Recognize these common pitfalls to ensure you are ready to take the next step in your business.
October 14, 2020 4 min read
The opinions expressed by the entrepreneur’s contributors are their own.
Once you’ve proven a successful business model and business is doing well, many entrepreneurs try to scale their business. Scaling isn’t just about adding more inventory and selling more. To scale successfully, this needs to be done holistically: with the team, corporate infrastructure, and day-to-day operations to ensure the team can keep up with the scale.
Scaling must be done carefully and with numerous strategies. It is recommended that you team up with your team and learn about the correct scaling techniques before deciding this is an ambition and going blindly into it. To ensure that you are ready to take the next step in your business, understand the following key mistakes that are affecting the scalability of your startup.
Error 1: waiting for delegation
One of the reasons that scaling can be so intimidating is because tasks and responsibilities are passed to other team members. Depending on the size of your current team, this may include hiring team members or VAs. If you’ve been cost conscious in the past, you may have waited to invest in more help, believing that you and your current team could handle it even if things are going faster. However, the most effective founders know that getting more hands on is important as a business scales.
Your role as a founder is to handle Libra’s strategy as opposed to all of the work required of a Libra. John Jantsch writes: “A business owner looks at the work to be done and thinks, ‘How can I get all of this done? ‘An entrepreneur looks at the same work and thinks, “How can I get someone to do all of this?”
Orientate your work in management and assign other tasks.
Related: 7 Rules For Business Owners To Delegate Effectively
Mistake 2: Trying to be everything to everyone
Becoming an expert or leader in just one thing is non-negotiable in order to be able to scale. Otherwise, your business has so many conflicting components that it becomes muddy and inefficient. Luis Marcelino, entrepreneur and prominent consultant, emphasizes the importance of scaling with focused clients.
“If you don’t know who you are or what your company stands for, you don’t know what to look for in an ideal customer,” he advised. “And despite the desire for more business and demand, NOT everyone should be your customer.”
Instead, focus on the unique offers that only you and your company can offer. The better you can offer it, the easier it is to scale. And there is a perfectly coordinated customer alias that fits this narrow, focused value proposition.
Mistake 3: I think you can do it without a coach
Whenever you step up in your life or business you need a compass. The best investment you can make in yourself is to have a coach who has already done so. A coach provides a roadmap on how to effectively achieve your goals since they have done so before themselves and helped other clients do the same.
Transformational Life Trainer Jacob Galea credits his trainers for helping him achieve his highest goals and aspirations. “A coach holds you accountable and takes you to the next level,” he advised. “Not even the most motivated and focused person can achieve what they can do with a trainer who can anticipate your weaknesses and help you navigate the terrain towards your goals.” He used coaches to scale his company.
Related Topics: Coaching: The Best Kept Secret Of Growing As An Entrepreneur
Mistake 4: let your schedule do the trick
After all, a founder who scales is a founder who actively takes care of his everyday life. Many entrepreneurs make the mistake of letting emails and requests run their day which means they are out of touch with their own focus and attention span. Since there is an important strategy involved in scaling out, make sure you have methods in place to control your days, weeks, and months. This can be the hardest part to get used to. So make sure you can rely on a trainer or other person to help structure your changing schedule.
If you can spot these flaws in advance, the path to scale will be far more successful – and you will feel more in control with every step of the journey.
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