#173 My Top 5 Tips for Navigating Fast Business Growth
"I really want to grow my business" is one of the most common things I hear from small business owners. They possess the skill, the passion, the drive, and are doing the right things by connecting with the right people to set themselves up for success.
Since launching my business I’ve seen the story of business growth play out in many different ways. Sometimes it’s fantastic, with businesses taking off and flourishing.However, sometimes it doesn’t end so well. Some businesses have folded, others have suffered considerable losses—both financially and in terms of infrastructure.
So, why does this happen? When growth occurs too quickly it becomes unsustainable and overwhelms the business. Today I want to share my five tips for navigating fast business growth and overcoming the common hurdles.
1. Ensure You Have the Right Business Infrastructure
Rapid growth can strain a business's infrastructure if it's not set up properly. Take the time to think about all the components of your business that keep things running smoothly - your people, skills, services, digital marketing, bookkeeping, financial management, and advisory team. There's no shortcut here! You need to take the time to think about all the cogs in your business machine. It can be the difference between sustainable growth and disaster.
2. Master Your Financial Management
With growth comes increased revenue. Great, right?
Well, not always. Increased revenue also comes with increased expenses, pressures, and liabilities. If your finances aren’t well-managed things can easily get out of control. The best way to guard yourself is to work with a bookkeeper and/or accountant.
A bookkeeper can support you with cash flow projections and keep you informed about sudden increases in spending. An accountant, on the other hand, can ensure your financial decisions align with your goals. Even if you can manage your finances yourself, that doesn’t mean you should. Delegating these tasks lets you focus on your zone of genius.
3. Solidify Your Processes and Systems
Growth will test your business operations and without strong systems in place, cracks will start to show. Think about your client engagement, onboarding, service delivery, invoicing, revenue tracking, and expense management. These areas can make or break a business in times of rapid growth.
If you’re not sure whether your systems and processes can handle increased volume, now is the time to reassess and strengthen them. Consult your accountant and business lawyer to help you identify weaknesses and make the necessary adjustments.
4. Focus on Team Acquisition and Retention
Rapid growth brings pressure and challenges that can overwhelm a business. For long-term sustainability you need a team you can rely on. Evaluate your current team, both employees and contractors, to ensure you have the necessary skills covered. Do you have the right people in the right places? Are you leveraging their strengths effectively? By addressing these questions now, you can avoid issues down the line.
5. Keep Up with Contracts and Agreements
During periods of rapid growth, it's easy to let contracts and agreements slide as you focus on immediate demands. It might seem like a necessary risk at the time, but it can cause major complications for your business. Take the time now to prepare your documents so they are in place and up to date before entering a period of rapid growth. This guards misunderstandings and misaligned expectations later on.
And it’s not just documents you have with your team, it’s your clients too. You need to ensure your website has clear terms and conditions for any services or products on offer. Without them, you run the risk of damage to your reputation and brand.
Fast business growth can be exhilarating if you’re prepared but devastating if you're not. By focusing on these five areas, you can set your business up for sustainable growth and long-term success. Take the time to prepare now, so you can face your next period of growth with confidence.
Full Transcript:
-
[00:00:00] Tracey: When I talk to a small business owner, most of the time, one of the things that they say to me is, I really want to grow my business, Tracy. One of my goals is growth. They start for all the right reasons. They have skill, they have passion, they have drive. They're doing the right things by reaching out to the right people to support them, in getting themselves set up properly.
[00:00:42] And then they're away. Most of them say to me, I want growth. It's in the top three list of priorities. Since I started this business in 2019, I have seen all sorts of business growth stories, and some of them are fabulous where businesses take off and they flourish and they set up for long-term sustainability.
[00:01:03] Others though, haven't ended so well. In fact, businesses have folded. Businesses have suffered incredible losses, both on the financial front and the journey and infrastructure front.
[00:01:17] So why is that? The answer to what I've seen is unsustainable business growth. It happens too quickly. So, what I want to share in today's podcast episode are my five tips for navigating fast business growth so that you're set up for long-term sustainable success and you don't end up folding or suffering significant loss as a result of fast business growth that a business can't handle. So like all things, there's no substitute for preparation and prevention is better than cure. And if you're a long-time listener, I know you've heard me say that so many times, but there's a reason for that. If you have a [00:02:00] roadmap, if you are set up properly, for sustainable growth,
[00:02:06] then you've got a good chance of being around for a very long time. Let me start with point number one, ensuring you have the right Business infrastructure. Rapid growth really can strain a business's infrastructure if it's not set up properly.
