It has been a while since my last post. I have been very busy working with some wonderful small businesses, helping them build processes, hire new people, control costs and ultimately GROW!
While partnering with each unique business, similar trends emerged that made all of them successful, despite their industry differences, What do these leaders and companies have in common? What makes me confident that they will be successful and accelerate growth. They all recognized that they needed to change, to do things differently. Here are the areas we focused on together.
Hire great people
As you grow, it is natural to ask more of your team and to hope they absorb the work. This approach can actually hold your growth back as the capacity for more will diminish over time.
The key opportunity is to hire for your defined positions - roles that are fulfilling a specific process with a defined outcome. Creating roles to match your team is a natural tendency, but building a role based on a business needs is more effective. Be deliberate and purposeful when building a larger team and hire for a specific role / position.
Be sure to have job descriptions ready. Going through the process of building an organizational chart and creating specific job descriptions will ensure that your expanding team has clarity over their roles and your expectations.
(Check out "3 Things to Improve Employee Experience" for more help once you have your team onboard )
Build repeatable processes
Most likely, the way you operated your business when you were small, with a small team, won’t allow you to scale to grow. It is worth taking the time to map out your business processes such as new client acquisition, order fulfillment, service models, etc. so that you have repeatable processes that are built in to your way of working
Ideally, your new processes should be automated through a customer relationship management software (CRM), food management system, inventory management or whatever industry norm would be for your specific industry.
Focus on your customers
Once you are done focusing inwardly by building an effective team and repeatable processes, then you have time to proactively listen to your customers, confidently knowing that your team will now be able to deliver the platinum experience.
Growth is a double-edged sword; it helps drive your business forward but if you don’t have the team, your customer service may suffer. The faster you grow, the more likely you are to drop a ball or two. Usually you can recover but over time the lack of resources will take a toll
Build your customer acquisition and service model and ensure it is reflected in your people plan and it matches your processes. Let's GROW!