As an entrepreneur, I’m sure you have thought about expanding and scaling your small business. Most entrepreneurs start small and dream of making it big.

However, some entrepreneurs become so obsessed with the idea of scaling their small business that they tend to skip a few steps in the process. This leads to them getting stuck when things do not progress. Here are some tips for what you need to lookout for in order to scale your business.

Avoid DIY Mentality

Most entrepreneurs in the small business industry often think that they can do everything and run the business by themselves. This is not a good thing. The DIY (do-it-yourself) mentality is not healthy in terms of planning to scale your business. Once you become so focused on your business and decide to work on it alone, you limit the possibility of multiplying productivity.

Everyone only has 24 hours in a day. If you try to do tasks such as checking and responding to emails, book-keeping, managing your website, creating content, manufacturing, and everything else, you’ll eventually burn out. How many hours will you have left for rest, recreation, family and friends? Not very many. So to maximise productivity you need to outsource or delegate.

Outsourcing Or Delegating

Outsourcing or hiring other people to do specific tasks in your business is the easiest way to grow. You can increase productivity by delegating specific tasks and achieve your goals in a shorter time frame. By freeing up your own time, you can then focus on the more strategic parts of your business, such as planning for expansion or partnerships.

If you are consistently buried in the day-to-day operations of your business, you can never grow because there is no one there to help you once you have more clients or orders to fulfill.

Quality Not Quantity

Another thing to note is never compromise quality for quantity. As you start scaling, it is inevitable that you’ll need to adjust production or services to meet higher demand. Some entrepreneurs begin to take shortcuts or implement cost-cutting measures to make more profit. This is a bad idea. Once you compromise on quality, you get bad feedback, clients stop buying from you and you lose that momentum you have built.

Good quality products and services are what make clients come back to you. It is also your reputation at stake, so always remind yourself to never compromise on quality. A product or service is created to provide a solution and this solution is often judged by its quality. The higher the quality, the better it is valued.


Create Value For Your Clients

The value you create for your clients plays a vital role in scaling your small business. Instead of obsessing about how much you can charge your clients, focus on delivering value to your clients. When clients understand the value you are providing them, they are willing to pay more, they refer other people to you, and they continue buying from you. All because they know you, trust you and believe in your product and services. So a big part of scaling your business is building your own tribe of clients who will be your fans and help to advocate and promote you and your business.

Work With Partners

Who do you know? Who are the people you can partner with to help build your business? What value can you provide to them in exchange?

The danger is people often look at a potential partner and become obsessed with what is in it for them. If you are always trying to be the winner in a partnership, it is going to fail. Working with partners can dramatically transform your business, as partners can help to expand your product and service offerings very quickly. It is important to build relationships with the people you know and find out how you can provide value to them in order for them to want to partner with you. Every partnership you build should be on a win-win scenario basis. If you go into every partnership with that in mind, it should become easier for people to say YES to you.

So, if you avoid the pitfalls we’ve mentioned above, it should be easier for you to start scaling your small business. Try them out!

Visit UnBusy Entrepreneur to find out more about Olivia's work.

_{This post was first published on UnBusy Entrepreneur blog and has been reposted on Executive Lifestyle with the permission of the author.
Edited by Nedda Chaplin
Image credit: Female owner and waitress getting ready for opening from Shutterstock}

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