For a small business, achieving rapid growth can seem like a dream come true. After all, most entrepreneurs don’t want their small business to stay small forever, and the faster a business grows, the faster it can become profitable. But fast business growth has its challenges. If you’re not prepared for growth, your business may stall or lose customers because of backlogs or the inability to provide customer service due to increased demand. These situations can be frustrating and cause you to make decisions without thinking them through or sacrifice quality in an attempt to meet demand.
If your business is growing quicker than you expected and you’re becoming overwhelmed, stay calm and don’t rush into any big changes. A growth period is a crucial time for a company to establish itself and make a good reputation with customers. You’ll have to adapt your business to keep up with growing demands, but it’s important not to lose sight of the values and strategies that got you here in the first place. Here are five things you should keep in mind to better manage your rapidly growing business:
1. Be smart about hiring
It can be tricky to decide if and how many new people you need to hire to keep up with the demands of your growing company. If your current team is overwhelmed and can’t keep up with the workload, you might feel desperate for new hires. However, taking on more staff is an added expense and you need to hire the right people for the job. Hiring isn’t something you can take lightly or rush into. Your business and its reputation depend on the efficiency and work ethic of your staff.
Before jumping into interviewing and hiring, make sure your growth isn’t just temporary, but something sustained that will require the extra staff. If you can, hire temporary workers before committing to permanent new hires. You can also use freelancers or outsource tasks to phone answering services or virtual receptionists. If you decide you need to hire more people for your team, make sure to choose carefully since one bad employee can wreak havoc on your workplace environment. When it comes to hiring, be smart and don’t rush into any decisions.
2. Don’t sacrifice customer experience
One strong point of many small businesses is their ability to connect with their customers and provide great customer service. When a company begins to grow rapidly, it can be hard to keep the same standards. Whether it’s automating the customer service phone system or taking longer to respond to inquiries, growth often leads to changes that sometimes aren’t beneficial to the customer. If your customers notice that your company is changing and the customer service isn’t the same as before, they might not feel the same loyalty and take their business elsewhere. At the end of the day, it’s in your company’s best interests to prioritize the customer experience.
3. Make a plan
It’s important to update your business plan for your growing company’s needs. If your business continues to grow quickly, you’ll need to put strategies in place to manage it well. In your plan, you can include things like how to expand your team, collect payments, and continue to provide high-quality customer service. Going forward, you can plan for growth and be prepared to fulfill your growing company’s needs.
4. Simplify any processes you can
Making things simpler will give your team more time to work on important tasks. Look for ways to eliminate unnecessary tasks and make complicated tasks more efficient. Invest in software and automation to reduce the time needed to complete certain tasks. Make good communication a priority so that different members of your team can work together efficiently. Once you’ve established what works, standardize your basic processes to make things run more smoothly. Improving your business’ efficiency will help you support growth and meet customers’ needs.
5. Don’t forget what got you here
Rapid growth is a good sign that your company is doing something right. Take the time to pinpoint what makes you stand out from the competition and the reasons for your success. Maybe you’ve developed an active online community, or you’ve gone the extra mile to make sure your customers are satisfied. Perhaps you have a unique product or your marketing strategy attracts customers more than what the competition is doing. Whatever it is that makes your company special and is contributing to your company’s fast growth, you need to hold onto it. Pay attention to what’s working, and stick with it. While change may be necessary to keep up with growth, don’t change the things that are making your company successful. Stay true to your business’s core values and never forget how you got to where you are.
Managing a rapidly growing company has a lot of challenges, but if you focus on providing customers with the best experience possible and making a good business plan, you can keep up with it. Don’t make bad decisions or rush into hiring new staff. Keep in mind the values and tactics that got you this far, and keep working hard to reach your goals. If you follow these tips, you can continue to build a successful business.