one go, you can help the customers to have the best possible experience.

You can scale your crafty business with some forward planning and careful arrangements. Take your time; there’s no rush to make yourself bigger than you can and all it will do will bite you if you grow too quickly.

The Three Biggest Barriers To Scaling Your Business

Two of the focuses of my blog are Financial Literacy/Money, and Business/Entrepreneurship. Once you’ve started your business and have gained some traction, it’s important to know when and how to scale up your operations. What are some of the important considerations and barriers to overcome? The following contributed post is entitled, The Three Biggest Barriers To Scaling Your Business.

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There comes a point that you’re ready to take your business to the next level. Or so you might think. You have the demand, you have the market share, and you have the momentum, so why shouldn’t you scale yet? You need a little more time to address the barriers ahead of you. Here, we’re going to take a look at three of the most common roadblocks that turn an immature scaling attempt into a true disaster.

Photo Source: Kaboompics

The money
Besides when you first start your business, the scaling attempt is the second most common reason a business will borrow from banks and investors. Simply put, you’re not likely to have all the money you need from your revenue alone. It’s very likely you will have to apply for funding once more. Take the time to put together a new business plan which outlines why you’re scaling and how you’re going to accomplish it and clearly define how much money you need to pay for the property, equipment, assets, and staffing that you need. You don’t have to necessarily go down the traditional funding route, but a business plan makes your request a lot easier to approve.

The infrastructure
When you scale, your responsibilities are going to grow in magnitudes. You’re not simply increasing the scale but the scope of the business, as well. As a business grows, it becomes harder to keep centralized and to deal with the same responsibilities you used to. Creating a new team infrastructure is its own question. Even with things as simple as your tech, your need for technology management and IT solutions are likely to grow as you hire more people and buy more digital equipment. Similarly, partners you used to outsource to might not be as effective as they once were. Instead of working with a delivery company, you might need a full fulfilment service to take care of your new needs. You need to address most processes to see how to restructure them to deal with the increased size and complexity of the business.

The staff
Your team is also very likely to grow. This doesn’t mean a simple uniform increase in people across all sections of the business. You are likely going to need to look at hiring more management level staff, too, as your ability to personally manage the whole team is likely to go out the window. What’s more, you should look at creating a formalized recruitment process and even potentially partnering with recruitment agencies to meet the need for the increase in staff numbers in the short amount of time you have to do it. Just make sure you don’t rush it. You might identify some areas of the business where you don’t need any additional staff at all and hiring then could be a waste. Plan it in advance.

The reason that most startups that make it to the two-year point go on to fail is a failure to scale properly. You need to make sure you have the plans in place and the resources in place that you can make it safely to the other side. Scaling is always a risk, but you can at least make it a calculated one.