Going from a five-person startup to a 30-person organization is impressive growth—but as your team expands, so do your responsibilities. Managing 25 additional people, along with their respective salaries and career goals, is no small feat. Stay ahead of the learning curve with our guide on how to scale your business.
1. Audit your current structure
Maintaining a strong organizational structure is an essential part of scaling your company. After all, you can’t build something solid on a weak foundation, right? If your current organization structure causes a lot of stress, confusion or presents a lack of productivity, something needs to be adjusted—and that’s not a bad thing!
As you start to scale, the Org Chart functionality in Bloom Growth is super helpful in getting everyone on the same page. The more transparent your team can be, the better. Consider how roles, responsibilities and accountabilities might change as you continue to grow, and work with your team to find a system that works for everyone. You might be surprised at how much positive momentum can come from small structural optimizations!
2. Have a financial plan
Growth and scaling are entwined, but they’re not synonymous. Sure, investing in a hiring surge will grow your team, but what does that do for your profit? The secret to a healthy, burgeoning team is scalability—which includes having the resources to match your team’s needs.
Take a look at your current system, and consider the following:
- Are we spending money on things we don’t need?
- Is everyone on the team paid fairly?
- Should we be investing in additional tools or resources?
- Does our income model reflect our growth trends?
When it comes to scaling, optimizing your budget is essential. Our advice? Don’t keep the financials to yourself. Instead, bring your whole team in on the discussion, and listen to their feedback. Odds are, you’ll get some great insights from the resulting dialogue.
3. Be creative with hiring
To create great teams, you have to hire great people. Easier said than done, we know, but it’s so, so true.
At Bloom Growth, we pride ourselves on having a team of awesome, passionate people who are genuinely fun to work with. And honestly? Some of us couldn’t be more different, and to us, that’s a good thing. No two people have all the same strengths—and hiring a diversely talented team makes for a unified, complementary organization.
We keep our Core Values at the heart of everything we do, including hiring. If someone lacks experience or skillsets, we can always train them as we go. But there’s no way to teach helpfulness, tenacity and a drive for optimization. Consider this as you scale your organization, and don’t be afraid to prioritize your company culture. Your team (and your bottom line) will thank you.
4. Select the right tools
Many companies avoid investing in top-quality tools that could help them grow in the interest of saving money. This makes sense for short-term budgets, but it’s not sustainable long-term.
By now, we all know you need to spend money to make money, and optimizing your tool kit is no exception. There are countless business tools you can add to your arsenal to help you take on more capacity than you could previously, lending themselves to your scaling goals. Research the most-used tools in your industry, look into their implications and ask your team what they need to succeed.
5. Manage your expectations
In order to scale, do you need to sell more, or do you need to sell smarter? Consider what your business goals are, and make sure your sales goals match that plan. If they don’t, it’s time to adjust your expectations.
When scaling your business, keep in mind that you’re not just selling a product or service—you’re also selling the idea that you’re a company worth working with. Don’t be afraid to get creative with how you approach your sales and marketing efforts. Ask yourself questions like:
- Do I need to attract a new type of customer in order to scale?
- Is my product or service meeting the needs of every client we sell to? If not, what opportunities are we missing?
- Is our brand up-to-date and reflective of who we are?
- Are we communicating our value through the right channels at the right time?
This isn’t a “one and done” type deal. These questions, and others like them, should be revisited in-depth and often, especially during the scaling process.