The dream of every entrepreneur is to grow, and grow fast. But if not managed properly it can be the recipe for disaster. Learn the rapid growth strategies from these Toilet Paper Entrepreneurs who have been-there and done-that:
1. Get Advice!
How To Survive Rapid Growth: A few years ago we experienced a crazy amount of growth and promptly did all the wrong things (over-hired, over-expanded, etc.). We got into a CEO group and started talking to other more experienced business owners. Only then did we understand how to control the growth. If we hadn't had that advice, we'd have exploded (in a bad way!).
How To Survive Rapid Growth: Looks for ways to accommodate the increase in sales without opening another office/warehouse or entering into huge fixed expenditures. This might include (1) opening a virtual office instead of a bricks and mortar one, (2) using off peak workers or double teaming your equipment at your original facility instead of opening a new one, (3) servicing out of state sales by using Skype and teleconfercing instead of hiring an inter-state sales team, or (4) directing more customers online for sales and service assistance (standardize the information provided and cut down on the number of customer service staff needed).
How To Survive Rapid Growth: When you are growing, you have to hire slowly (which seems counterintuitive), and then fire quickly if the person is a bad 'fit.' This is true regardless of whether you are hiring employees or independent contractors. Get the right people in to help you grow - and get rid of anyone who is 'wrong' for you.
How To Survive Rapid Growth: Always be expecting rapid growth. If you're not expecting it, you're not thinking big enough. Even though you may not need additional employees, technology, and space, always be preparing so you won't be taken by surprise when the growth and success come. Keep an eye out for good team members (check out who works for your competition). Always be researching the available technologies so you are up-to-speed. You never know when additional office space will be needed. Keep an ear to the ground for good opportunities.
How To Survive Rapid Growth: Over-communicate in times of crisis or stress, even when its positive stress around what to do about so much growth. Everyone wants to see a success story, and they'll do what they can to pitch when asked and given a view into what's happening. Your customers and stakeholders will wait, they will help, and they'll cheer from the sidelines.
How To Survive Rapid Growth: Seek outside experts to help develop systems, refine strategies, and guide decisions. A team of individuals collaborating and brainstorming is far greater than any one individual is capable of doing single handedly. To identify talents, read Tom Rath’s "Strengths Finder 2.0" and take the accompanying online assessment.
How To Survive Rapid Growth: You need to be highly selective int he clients you decide to work with when building your business. You could be greedy and take everyone's money that comes your way but all money is not good money. When you grow too fast you lose your business, the goal you have in mind for it. It takes time to hire quality people - even quality interns if you will to manage workload. This all plays a major part. You must simply step back during growth spurts and say…do I need all of this right now and where are the dead weights in the business or what clients could I really do without.
How To Survive Rapid Growth: Define your vision, make it exciting, and never lose sight of it. Be willing to modify it as conditions change. Communicate it to everyone. Repeat frequently.
Know who you want to hire. Look for people with a history of getting results, not a collection of skills.
Educate new employees. Show them how things are done and make them feel comfortable.
Make sure everyone feels the company's goals are personally important to them. Celebrate progress.
How To Survive Rapid Growth: Who says you have to do it alone. By building a solid team you can begin to delegate & outsource especially when feeling overwhelmed. As you grow you will need to manage your time even more. Sometimes it's about letting go & saying no to those things that can tend to slow you down.
How To Survive Rapid Growth: Build with scalability in mind. We utilized the Amazon Cloud Computing Platform for hosting & data storage, which has allowed us to keep up with tremendous growth in traffic, users & data storage needs.
Any Internet start-up that thinks they might need lots of servers and/or lots of storage would be wise to look into Cloud Computing for its immense
scalability - not to mention cost effectiveness.
How To Survive Rapid Growth: When you identify an area that seems like it might start creating a bottleneck in your processes in the future, begin working on a plan to delegate or hire someone immediately. If you try to wait to delegate until the work becomes more than you can handle, it's often too late, and quality or customer service has been compromised. By the time you train or hire someone to handle the area you've identified early on, there will be enough work to keep them more than busy.
How To Survive Rapid Growth: You must embrace proven tools, strategies and best practices for growth, innovation and leadership - the three main components required to develop a solid growth strategy. Senior executives must have the ability to benchmark such strategies with other best-in-class organizations.
How To Survive Rapid Growth: When a company is growing, it’s easy for customer service to suffer. In order to handle the influx of business, the typical response is to throw bodies at the problem. Because of time constraints the impulse is to get newly recruited customer service team on the phones and in front of customers as fast as possible instead of training them thoroughly. Hiring people to answer the phones rather than hiring people to help customers is not a good strategy. So what is the solution? Training. It’s not sexy, and it may not sound very fun, but it’s critical, and it should be put in place starting with the first customer service rep.
