Business Scalability…Turbocharging Your Company’s Value

Join me as I share this insightful series by Justin Goodbread providing Canadian context and conversation weekly to my LinkedIn Audience.

So if you’ve been following the Building a Sellable Business blog series, you’ve learned that having a business plan is essential for success. We've shown you how to create and implement that fundamental plan within your business. By Mastering Competitive Advantage, we’ve transitioned into the heart and main body of the series dealing with how do we build a business successful enough that someone is willing to buy it from us? Not only its end value but how do we multiply the value of our business so that we can make as much money as possible up to the day when we do sell it? Business scalability… your business MUST be scalable to be sellable.

What is Business Scalability?

If you’re like us and most entrepreneurs around the country, you work incredibly long hours. We, small business owners, spend much of our personal time working in our business, and we rarely take vacations. It’s not something we have “time” to do. But why are we killing ourselves by working so much? Didn’t we go into business to have more free time? Then, why can’t we take breaks without feeling guilty? It’s like the harder we work, the better off we’ll be.

Unfortunately, hard work isn’t the key to success. Without a doubt, we have to work hard to be successful. You’re definitely not going to reach success without some sweat equity, but there’s something more important. To make your business successful enough to sell it, your hard work must go into making your business scalable in nature.

What does scalable mean? Simply put, scalability is the ability to grow your business. Growing your business doesn’t necessarily mean making it into a franchise and opening storefronts all over the country or the world. How many companies actually do that? That’s not necessarily our goal.

The business growth we’re talking about in scalability revolves around revenue. How can we increase revenue and decrease costs involved to produce that revenue?

The business growth we’re talking about in scalability revolves around revenue. In other words, how can we increase revenue and decrease the costs involved to produce that revenue? Essentially, how do we make profits high and costs low; how do we increase our margins? Remember, people buy businesses that make money, and scalable businesses typically bring larger price tags.

What Building Blocks Do You Need to Scale a Business?

Maybe your business is already making money. Perhaps your business is booming with good employees and exponential sales growth. Sure, but we're assuming that you’re not content with where you are; you want to make even more money and experience more growth. There’s no better time than now to invest your time, energy, and passion into developing foundational systems that will help your business reach long-term success.

Just like a house, our business has to have a sound foundation. As we've mentioned, that foundation is our business plan. But the building blocks of the foundation – the footer, the piers, the concrete, the rebar – are what make our business scalable. The following three things make a business scalable: Strong Management Systems, Scalable Product Solutions, and Strategic Thinking.

1. Management Systems

Deep-rooted systems help us maximize our business growth so that we can make as much money as possible while minimizing growing pains. So when the storms of employee issues rush in or the gales of family issues flood our business world, we’ll have systems built down deep enough to withstand the storms. These systems usually come in the form of computer software programs specific to market industries. But management teams in your own company or teams you hire from another company can also function systematically. We've identified seven management systems we've used in our own companies that have dramatically increased their scalability.

• Customer Relationship Management System, a.k.a. CRM System – In order to get customers and to keep them in your business, you should put a system in place that analyzes and manages your interactions with customers. This software, or this team, will collect data about your customers that includes their demographic information, what brought them to your business, what they’re buying from you, and how often they use you. The data alone doesn’t do anything for your business. You must have a team or a software program that can analyze the data with the goal of improving business relationships with customers, retaining customers, and up-selling to customers.
• Financial Management System – You also need a system to track where your money’s coming from and where it’s going. Basically, this is your record-keeping system for income and expenses. Some financial management systems have sister CRM systems that link and sync information. Other financial management software systems have CRM components built into their basic structure so that business owners can use one program to accomplish two tasks.
• Sales Management System – In this third system, you’re going to need a team that knows how to use the data you collected from your CRM system to make potential customers actual customers. This system funnels clients from the wide “prospective client” mouth of the funnel to the narrow “actual client” part of the funnel to make the sale.
• File Management System – Initially, you’ll need a central computer filing or a paper filing system in place to store your business agreements, contracts, correspondence, identifying information, tax records, and employment records. However, you can’t just use the system for storage. You must have a team in place who can stay up-to-date with ongoing organization, additions, changes, and legal updates.
• Marketing Management System – Systems one through four focus on your current customers and financials, but this fifth system helps you reach new consumers. Once you review the demographics of your target market from your CRM, you can plan what type of media you need to use to reach the customer. Should you offer your products and services through social media, print advertising, radio announcements, or TV commercials? Have a program or team in place that can strategically get your product in front of your ideal customer.
• Talent Management System – Usually called “Employee Management Systems,” this system is how you find, hire, manage, and retain talented people. Without a good team in place, you won’t be able to reach your business goals. Moreover, have eyes on your talent four years out. Don’t look for good people on the spur of the moment; recruit purposefully and methodically. We will discuss this more in the next article.
• Operational Management System – Finally and most importantly, your operating system manages all the other systems. It’s the written documentation of how your company runs. Whether it’s as basic as a hand-written bubble graph on a yellow legal pad or as complicated as a programmed and editable flow chart, this outline details the systems you’ve put into place, who manages them, how they function, and the benefit they provide your company. This operating system is the way you can manage the company without being physically in the company.

