Are You Ready to Grow Your Business? What’s Stopping You?

What could your business become if capacity, capital and confidence weren’t an issue?

Somewhere on the path to building a successful business, almost every owner I know reaches a crossroads. On the one hand, you can keep doing what you’re doing, enjoy a balanced lifestyle here on Island time, and keep your focus on quality products and happy customers. That’s perfect - exactly what you wanted!

Or, you decide you’re ready to scale up. Which can mean different things to different people and in different industries.

Maybe consumer demand exceeds your current production capacity. Or the amount of work coming in exceeds the staff you have available to deliver it. You could find yourself turning away customers, missing opportunities, or simply realizing that everything still depends on you — and you’re not sure you want to hire more staff, take on more overhead or make your life more complicated.

Status quo can feel safe, comfortable and easy. Growth can be scary, but it can also be incredibly rewarding.

Why did you get into business in the first place? Freedom? Independence? Flexibility? Increased income? Do you have all that now, or have you created a business that still depends on you being there every day?

I think that’s where the dilemma about growth really shows up. Scaling doesn’t have to mean building a huge company, hiring dozens of people or giving up the lifestyle you worked so hard to create. It means figuring out what you want the business to look like in the future, and then deciding what, if anything, needs to change to get you there.

If you had an extra $100k, $1 million or $10 million next week, what would you do with it? Purchase new equipment, hire additional sales staff, build a new facility, invest in technology, acquire another company or expand into a new market?

And what would that investment do for your business?

If a $500,000 piece of equipment allowed you to produce another $1 million in product every year, that becomes a very different conversation than simply saying, “I can’t afford new equipment.” The same applies to hiring a salesperson, adding another location or investing in systems that free up your own time. You need to understand what the investment will cost, what it can generate, and how long it will take to get there.

Accessing funding is not that complicated if you’re well prepared, understand your numbers and are very clear about your return on investment. But it can seem overwhelming when you move beyond credit cards and lines of credit into traditional bank loans, investment funding or partner models.

And financing is only one piece of the puzzle. How much risk are you comfortable taking on? Do you have the people and systems to support the growth? Should you hire first and build capacity, or build sales first and then hire? What happens to your cash flow while you’re growing? What happens if growth is slower than you expect — or faster?

If you were sitting at a table with 10 other business owners who had similar questions, or who had already gone through the scale-up process, what would you ask them? What mistakes would you want to avoid? What would you want to know before you committed the money, hired the people or signed the lease?

And if you worked with a business advisor who had grown their own company and doubled revenues in the process — someone who had borrowed money, hired people, made mistakes and learned a few lessons the hard way — how might that help you think differently about your own business?

Sometimes you need someone who can look at the opportunity with you, challenge your assumptions, work through the numbers and ask the questions you haven’t thought of yet. Other times, what you need most is to hear from another business owner who has been exactly where you are.

It’s okay to stay where you’re at and keep doing what you know works. Bigger isn’t always better, and growth for the sake of growth doesn’t make sense.

But if you’re curious about other options, if you’re turning away opportunities because you don’t have the capacity, if you’re just a bit scared to take the leap, or if you keep wondering what if… then maybe it’s time to have a conversation.

Call me.