[00:02:22] And by that, I mean the workings of your business. What makes your business work? Your people, your people. Your skills, your services, your digital marketing, your bookkeeping, your financial management, your team of advisors. It's what makes the COGS turn in your business and when there's gaps and things missing or when you don't have the right parts in there.
[00:02:48] If the business experiences rapid growth, things are going to become shaky fairly quickly. that's not rocket science. And I'm sure this is not the first time you've heard it, but having the infrastructure there, really taking the time to think about all the cogs in the machine, if you like, really can mean the difference between a smooth business journey full of growth and flourishing and sustainable success or not.
[00:03:15] And, there's no shortcuts here when we're looking at the nuts and bolts and when we're looking at how things are actually working. So, by taking a moment to step back and look at all the moving parts and assessing those moving parts to make sure that the right pieces are in the right place. be really valuable.
[00:03:37] I talked about bookkeeping, and I talked about having the right people around you and that's going to dovetail into my second tip for navigating fast business growth and that is financial management. Cash flow is the cornerstone of every small business. We all know this. With growth comes increased revenue.
[00:03:58] Great. Well, [00:04:00] sometimes, but not always, because with growth comes increased expenses. Increased liabilities to the tax office, pressure on the business owner, pressure on the operations. And if we're not managing the finances well, I think you know where this is going. Staying on top of all of these with the right bookkeeper to support you can be a game changer. I've seen it. The difference between the businesses that do have the right bookkeeper in place and those that don't. Stark contrast. Similarly, an accountant in the mix who can work with the bookkeeper.
[00:04:41] Again, massive game changer because you're asking the right people, the right questions, and you've got the right support when you need it. So a bookkeeper is going to manage your books and records. They're going to manage your cashflow. They're going to support you with your cashflow projections. They're going to make sure invoices are going out, invoices are getting paid.
[00:05:01] They're going to be talking to you about the expenses. They're going to be making sure you've got all the things in the right places. they're going to make sure you're aware of the sudden increase in spend in certain areas that perhaps you haven't kept your finger on the pulse with.
[00:05:14] All of those sorts of things. A design to support the business owner and support the business move forward in this period of growth, but to make sure it's done in a sustainable way.
[00:05:24] So the bookkeeper here is really vital when you're on this growth journey or the season of growth in your business, because what I say to my clients is. Just because you can do something doesn't mean you should, and what got you here won't get you there. So, if you're a business owner who has been reconciling your accounts in Xero because you can, that doesn't mean you should, and what got you here won't get you there.
[00:05:51] So ask yourself the question, Am I in my zone of genius when I'm playing in my Xero account reconciling? Or should I [00:06:00] be outsourcing that to a really aligned, stellar bookkeeper to support me and spend my time in my zone of genius over here whilst I'm navigating this business growth period?
[00:06:12] You know the answer to that. In terms of an accountant, an accountant is so vital as a part of your business, not only in the growth season but in all the other seasons, because they need to be able to guide you and answer your questions so that you're making decisions consistent with your goals and objectives.
[00:06:29] And so that you're making smart decisions when it comes to tax planning and investing. I actually heard a quote a little while ago from an accountant that I work with, John Sade at Latitude Accountants, and he'd said, if your accountant isn't on your speed dial, Are they even your accountant?
[00:06:46] And gosh, I loved that. I have too many clients say to me, my accountant doesn't return my calls, or it's really difficult to get time to talk to my accountant. It's really hard to get to my accountant. I've got to go through other people. Query whether that's the right relationship for your business, because when you're in a small business and you're about to make a decision and you really want to run it past somebody you want to know that it's the right move for your business.
[00:07:12] Being able to pick up the phone and talk to your accountant, leave a message, they get back to you, whatever it might be, can be critical. Because sometimes it's too late by the time you've waited a week to book into their calendar or for them to get back to you. Sometimes it can be too late. So having somebody there that you can talk to when you're making these decisions can be really powerful, particularly when you really are on this growth journey because it's nimble, you have to be nimble because it is ever-changing and constant and you've got to act quickly.
[00:07:42] So making the right decisions when it comes to the finances is really, really important when we are navigating fast business growth. The third tip is Solid [00:08:00] processes and systems in place are critical. I cannot stress it enough. Growth will put strain on your processes and systems in business.
[00:08:09] There's no two ways about it. If they're not solid, cracks will start to show and the whole thing can become compromised. The whole workings of your business can become compromised. Processes and systems around things like your client engagement. You're onboarding, your service delivery, you're invoicing, you're revenue tracking, you're managing expenses.