2. Product Solutions

In the early days of business, money is often tight, and it seems like we business owners constantly have less than we need. In addition, our time and expertise are in constant demand. Implementing systems will take you time and money, but this second building block will increase your business’s scalability without a lot of time or money. What I’m talking about is just taking a moment and identifying the things in your business that can be easily increased or reduced to maximize your business’s profitability and revenue.

So here are seven questions you can ask yourself:

• What product/service do you offer that has the highest margins?
• Which product/service has the potential to reach double-digit growth rates?
• What product/service can your team easily explain to the marketplace?
• Which product/service can secure outside leverage?
• Is there a product/service easy to market?
• What product/service can be automated?
• Can a product/service be franchised, licensed, or duplicated?

Your answers to the questions will show you how to take a product or service you offer and begin to scale it up. In other words, what you learn about your products will help you increase revenue and decrease costs. You now have scalable business solutions.

3. Mindset Shift Toward Scalability

The third thing you have to do to make a scalable business is changing your way of thinking. You’ve got to learn to think strategically. If you don’t know where you’re going, you won’t know what road to take to get there. If you’ve gotten this far in the Building a Sellable Business series, you should have identified your business goals and written them down in a business plan. You should now be looking at ways to make your business more valuable than your competition’s.

In order to build a plan for scalability, you must take the focus off of yourself in your business. For your company to attract buyers, it can’t be wholly dependent on you. You wouldn’t even be where you are in business if it weren’t for people around you. Take a step back to understand that you are building a business that can operate without you. Therefore, you AND your team must be successful together.

So how do you change your thinking?

• Let go of “This is Me” thinking. – You must turn the conversation of your business from “I” to “We.” Stop thinking, “I’m the business owner who started this.” Instead, start thinking, “We have an outstanding business.” Turn from “My” to “Our.” Go from “This is My” to “This is Our.” It’s a play on words you see, but it has such intrinsic meaning.
• Be the coach, not the star. – You didn’t become successful alone. Somewhere along the way, someone invested in your life. Maybe it was a family member, a friend, a pastor, a teacher, or a coach. Or maybe you read an inspirational book or blog post that changed your life’s direction. Inevitably, somebody in your life has dedicated or sacrificed time, money, and energy to help you. It’s time for you to do that now. If you’re going to build a scalable business, you have to be the coach. You have to cheer your team on to the victory.
• Build the right team. – If you’re going to coach people to take over the everyday parts of your business, you have to hire the right people. Don’t look for “cheap talent.” If you get people who are less than your best, you’re going to get less than your best results. Hire the best people you can afford because great people yield great results.
• Get help. – Sure, you can run the company by yourself. For the most part, you know what you’re doing. But you’re still going to need somebody in your corner. You’re going to need encouragement and financial advice. You’ll need an objective person to point out your failures and motivate you to succeed. Whether it’s a professional like a CPA or CEPA, a family member or friend, or a board of advisers, you’re going to need help for yourself.
• Remember your family. – If you’re like most entrepreneurs, then you spend a lot of time building your business to the detriment of your family. You have to make time spent away from your family the exception, not the habit. If you’re going to build a scalable business, you’re going to have to walk away once you have all of your systems in place. If you’ve become a stranger to your family and friends, what will you do? Who will be left with you when you reach success and have time to enjoy life?

Remember, the goal we’re dealing with first and foremost in this particular series is building a business to sell it. If we’re then going to sell our company for top dollar, then the business has to be scalable. We have to increase revenue and decrease the costs it takes to produce that revenue to attract buyers and to get the most money possible from the buyers. Are you building a scalable business? If not, why not?

Next article in our series, we’ll tackle building your business's team referred to above in changing your mindset.

About Justin A. Goodbread, CFP®, CEPA®, CVGA®, owner of US-based Heritage Investors, LLC and FinanciallySimple.com, is a nationally recognized financial planner, wealth manager, financial educator, author, speaker, and entrepreneur. Armed with 20+ years of experience starting, buying, selling, and owning businesses, Justin has dedicated his time to helping fellow business owners increase and manage the value of their businesses.

 About Simon Fallows CEPA®, owner of Freedom for Founders, a Canadian exit strategist, entrepreneur, and investor who has experience starting, selling, and buying businesses. A thought leader working with a broad range of product, service, and retail business owners helping them maximize their company's value, personal wealth, and wellbeing