Ultimately, scaling your business is about maximizing impact while striving for sustainable growth in an ever-evolving landscape.
Scaling a business is a strategic move with a lot of upside through long-term growth and stability. It allows you to expand your market reach and increase revenue-earning potential. You can also improve how you meet customer demands, how you innovate, and how you optimize operational efficiencies that keep your business competitive.
Not to be overlooked, a scalable business model helps attract investment opportunities, too. More money, more options for expansion and development.
As a senior marketing & sales leader with 15 years of experience activating teams that drive revenue, I'm on a mission to align purpose with process and create better systems for B2B marketing and sales teams. Let's unpack the formula I use to help billion-dollar businesses develop strategies for sustainable growth.
A lot of people dive headfirst into roadmapping... I am of the mind that the roadtrip itself holds the helpful answers.
Building or scaling a business is a lot like going on a thrilling road trip—it's a dynamic, evolving journey that requires a well-thought-out plan, the right tools, and a mindset capable of navigating hurdles when things start going wrong (spoiler: they will).
My experiences building marketing, sales, and operations teams have given me insight into what works, and what doesn't. While I am constantly tinkering with my approach in an effort to keep getting better, the following framework serves me well. Maybe you'll find some value in it, too.
Just as you'd choose the right car for a road trip, your business-scaling journey starts with creating Clarity And Reason [CAR]. Said simply, figuring out your "why".
This means seeking to understand precisely what you want to achieve, who it will benefit, how it will help them, and why they should care.
Read that again.
Ok, great.
Now, without answers to those questions, your roadtrip is over before it started. "I don't know" is an acceptable answer if it's what you've got. It's ok to insert placeholder answers to those questions so long as you adjust them along the way.
It can be easy to jump straight into action, but taking a moment to sit with your objectives can help you avoid common pitfalls and ensure the steps you take truly align with your goals.
Once you have your "car", it's time to give it some gas. This is where Growth Alignment Strategies [GAS] come into play.
Before building processes that will produce the outcome you're aiming for, you need to develop strategies that align with your end goal. It’s about making strategic choices in service of your objectives. When your strategy is directly linked to your goal, every action you take is purpose-driven, increasing the likelihood that your resources will be utilized efficiently and effectively.
This alignment helps to maintain focus, minimize distractions, and accurately measure progress. By keeping the end goal in sight, you can adapt and refine your tactics as needed.
Next, you need a map, aka a Milestone Accountability Plan (MAP), to track your progress. Measuring progress is essential for reaching any goal.
This system will create accountability for the work needed to achieve your desired outcome. Whether it's a 30-60-90 day plan, a daily checklist, a project management software, or even something more tactile like using a pen and paper to adhere to a model like the "finisher system", your MAP should cater specifically to your situation.
By setting clear benchmarks and regularly checking your progress, you can identify what’s working and what’s not. This process fosters transparency and accountability that will help you make adjustments to stay on target.
Tracking progress allows for real-time insight into the effectiveness of your efforts. This gives opportunities to iterate and optimize as needed. It also provides a tangible sense of achievement as milestones are reached. If you, like me, know the thrill of checking something off of your to-do list, then you understand the dopamine hit this provides.
Task hierarchies help to keep your focus on the impact in front of you without getting "lost in the sauce" of the bigger to-do list.
For example:
In my journey, focusing on productivity alone has often led to diminishing returns. Instead, emphasizing accountability has provided better results.
By holding yourself accountable to the actions that foster consistency, productivity becomes a byproduct, not just a moving target.
Prioritizing the accountability of performing an action rather than solely on producing its outcome helps build reliable routines and leads to consistent performance through measured practice. It upholds operational alignment with the end goal and keeps the wheels of progress turning smoothly.
Accountability is the key to sustainable productivity because it solves for expectation management and adherence to best practices within the operation itself.
Implementing processes and tactics that align with the strategy for reaching your goal require careful consideration of several key factors.
Fostering collaboration and communication promotes transparency and keeps everyone on the same page. Keep these top of mind and you'll create a structured, yet adaptable, pathway for reaching your goal.
When it comes to the revenue growth tactics involved with scaling your business, integrating both product-led and sales-led strategies can be effective.
For example: tech companies may benefit from focusing on a product-led growth motion that reduces the barrier to entry for customers and creates seamless access for engagement, self-discovery, and product adoption.
On the other hand, beginning with a sales-led approach might offer deeper customer relationships with more customized product experiences. Share-of-wallet for customers of a sales-led growth motion could then be expanded with product-led strategies in the form of add-ons or upsells.
The choice between focusing on product-led or sales-led strategies depends on the specific needs of your business and the nature of your market. Be sure to consider which fits best and that your systems reflect your strategy.
Don't forget to add a little sass. Once you’ve got your car, gas, and map, and you're seated in your direction of travel, it’s time to add a bit of sass — Scalable And Sustainable Systems. This step is crucial to the successful utilization and effectiveness of the systems, processes, and tactics you implement.
Creating a scalable system for business growth relies on a robust infrastructure that can handle increased demand without compromising performance. Automated processes can be game-changing for streamlining operations and reducing manual effort. Look for places where you can automate and thank me later.
The right technology, vendors, and partners can be incredibly powerful growth levers for your business when leveraged appropriately. Find ones that meet your needs and be sure to audit their utility while you scale. You may find you outgrow their capabilities, pricing structure, or the integrations they offer with the rest of your tech stack. The communication channels used by your team live in this bucket, too.
In scalable business operations, a well-organized folder structure is paramount. Files need to be easily accessible and logically arranged.
Collectively, these elements create a robust framework for efficient and secure business operations. You should continuously monitor and refine your strategies based on data and feedback to maintain alignment with your objectives.
By focusing on these components, you can build a system that supports strategies for sustainable growth.
Our journey doesn’t end with just having scalable systems. "Order of Operations" is about refining these processes.
You will undoubtedly start with systems in place and then find the need to adjust your operations based on what's been most effective. This cyclical process allows you to continuously refine and enhance your strategy (much like the iterative process in agile methodologies).
Determining an efficient and effective order of operations for the processes within a system starts with identifying your core objectives and mapping out each step required to achieve them.
Prioritize tasks based on their impact and dependencies, ensuring that foundational processes are established before tackling more complex tasks. Utilize tools like flowcharts or project management software to visualize and sequence operations logically. Regularly review and adjust this sequence based on feedback and performance data to optimize efficiency.
Reducing bottlenecks and enhancing productivity, this approach creates processes that are streamlined as you scale your business.
Feedback provides insight into what’s working and what’s not, helping to identify areas for improvement. Capturing feedback, auditing, analyzing, and optimizing are crucial to scaling a business.
To verify that each component of your business functions effectively, you'll need to analyze your processes to pinpoint inefficiencies and streamline operations. Implementing system optimizations based on what you find can enhance productivity and reduce your costs. It can also make the day-to-day better for your people.
Scaling a business is cyclical—just like checking your map and the distance to empty on a road trip. Start from the top whenever necessary: reassess your car, gas up, check your map, re-pack, sit tight, add some sass, and leave room to revamp your order of operations.
By continuously aligning your purpose with process, you create better systems that evolve with your business and foster strategies for sustainable growth.
Scaling a business is not just about reaching a destination; it’s about sight-seeing and learning from the journey.
Whether you're at the steering wheel of a startup or navigating a well-established company, remember—there's going to be accidents, traffic, wrong turns, and some bad singing.
There will also be amazing opportunities to grow.
So, where ya headed?