Stages of Growth

A business has stages of growth, where you have to adjust to a new level. Each time it takes a revision of priorities, new ways to be more efficient, and thinking outside the box to become more than just another business like all the rest. How we grow doesn’t only separate the good business operators from the wannabes, it also helps to define what our business becomes that really defines it as unique.

When you struggle to handle growth, and look at systemizing parts of your business, you can either keep the defining things that comprise your unique selling proposition, or you can lose it as you adopt the same methods of coping that every other business devises. Are you really different? Are you going to STAY different as the company grows to become larger and harder to manage?

I know business people who have said, “This far, and no further”, for just that reason. They felt if they grew more, their business would completely depersonalize in a sea of systemization, adopted to cope with larger and larger volume.

• As your business grows, what are the critical elements of personal touches that you MUST retain if you want to keep your business identity?
• How can you hire people to give the same kind of service that you do?
• What are the routine things that can be systemized, and made more predictable, and more beneficial for the client or customer by systemization?
• Are there existing solutions available to help you grow and still keep your identity, or will you have to create your own?

These are questions you should be asking if you want to grow. And the answers will largely determine WHAT your business grows into.

Think about it through each phase of increased business. What should be systemized now? How do we learn to do things in a way that gets more done, but preserves the unique aspects of our business?

Thinking about it as you go along keeps you from losing the essence of your business in unexpected affects of rapid growth.