Nudging your small business towards growth
Most leaders start a business with plans to expand, but how do you ready yourself for the next stage of growth to ensure it’s as smooth as possible?
Starting a business and establishing yourself requires you to learn a multitude of skills very quickly in order to get the ball rolling and gain traction. You probably have a dedicated team who live and breathe the company as much as you do. But once you are in the groove, the next obvious step – if all is going well – is growth.
How and when to grow is one of the biggest challenges you will face as a leader. It’s not simply a matter of a few profitable months, or having the market lead on a product. In expansion, timing is everything. Growing too early or too quickly can put pressure on the business’s finances, production or development. Not to mention your stress levels! So how can you tell you’re there, and what can you do to get there? We look at what to consider when preparing for expansion.
Essential information gathering to make informed decisions
Although you may have experience of when you think is the best time to grow your business, having as much information as you can at your fingertips can help you to make an objective decision about when, if at all, to take the plunge.
Control Room Finance’s external Financial Controllers are key in supporting you and your business taking the next steps to further success by providing you with the information and visibility of every aspect of the business to help you make informed decisions. We provide forecasting to determine cash flow prediction to show cut off dates for when funds must be raised in order to continue, or review purchasing figures and process costs to find savings to see if progress can be brought forward.
Our company overview will be invaluable to help you make the right decision and time your growth right.
Employ part time, interim staff or full time staff
Full-time staff cost a lot of money. There’s desk space, holidays and pensions, not to mention having to fill their time. But what if there was another way? The forecasts and models our Financial Controllers provide to small businesses can help determine what type of staff are needed and what type of staff you can afford e.g. project staff, part-time staff or full time staff, and in what area of work. And using a Control Room Finance FC means you can bring us in for as much or as little time as you need. We will fit within your budget and provide honest feedback on what we can achieve.
Implement robust systems
Before growing, scalable systems should have been implemented in all areas of the business. It’s all well and good a founder knowing the business inside out, but if processes haven’t been noted, you’re in for trouble once you begin to expand. Control Room Finance can help with financial systems and probably has a few ideas for other areas of operational transformation if needed! Having systems in place will ensure new staff onboarding and current staff training is a simpler and more consistent process; decision making can be made more easy and confidence will be instilled during a growth phase.
Successfully expanding a business is no mean feat, but with the right pieces of the puzzle in place, and with Control Room Finance on your side, you should be putting the wheels in motion to go in the right direction.