How To Survive Rapid Growth: There was a time years back when my firm experienced exponential growth--a cluster of aerospace firms was seeking my training services. I found myself working six days a week with these Fortune 100 firms. My health didn't suffer but my mental equilibrium did. As a one-woman firm, I thought I could do it all. And, I did, but at considerable cost when it came to stress. My advice: hire people as needed. Less money in your pocket, but more peace in your mind (and soul!).
How To Survive Rapid Growth: I am a Goal driven, big picture visionary. I tend to feel drained and less effective when dealing with too many of the smaller details of any project.
The greatest tip I can recommend to others who want to explode their business is to get out of your own way. Bring in people who are strong in areas you are weak. When you are first starting out, this may mean part time, but that is the key to massive strategic growth.
Because the small details are just as important as the big picture, I bring in expert VAs to handle them. Then I am free to invest my energy on the things that I do best.
16. A High Bar For Talent With Low Walls Around It.
How To Survive Rapid Growth: A small business doubling or tripling output year-over-year requires, above all, an obsessive attention to talent and process. Most likely, it's the talent in your company that has enabled the exponential growth. Adding to it is a delicate alchemy; be selective. Secondly, the process through which initial success is achieved may buckle under the weight of that success; look to tear down the information silos and share.
How To Survive Rapid Growth: The way to manage rapid growth is the same as when you manage slow growth. You hire the right people at the right time all the time, not just to "fill a position." You monitor hard dollar sales, don't borrow or payout on "future" sales. There is no such thing as "future sales." When you need to make a change, think it through thoroughly first, not after you make the change.
How To Survive Rapid Growth: Become an expert on outsourcing. From hiring a reputable virtual assistant, to a product fulfillment center, web designers to SEO experts, you can build a a staff of people quickly and easily. Websites such as elance.com, guru.com, and freelancer.com all have people who are ready, willing and able to assist you at the drop of a dime.
The trick to doing this without losing your shirt, is to allow yourself the time now, before the great expansion, to learn the ins and outs of outsourcing, how to locate the best people, what qualifications will you look for, and will they supply you with references and examples of their work.
How To Survive Rapid Growth: As business grows, departments grow, headcount grows and too frequently communication slows. You simply can not over communicate.
Product, sales, marketing, operations, service all need to be in sync as the business booms.
How To Survive Rapid Growth: One of the keys to managing rapid growth is to have an infrastructure in place that supports where you want to be in three years and not where you are now or expect to be next year. Work processes and systems that fall behind growth is one of the main reasons many businesses are not able to sustain growth or take advantage of opportunities as they arise. Having work processes that are scalable enables you to more easily expand the business’ capacity and capability to deliver.
How To Survive Rapid Growth: Depending on my litigation caseload I can have extreme amounts of work at any given time - and then a lull in activity for a few weeks.
I hire temporary employees to get me through the work. There are so many highly skilled people out there looking for a job. They are grateful to be in the workforce again even for a short time, and I have excellent help with my projects.
How To Survive Rapid Growth: One of the biggest reasons most potentially successful businesses fail is because of.....growth!..that's right. The road side is littered by great brands you can recognize that are no longer around. They may have begun with a great idea, but as they expanded they forgot my major rule about business success: It doesn't matter how much money you make...it's how much you keep! Does that mean you shouldn't expand when the business is taking off?..not at all. But make the business revenues force your next move. In other words, make sure the revenues coming in cover the proposed addition of overhead, the biggest killer of businesses big and small. Better to move slower and not be able to initially quickly fulfill every order than to ramp up for increased demand that may or may not sustain itself over time. One of the safest ways to move into the first phase of any expansion is to outsource your growth. Then if things do slow, you have the means to immediately reduce your overhead. And if you can establish a long and proven track record, then you do have the funds to expand and bring in more of those functions in house if necessary. Bottom line, don't rush into running up expenses for an initial growth spurt. Let it organically develop. 9 out of 10 times your customers will still be there when you responsibly increase your overhead and your production or service capabilities at the same time.
How To Survive Rapid Growth: Growth can be a tricky thing to embrace. The key to successful growth (rapid growth) is to be prepared. If you plan and set a roadmap for direction when the growth explosion happens you will embrace it and move with it!
*Stay focused
*Pay attention
*Don't forget where you came from
*Celebrate your success and look for the next opportunity
