The ability to scale your business will eventually become an important issue as you grow. The reality is, if you really want to have a profitable company, you’re likely going to have to find ways to scale your business.
Granted, not everyone wants to scale and that’s okay. But for those of us that do, this article will outline some surefire signs that it may be time.
What do you mean “scale your business”?
When I first started in business, I had no idea what “scale your business” even meant. It seemed like a foreign concept, kind of the same way “systems” did when I first started.
According to a quick Google search,” scalabilty” is defined as “the capacity to be changed in size or scale.”
In a business sense, it’s more like find the tools and having the products that allow you to either take on more work or trade less time for money.
- Scale Your Business Option #1: Hire out certain things for your business so you can focus on taking on more client work. Like hiring writers to start an agency instead of doing all the writing yourself.
- Scale Your Business Option #2: Create products one time and then sell them over and over again.
- Scale Your Business Option #3: Find systems and tools that allow you to automate things in your business. For example, an auto webinar software that looks like a real webinar so you can host several per week without actually having to do it yourself.
If you’re anything like me, you likely have a mix of all three going on. However, this all started with me being a freelance writer. Eventually, I had to step away from that and find different ways to scale.
Here are 5 signs that it may be time to scale your business.
Sign #1: You’re at max capacity.
Many businesses start out with the owner providing some sort of service of skill on an hours for dollars type model.
For example, I started as a freelance writer. This requires me to trade my time for money.
Eventually, you hit max capacity with this type of business model. After all, there are only so many hours in a day and so much work you can get done within said hours.
This may be when you first start thinking about how to scale your business. You start wondering how you can make more money without having to work nearly as hard or as long.
At first, it may look like hiring people to get stuff off your plate. It may also look like increasing your rates. But, eventually, those aren’t enough either and you start moving up the ladder. At this point, profit becomes more of a motivator.
Sign #2: You start craving more leverage in your business.
Another sign that it may be time to scale your business is that you want to increase profit.
Let’s say that, like me, you’ve already hired out what you need to hire out. You’ve also already increased your rates to the highest they’ve ever been.
At this point, you’ll likely want to find yourself increasing profit. In my case, that looks like building leverage into my business in the form of some sort of a group coaching/consulting program.
This allows me to a) help more people, b) use up less of my time and c) make more money while using less of my time.
After you’ve been doing one-on-one work for a while, this is something you start gravitating towards to free up some of your time.
Sign #3: You have a profit motive.
The next sign that it may be time to scale your business is if you want to increase your profits.
After you’ve delegated and raised your rates, the only real way to increase profits from there is to scale your business. It could be leading group consulting programs, it could be selling digital course, it could be using systems to take the place of you.
The reality is that once we hve the products and systems in place, we can create more profit because we can make recurring income on something that’s already been created and we can move people through a sales process without actually having to be present for the whole thing.
This leads to more automated sales and more time for the business owner to decide what to do with. You can decide to find more clients or create something new, or you can decide to go to yoga. The choice is yours.
Sign #4: You want multiple streams of income.
Multiple streams of income isn’t just a good way to scale your business, it’s also a good way to scale your life in general. Having your money coming from different places allows for a certain type of peace of mind that those with a steady paycheck may not have.
The good news is you can create several streams of income as you scale your business. For instance, you can use auto-webinar software to create multiple webinars for different products.
The products are sold from the webinar without you actually having to be present. You can also have recurring revenue in the form of a membership site with exclusive content. This is steady money you have coming in each month and another way to supplement revenue without you needing to be present.
Sign #5: You want passive streams of income.
At some point in your business, you’ll likely want to start creating passive streams of income. In order to do this, you’ll need to scale your business.
The examples I mentioned in the previous section weren’t just examples of multiple streams of income, they were also an example of how to sell products passively by using tools that don’t allow you to be actually present.
Final Thoughts
While it takes some time to scale your business, it’s worth considering if you want to continue making more money. That’s why you need to start thinking about this sooner rather than later.