Published on February 28th, 2019 | by Guest

4 Proven Key Investments to Scale Your Small Business

Sooner or later, every small business owner is faced with business expansion. Growth opportunities come and go and it’s up to the owners to decide when the best time to scale their business is. But, what does scaling mean exactly? Scaling a business means improving various business operations, in order for a company to become more profitable.

However, profitability isn’t always the main reason small businesses have to scale up. In fact, small businesses oftentimes scale in order to remain relevant to their consumers, maintain a competitive edge, expand or simply find new and less competitive markets, among other things. Simply put, scaling is about ensuring a company’s survivability in the long run.

Needless to say, scaling a business is no easy task that requires good planning and good investments. Scaling too soon or too late can be potentially hazardous to a business if you’re not careful enough. For the most part, business owners want to make sure that the investments they’ve made, in order to scale their business are worthwhile. That being said, here are a few proven key investments to scale your small business.

Invest in planning

Developing a solid plan when considering scaling your business is essential. If you don’t consider all aspects and invest both time and resources into proper research, your scaling strategy may easily fail altogether. The first step towards creating a plan is to determine why you want to or need to scale, in the first place.

As mentioned before, the main reason may be to increase the profitability of your business but you may also scale due to the need to expand to new markets, have access to additional funding, hire new staff, introducing new product lines and so on. Determining the reason to scale will help you plan for it.

As far as research goes, you must invest enough so that you can obtain proper information required for developing a scaling strategy. For instance, you must determine the costs of scaling up and compare it to the potential increase in sales. You can achieve that by conducting sales forecasting for your company. In addition, consider the expenses involved in scaling so that you can plan out a budget. As an example, a few expenses you must be aware of are:

Business relocation
Renovations
Hiring additional staff
Procuring additional equipment or inventory
Increase in utility, bills and tax costs

Invest in technology

When scaling up a business, you must understand that it’s not only your production line that requires improvement. Every business operation must scale accordingly, so it could support business growth and ensure stability. One of the best ways to ensure smooth business operations during the scale is to invest in technology. As you may already know, technology continues to advance at a steady pace.

Newest innovations and solutions can help companies improve their efficiency, as well as their overall performance, which is essential during business scaling. That means that you must replace obsolete technology with a fresh innovation. For example, consider implementing modern wireless plans for better and faster Internet access.

Also, consider opting for the latest communication, collaboration and other relevant software that will streamline business workflows or consider developing in-house software and apps for your business operations. What’s more, you can also consider investing in big data analysis, in order to make more strategic decisions based on the extracted information. In any event, you’ll need help from technology if you wish to scale your business successfully and which technological solution you should opt for depends on your goals.

Invest in marketing

Business scaling also means that you must step up your game when it comes to digital marketing. Whether you’ve decided to scale by penetrating the market, moving to global trade, targeting a niche market or any other method, you must scale your marketing efforts accordingly as well.

You may already be familiar with the concept that the more you invest in marketing the better the results will be. Even though you don’t necessarily have to overspend to ensure your marketing campaign’s success, you will need to invest in a large-scale marketing campaign required for your business scaling. Again, it comes down to the reason behind your business scaling.

If you’re looking to improve the profitability of your small business then you’d probably want to expand your consumer base, generate interest, awareness, visibility and exposure for your business. That will require a larger and well-planned marketing strategy. It also means you must be ready to invest when and wherever is needed. For example, you may consider implementing additional marketing methods into your campaign, such as:

SEO (Search Engine Optimization)
PPC (Pay-Per-Click) advertisement
Social media marketing
Social media influencer outreach
Blogging and guest posting
Video content on YouTube
Email promotions
Affiliate marketing
Contests, giveaways and sponsoring community events

No matter how you plan out your marketing campaign, you must have a proper budget to support it.

Invest in people

Every business scaling includes a new hiring process. The larger your company becomes the more people you’ll need to help you out. When it comes to hiring additional staff, you must invest well in your hiring process, in order to attract the most qualified and talented people. It’s no secret that the people you hire will help your business grow and develop further so you must ensure you have the right kind of employees.

Therefore, consider investing in a proper recruitment marketing strategy that will attract talented employees. Also, consider opting for remote work features as well. That will help you expand your search for new hires to the global talent pool. Last but not least, you should strongly consider investing more in your onboarding process. That way, when new employees start working for you, you’ll be able to ensure they will adjust properly and even ensure that you’ll be able to retain them, thus avoid costly turnovers and employee dissatisfaction.

As a matter of fact, only 37% of companies implement an onboarding process that’s longer than a month. With that in mind, it takes 8 months on average for a new employee to settle down completely and reach optimum productivity levels. What’s more, only 20% of turnovers happen within the first 45 days while 69% of new employees who had an exceptional onboarding experience will remain with a company for at least three years. That’s why it’s important to not only invest in hiring but also invest in your employee retention strategies as well.

Scaling a business is never easy. That’s why many business owners consider not scaling at all. However, that course of action is not always optional. When the time comes to consider business scaling, make sure you plan for it well. That way you can be certain that the investments you’ve made will eventually pay off.

Author Bio:

Victor T. Miller, a Sydney-based business and marketing specialist who has expanded businesses over 5 years. I am a person who loves to inform people about the latest news in the marketing industry also as sharing tips and advice based on my professional experience and knowledge.

Tags: business building, business planning, business scaling, business tech, digital marketing, investment, SEO