SCALING YOUR BUSINESS
Overcoming The 3 Big Barriers To Profitable Growth
LEADERSHIP , INFRASTRUCTURE , AND MARKETING
VERNE HARNISH AND THE TEAM AT GAZELLES
“ You ’ re experiencing the growth paradox : the belief that as you scale the company — and increase your dream team , prospects , and resources — things should get easier , but they don ’ t . Things actually get harder and more complicated .”
For many business leaders , scaling their business is a nightmare . Does every employee you hire , every customer you acquire , and every expansion you drive actually make you tired ? Are you working longer hours even though you thought there would be some economies of scale as the business grew ? Does it feel like everyone is just piling onto an increasingly heavier anchor that you alone are dragging through the sand ? This isn ’ t what you signed up for . It ’ s supposed to get easier as you scale , so what happened ?
You ’ re experiencing the growth paradox : the belief that as you scale the company — and increase your dream team , prospects , and resources — things should get easier , but they don ’ t . Things actually get harder and more complicated .
COMPLEXITY
Think back to when your company was just the founder and an assistant with a plan on the back of a napkin . This start-up situation represents two channels of communication ( degrees of complexity ), and anyone in a relationship knows that is hard enough . Add a third person ( or customer or location or product ), and the degree of complexity triples from two to six . Add a fourth , and it quadruples to 24 .
Expanding from three to four people only grows the team 33 %, yet complexity may increase 400 %. And the complexity just keeps growing exponentially , which is why many business owners long for the day when the company was just them and an assistant selling a single service .
This complexity generates three fundamental barriers to scaling up a venture .
• Leadership : the inability to staff / grow enough leaders throughout the organization who have the capabilities to delegate and predict
• Scalable infrastructure : the lack of systems and structures ( physical and organizational ) to handle the complexities in communication and decisions that come with growth
• Marketing : the failure to scale up an effective marketing function to both attract new relationships ( customers , talent , etc .) to the business and to address the increased competitive pressures ( and eroded margins ) as you scale
When you remove these barriers , that anchor you ’ ve been dragging turns into wind at your back .
LEADERSHIP
Prediction , Delegation , and Repetition
As goes the leadership team , so goes the rest of the company . Whatever challenges exist within the organization can be traced to the cohesion of the executive team and its capabilities in prediction , delegation , and repetition .
Prediction
Leaders don ’ t have to be years ahead ; they just have to be minutes ahead of the market , the competition , and those they lead . The key is frequent interaction with customers , competitors , and employees .
Delegation
Letting go and trusting others to do things well is one of the most challenging aspects of being the leader of a growing organization .
Successful delegation requires four components , assuming you have delegated a job to the right person or team :
1 . Pinpoint what the person or team needs to accomplish .
2 . Create a measurement system for monitoring progress .
3 . Provide feedback to the team or person .
4 . Give appropriately timed recognition and rewards because you ’ re dealing with people , not machines .
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