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What once was a distant dream or modest idea is now a thriving small business. You’ve overcome the initial challenges of being a scrappy start-up and your business is ready to transform into something bigger. 

Small business scaling is not just about growing your operations, expanding your team, and increasing your offerings, but doing it sustainably and effectively. If you try to grow your business too quickly or too haphazardly, you could find yourself stuck down the road facing burnout, a lack of vision, or even cash flow problems. 

Learning effective strategies for scaling your small business can help you anticipate common challenges and discover actionable solutions. 

How Do I Know When to Scale?

Before diving into the challenges and solutions of small business scaling, it’s important to first address how you can know when it’s time to scale. There’s no magical timeline because every small business is unique and has varying strengths, weaknesses, and opportunities. 

But in general, it might be time to scale when: 

• The demand for your services is bigger than your current capacity. 

• You need a leader (or leaders) with a specialized skill set(s). 

• You’re gaining steady business without trying too hard (through referrals, current marketing strategies, your reputation, etc.). 

• You’re turning down business opportunities because your current schedule and team are strained. 

4 Common Small Business Scaling Challenges (With Actionable Solutions) 

When you start to scale your small business, you may come across common challenges that small business owners before you have faced such as: 

1. Lacking proper cash flow management. 

2. Increasing quantity but decreasing quality.  

3. Finding the right talent. 

4. Maintaining your brand and personality. 

With savvy preparedness and scaling strategies in your toolbelt, you can help prevent these challenges and move forward steadily. 

1. Lacking proper cash flow management. 

As you begin your small business scaling journey, the demand for your company’s resources can exponentially increase. Acquiring qualified talent, increasing marketing initiatives, and investing in new technology can strain your income. 

It’s critical to anticipate these increased expenses before you begin scaling so you can strategically allocate funds, maintain enough liquidity, and anticipate financial needs — all while sustaining your current day-to-day operations. 

Forecasting your future cash flow needs is an excellent way to prepare for the cash flow changes that will inevitably come. You’ll want to carefully evaluate whether or not your projected returns justify your investments. Investing in the right technology or talent can prove to be worthwhile, it just shouldn’t be taken lightly. 

Ensuring you have a foolproof method of receiving payments from clients or customers can also help prevent setbacks. If you have clients who are consistently late on their payments, address them promptly and streamline your invoicing process. 

Verifying that you always have access to the cash you need, either through a business line of credit, credit card, or even a small business loan, is also crucial as you scale. While you don’t want to rely too heavily on financing, it can be a lifeline as you work through certain scaling challenges and invest in the future of your business.

Prioritizing your highest-paying clients or products can also help you maintain the cash flow you need to scale effectively. 

2. Increasing quantity but decreasing quality.  

Increasing sales, sending higher proposals, and meeting new customers and clients is exciting, especially when it seems to all be snowballing in the right direction. But with all the excitement and new opportunities come the potential for a decrease in quality. Saying yes to new contracts and orders should only happen when you have the capacity and manpower to back them up. 

It can be detrimental to your business if your current clients start to notice a dip in quality or there’s a significant change in your products. 

Creating clear quality standards and ensuring proper employee training can be extremely advantageous as you scale. Having crystal clear benchmarks and expectations can help your employees feel empowered and ready to maintain quality. Let them know that they can always ask questions to gain clarity and regularly provide them with positive feedback and opportunities where they can grow. 

3. Finding the right talent. 

As you scale your business, you’ll want to ensure your new employees have both the necessary skill set and the right personality that will blend well with you and your current team. Scaling is an intense time in the life of a business and clashing personalities can be detrimental to growth. 

Potential employees are attracted to companies experiencing exciting growth, especially well-executed expansion. Finding the right people to join you on your scaling journey can seem intimidating but utilizing the right strategies can help you navigate these complicated waters. 

Chances are, you already have a wide network full of professional contacts. And thanks to networking websites such as LinkedIn, you can access qualified talent worldwide. Advertise your position with your current network first and see where that takes you. 

Offering compelling work perks can also help you attract the right talent for your team. Offering flexible work arrangements, generous pay and benefits, and opportunities for growth and development can pay off in the long run. 

Creating a process for hiring can also help you ensure you’re bringing on the right people — have clear experience requirements and skills assessments ready to use during interviews. 

4. Maintaining your brand and personality. 

As your team grows and more personalities and preferences emerge, you might not recognize parts of your business anymore. While some of this is unavoidable (you can’t copy yourself, after all), you can help prevent your business from completely changing by putting in some initial effort. 

Before scaling, brainstorm and write out your business’s core values. These values should reflect you and what you want your business to stand for. Examples could include prioritizing diversity, always acting with integrity, consistently exceeding customer expectations, being fiscally responsible, etc. As you hire a team, present these values during interviews and ensure the candidates are willing to adhere to them. 

Creating a brand style guide can also help you and your employees stick to a consistent brand identity. From color palettes and typography to brand messaging and tone of voice, a style guide can help your team maintain cohesiveness. This also helps your business gain trust and recognition among your target audience.  

Consistently reviewing adherence to your company’s core values and brand strategy is essential as you scale. Periodically review your communications and ensure both your employees and your customers are perceiving the business’s brand positively. 

Scale Sustainably with Financial Fitness Coaching

At Financial Fitness Coaching, we love helping our clients develop financial and scaling strategies to help their businesses thrive. We can assist you and your team in optimizing your cash flow, forecasting, and budgeting while also helping you identify and mitigate potential scaling challenges. 

Small business owners and entrepreneurs can gain access to our Financial Fitness Academy where you will learn how to manage your money with proven systems and finally pay yourself first! To see how we can help you and your business, email us at info@financialfitnesscoaching.com.