Scaling up your startup simply means putting it on the growth trajectory. The accelerated growth of any startup business largely depends upon meaningful utilization of resources that should yield great results, which are predictable and measurable. Scalability doesn’t entail writing a few methods on paper and just follow them; it is, in fact, a perfect actionable mix of ideas, team, business plan, goal, and vision.
A study conducted by Startup Genome shows that as many as 74% of startup companies fail because they lack scalability. To put it more bluntly, you can only successfully scale up your business if you are able to increase its revenue while minimizing all the costs at the same time. While no startup can grow overnight, the complacency of immediate positive results should not be confused with success being envisioned by the entrepreneurs. Therefore, it is about time that your startup has met with the techniques that are efficient enough to put any business on a high growth curve.
Here are 7 proven strategies that can successfully scale up your startup business:
#1. Learn From Mistakes You Make Or Even From Others
If you are making small mistakes, make sure to rectify and learn from them as soon as possible. When it comes to startup businesses, mistakes and failures are inevitable at some point. However, the fierce competition out there does not allow you to commit too many of them. Your team should be adept at finding proper reasons for their failures and at the same time ensure they don’t repeat them. More than that, you should have the ability to learn from the mistakes others are making. You need to identify the discrepancies and systematically examine as to what went right and what went wrong in the business.
#2. Create A Winning Business Plan
Creating an emphatic business plan is a primary requirement for any startup as it serves as a preamble for conducting any business. It provides a basic structure for the company’s pursuit of success. Writing a comprehensive SBA business plan is essentially a winning strategy that emphasizes on setting overall goals, reviewing specific operations, assessing new technology, and removing unwanted obstacles. A carefully drafted business plan with fully evaluated goals, objectives, and plans is the one that holds tremendous potential for the future investors.
At the outset, researching and writing your business plan might just well look like a difficult task, but in later stages, it underpins the improvements and chances of your business’s success. A perfect business plan also improves the level of your presentation as there is no second chance to make a good first impression. Therefore, an accurate, easy-to-read, and well-organized business plan conveys the high degree of professionalism and credibility.
#3. Hire Most Suitable Professionals
It is often said “a chain is as strong as its weakest link” and a team, therefore, is as efficient as its single last member. The team that you are going to assemble for your business should be skillful and dedicated. Hiring suitable candidates are important because the team is one of the best bet you have to scale up your business. The team members that fully understand the nature of your work and motivate as well help each other will be much of your delight. Some people believe that only big companies have a dedicated team for their specific high-end projects. But startups equally need strong team efforts on the part of its members to grow and succeed.
#4. Be Willing To Redesign And Change
In this fast-paced world, it is important for startups to have an idea that can be scaled and transformed with the changing time. When it comes to increasing the revenues, innovation, and transformation are the key factors. The optimization alongside the innovation always makes your business relevant for investors as well as customers.
If your startup is following critical processes for various projects, it is important to first examine the efficiency and effectiveness to make them more productive and cost competitive. The redesigning of the various business operations includes prioritizing key processes, recreating the logo, or introducing more functions to the existing features. Also, as your startup begins to grow, you have to restructure that which better empowers its people and their decision making.
#5. Automate And Streamline Your Business
Business automation is very crucial to entrepreneurs because effective and timely deliveries are essential for desired results and growth of startups. You can use proper tools that can help you rapidly grow. In these times of ferocious competition, sales are just as important as efficiency and effectiveness. This is where the power of automation comes into play, which makes your startup competitive and result-oriented.
Automation helps in controlling costs while accommodating significant growth rates. It is a fact that in almost all startups, the highest performers tend to automate the most. There are many simple-to-use and affordable automation tools for small businesses to grow faster such as ClearVoice, Infusionsoft, Printful, ClickFunnel etc.
#6. Utilize An Integrated Marketing Strategy
An integrated marketing strategy is the one that focuses on consistency, seamless and multi-dimensional brand experience for the customers. Be it for large corporations or startups integrated marketing strategy always work. Therefore, the branding efforts of your business should include television, radio, print, internet and other means.
Moreover, the use of social media using Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube will be very crucial for the success of your business. This multi-faceted approach using consistency and creativity is very important for businesses to thrive. The strategy basically requires understanding consumer attitudes, competition positioning, and technological advancement to reach out to potential customers.
#7. Use Networking To Your Advantage
The main aim of conducting effective networking is to make your business known. The premise of using networking to your advantage is that more businesses you interact with, the more people will get to know your business. Being diligent with returning emails and phone calls in order to maintain your business’s credibility is one of the prerequisites of networking. Effective networking helps you acquire new business leads. It helps you in understanding new business trends and identifying best practices and industry benchmarks.
Conclusion
By focusing on maintaining a scalable startup will surely change your business for good. It is important that your startup has a thought through vision and business plan. The above-mentioned tips encompass all the right systems, processes, people, and plans, which form a perfect recipe for creating a scalable business.