Whether you have been running your small home-based business for months or years, there comes a time when you are ready for change and growth. Scaling up your business, increasing what you are offering, and increasing the profits in the process is what it should all be about. When you scale up a business, it can be difficult trying to remember everything. Trying to implement everything you want to do all at once can be a disaster waiting to happen. Breaking up the process and the stages required will ensure that you can scale up easily.
See Where the Potential Lies
If you can already see where the potential exists for scaling up, then this is great. Whether it’s looking at new markets, increasing product lines, increasing prices, or even building a website to operate online as well, you are well on the right track to growth. However, if you are uncertain about which option to choose or which route to take, you must take a bit of time out to research the opportunities available. You can also learn how to make changes to your business online. For example, building a website is something you can do yourself. Here you can click to view a video on how to create a website. Scaling up is not just about offering more or even about simply pushing up prices; it is about seeing where potential and opportunities lie and then taking advantage of them while fulfilling a target market’s needs and wants in the process!
Create a Growth Plan
Yes, organic growth is OK, but if you know why you are growing and you know what you need to do to get the results, you will have less stress and pressure involved, and you can actually enjoy the scaling-up process. A growth plan does not have to be a mega detailed plan stating what you are going to do for the next five years (if you don’t want it to be); it could be a plan for the next 12 months or even the next two years. A growth plan will clearly set out where the opportunities exist for scaling up and how you should best take advantage of them.
Don’t Think Small
OK, you run a small home-based business now, but does that mean that it will stay small forever? Of course not; your business can be as big or as small as you want it to be. All you have to do is alter your mindset. If you have a negative mindset, or if you have a small business mentality and mindset, then this has to change, and it has to change rapidly. If you continue to think small, you will miss out on opportunities, and you will stay stagnant doing what you are doing now. If you do not focus on growth and scaling up, your business may even regress or shut down.
Seek out Business Premises
It can be difficult balancing and separating your home life and your work life, especially when you work from home. Having clients or customers over to visit is out of the question. Taking your home-based business to the next level and sourcing suitable premises will allow you to scale up your business to suit your new location. Whether finding a brick and mortar to sell your products, or finding a manufacturer to make producing your product smoother, getting out of the house and into a different workspace may be necessary. When you run a small business from home, you will soon notice that you are very restricted by the space on offer (or lack of it). Finding business premises and then expanding what you offer in the process is an effective and natural way of growing.
Making New Connections
You are a small but growing business, and it is important that you understand and realize just how important connections are. Whether they are connections with other small business owners, connections with suppliers, or connections with non-competing businesses looking to create a partnership with you, they are all vital to success, and they are all important. You never know what doors will open with new connections, and you also do not know what value they have that they can subsequently pass on to your customers.
Look at Employing Team Members
As you scale up, you will quickly realize that it is not healthy or productive to try and do everything yourself. When you take on new staff, you get the opportunity to take your attention directly away from running the business and instead focus simply on growing the business. New employees, whether full-time or part-time, will be beneficial. New employees will allow you to scale up your business with ease, and they will help you strengthen your business, especially if they have an entrepreneurial mindset.
Focus on Personal Strength, Growth, and Development
You are a strong and determined individual, but you also need to ensure that you focus more time and attention on yourself as well as just on your business. Not looking after your health or not having adequate health care in place could leave you vulnerable and susceptible to illnesses, which could knock you off your feet and leave you feeling useless right when your business needs you. It is not just your health and fitness that is important when upscaling your home-based business; it is also your mental health and ability to grow and develop as a small business owner. To push forwards, you have to be prepared to strengthen your approach and iron out any issues you may be having. When you have grown as an individual, you will grow as a business owner. Accepting that you and your business are not perfect will allow you to free your mindset and focus purely on scaling up.
Seek out New Development Opportunities and Ideas
No matter how long your home-based business has been running, it is time to make changes. Seeking out new development ideas and opportunities is always a good thing to do. Continuing to offer the same products as you do now could see your business struggle to survive as it grows. When you focus on scaling up, you focus on adding something extra. Your focus should be about providing more and about giving everyone who uses your business just that little bit more value. If you do not utilize new ideas and opportunities, and as a result, you do not give customers more, your approach to upscaling will leave a lot to be desired.
Sort out Your Funding
Growth and scaling up is not a cheap process. Funding should cover you for at least the next few months to a year. Having suitable finance or funding in place will ensure that you can upscale your business when you like and how you like. However, if you do not keep track of what you are spending, or if you do not invest in the right areas, you could find that your upscaling venture could have been a waste of resources. When you are establishing the amount you need for financing, it is important to be realistic and honest. There are places to advertise, products to move, and potentially new recruits joining you shorty. Not to mention premises to source, heat, and run. Budgeting for upscaling is essential, and if you do not budget, you will find the upscaling of your business turns into a money pit.
Look at What Your Competitors Are Doing
You will have competition at the moment, whether direct or indirect. How you handle this competition will say a lot about your business and about you moving forwards. For example, if you are launching in a busy shopping mall or sourcing some out-of-town premises, you need to know that you can compete against competitor businesses and services. Conducting a competitor analysis will allow you to keep up with your customers and ensure that as part of scaling up, they know who you are and what you and your new business on the block are all about.
Look at Forming Partnerships
Seeking out partnership opportunities may be beneficial for your home-based business and its upscaling plan. Joining forces with larger and more established businesses is quite often good as they have a ready-made audience for you to appeal to. Finding the right partnership that compliments your business and helps drive new business your way will be beneficial and advantageous. Partnerships can work well if you and the other business know what you are trying to achieve. If it feels like you would be stepping on each other’s toes too much, then the partnership is not right. Complimentary businesses working together and in unison (even if not under the same roof) can elevate your home-based business to a whole new level.
Focus on Marketing and Promotion – Create a Marketing Plan
To reach more of your existing target market and potentially reach new audiences, you have to know what they read, watch, and listen to. Creating a marketing plan will allow you to research what marketing to use and when. Without a marketing plan, you will struggle to have targeted results, and ultimately you will struggle to successfully reach your audience or audiences. When you have a marketing plan, you can then begin to see what works and what does not. If you were trying to conduct marketing without a plan, then how could you analyze results, put them into action, and then get back out there?
