If you’re an entrepreneur who’s running a business, then it’s entirely likely that you will have come across countless gurus online who insist that you need to be scaling your company “to the moon” instantly and that it’s the be-all and end-all of entrepreneurial success.
Like all advice on the internet which seems too good to be true, it fails to represent the full picture. For instance, there are plenty of business models which are best suited to remaining small and profitable, allowing the business owner to get to know their customers on a more personal level and ensuring that their levels of service are as high as they can be. What’s more, when these types of businesses try and scale for the sake of it, they often lose the very essence of what made it successful in the first place.
However, this isn’t to say that scaling is bad or that you shouldn’t attempt it. You just need to establish the true value of doing it and how to do it in a way that is congruent with your brand and which befits your long-term targets. This is especially true if you run an online business, which is the ideal model for scaling.
Here are some top tips for scaling your online business quickly:
Make sure your IT infrastructure is scalable
One of the most important aspects of scaling is how easily the internal systems within your company can be upgraded or expanded. Often, when companies reach a certain size, they become stagnant because they hit a ceiling with their current workflows. For example, if you’re trying to grow your startup, then you might struggle with the additional customer demand necessitated by scaling, especially if you don’t have a team in place to help.
What’s more, you might not have the necessary resources or software to cope with the additional strain put on the business, resulting in disaster if you don’t equip yourself for growth.
For example, you might need an API gateway to deal with the connection between your software backend and plug-in apps or third-party products. If you’re “sitting there wondering “what is API gateway?”, then it’s time to roll up your sleeves and research it.
Reduce operational drag
Another phenomenon that you need to take into consideration if you want to scale your online business is operational drag. The reason why this is so vital is that, as your enterprise grows, every integral part of it will multiply with it. Therefore, you might need ten product lines instead of five, twenty different marketing campaigns for different products instead of ten, and so on.
This creates a drag effect, as though it’s a slab-sided truck struggling to cut through the air. It causes your business to slow down, become incredibly confusing, lack agility, and burn money. While it might work in the short term, eventually, this will kill your business the more you try and grow it.
Instead, work out how to streamline your company, cut off any excess fat, and focus on the core areas of potential growth.
Keep your overheads low
You may have noticed a trend so far. When it comes to scaling, you should be focusing more on reducing drag, streamlining processes, and making the process as seamless as possible rather than artificially bloating your company and forcing it to grow. The same logic can be applied to your spending, which should actually be reduced as much as possible while you grow.
Although you may need a cash injection to fire the starting gun on scaling, you should really work on reducing your overheads, making your company as flexible and profit-rich as possible, and keeping it an agile machine.
