Growth Spurt: What to Consider When You’re Expanding Your Business

Guest Contributor, Dean Burgess

If your business has upward momentum, it often makes sense to seize the opportunity and expand. This means increasing the size of your team, investing money and adjusting the infrastructure of the company to facilitate growth. If you’re looking to scale up, here are some key considerations.

Hire Smart

In order to meet the growing demands of your clientele, it’s often necessary to spread the workload out—failure to do so can result in burnt out employees and unsatisfactory service. The risk when developing your team is that you can upset the composition which led to success in the first place. It’s therefore important to protect your winning formula. 

Many try to do this by using succession planning to train and promote high-performing team members and employ at the bottom rung, essentially shifting the hierarchy up a level. This can work but it’s important to remember that any changes are likely to affect the office dynamic and you’ll need to check in regularly to ensure that everyone is still singing from the same sheet.

When bringing in new team members, it’s crucial that you take the time to hire proactively. The hires you make now may prove pivotal for the long-term success of your business. Try to construct a thorough selection process and, if you don’t have the time to pore over resumes, it may even be worth enlisting the help of a recruitment agency, who can work closely with you to secure the individuals who are more likely to secure your company’s success.

Another thing to consider is looking at what functions you can hire out to other service providers. For example, you can have an outside service provide messaging or phone answering services. This can free up funds to use elsewhere.

Funding Expansion

When you decide to expand your business, be it a new market or just a new building, you will often need outside funding to make it happen. If you apply for a loan, keep in mind that your personal debt may factor into the lender’s decision about providing the load. Be sure that your personal finances are in order before approaching a lender.

Increase Marketing

As your customer base grows, you’ll find that you have more funds available to invest back into the business. The process of earning and reinvesting can be cyclical and further increase your momentum if you’re able to distribute these resources effectively into marketing and sales. With digital marketing strategies (PPC, content marketing, SEO, etc.) you can make efficient use of your funds and grow brand awareness, endearing yourself to new demographics and making an impact in the most important space currently (the online one).

You might also take the opportunity to bring in social media specialists, who can identify the relevant channels and help you to engage with clientele, grow your following, and build ties with other businesses in the sector. Although social media is not always a necessary business requirement, it remains a convenient tool for engaging with younger generations and a period of growth can mark the right time for its implementation.

Diversify Product Range

Whilst you have the budget available, it can be worth considering adding new products and/or services to your offering. Product diversification will protect you from any immediate industry downturns and hopefully boost your brand and profit. There are a number of ways to do this effectively (e.g. concentric or conglomerate diversification) and you’ll need to carry out plenty of research into your own market to ensure that any new ventures have a receptive customer base, reasonable development costs, and a high chance of success.

You may decide, prior to any important business decisions, that you want to form an LLC (Limited Liability Company). This will provide you with several benefits including limited liability, tax advantages, less paperwork, and more flexibility. States have different regulations around founding an LLC so be sure to check rules in your area or use a formation service to help you navigate these (and save on lawyer fees).

Business expansion can be exciting but also risky, as this period of forward momentum may be the making of your brand or a false start. If you want to proceed with minimal risk, you’ll need to double your efforts and spend plenty of time on research.

About

TriStar Bin Cleaning is a growing locally owned & operated business that is proud to be the first to offer professional trash bin cleaning services throughout the Nashville area. TriStar steam-cleans dirty trash bins using only high-pressure water. Their eco-friendly process eliminates harsh chemicals or detergents to safely and effectively clean, deodorize and disinfect dirty trash and recycling bins, eliminating the foul smell as well as the harmful germs and bacteria living inside.

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