[00:08:33] Those are the processes and systems that are vital and that will really be tested in this period of fast business growth. I've seen businesses that don't have these types of processes and systems crumble under the pressure because they can't handle it. And the business owner thought. I need more clients.
[00:08:52] I need more work. That's the answer to the problems. We're going to grow. I'm going to take on team members. This is the recipe for success. When in fact, without solid processes and systems in place, that was the recipe for disaster. And the business wasn't able to keep up. The business owner wasn't able to handle the pressure and the whole thing came crumbling down.
[00:09:15] That happens more often than we'd like to think. But it can be avoided one of the key elements here, though, is processes and systems that work for the business that everyone knows, and that can be executed consistently. That's where the magic happens in the consistent execution. So if you don't know if your systems and processes are solid in your business, now might be the time to pause.
[00:09:41] Take a step back and spend some time having a look and thinking about it and asking yourself the question. Can we handle volume? You'd be surprised the amount of times the answer to that is no. What that means is that there needs to be some adjusting of those processes and systems that are already there or strengthening or developing new ones.
[00:09:59] Whatever the answer [00:10:00] is, it's important to identify it. So, you know, as a business owner, where you're sitting. and how you're positioned in terms of your ability to navigate growth in the context of your processes and systems.
[00:10:12] If you're not sure what exactly it is that I'm talking about, then this is where the team of advisors you have around you will be really important. And the two key ones here are going to be your accountant and your business lawyer. Hands down, no question, your accountant and your business lawyer, you need a great accountant and business lawyer on your team as a small business owner to navigate this business journey, regardless of whether you're going through growth, but the value that they bring in times of uncertainty and in times of
[00:10:42] Where you are facing challenges that are new, both exciting and less exciting, your accountant and your business lawyer can be a game changer for you because they can help you know what to do, how to do it, and how to make the decisions that are best aligned for your business's objectives.
[00:10:59] So your solid processes and systems are key, knowing what they are vital, your accountant and your lawyer are the ones you can lean on for that. My fourth tip for navigating fast business growth is your team acquisition and retention. You need your people. So when you're going through this period of fast business growth, it'll become very clear very quickly whether you have the right people in your business.
[00:11:23] So you need to have. The team can do what the business needs to do and more of it. So attracting the right talent here is vital for your business for this long-term sustainability because they're pressured when we're going through periods of rapid growth. And so, it becomes very clear again, very quickly, if we don't have the right people in there doing the things that need to be done.
[00:11:48] So taking time to think about the areas of genius that you need to fill in your business and the skill sets, the unique skill sets that you need to have is really important so that [00:12:00] the cracks don't start to show and things don't start crumbling down when the pressure's on. This can be employees and it can also be contractors. So if you've got pivotal people in your team and they are your employees and they are part of your pillars for long term growth, fantastic.
[00:12:14] Making sure you've got the right people in the right places, playing to their strengths, drawing on their skill sets, all really important. And of course, the value of Outsourcing can't be underestimated either because sometimes we need a particular niche skill set in our business, which is not necessarily fulfilled by an employee.
[00:12:35] There's horses for courses and each business has different needs and each of those individual roles can be filled in different ways. So having to think about who's on, Staff as employees and who are your contractors? Do you have everything you need is really valuable because you're not waiting until you discover, Oh my gosh, we're missing this.
[00:12:56] We need to fill this hole. Now you're actually being proactive and you're thinking about. What it is you need in place. So when you're navigating that fast business growth, having the right team with the right skillset, doing the things your business needs is really important. And I can imagine some of you are listening to this and thinking, gosh, Tracy, doesn't that go without saying, well, to some people, great.
[00:13:17] I'm glad that you think that, but to others, it can be overlooked really easily because as a business owner, what I see is. When we're wearing all the hats or juggling all the balls, it's really easy to neglect one or more of those really important balls in the air or hats that you're wearing. So by bringing front and centre to your mind in this podcast, the value of the team and the skills and having the right people in the right place, hopefully that'll get you thinking now about anything that needs work here or anything that needs attention here in your business so that you don't become susceptible later if you end up on the [00:14:00] growth path.
[00:14:01] Because like I said at the beginning, prevention is better than cure. There's just no substitute for preparation. You just can't afford not to get this stuff right, which is why I'm sharing it with you. And my fifth tip for navigating fast business growth is keeping up with your contracts and agreements. No surprise coming from a business lawyer that this is something I'm sharing with you.
[00:14:20] But it really is tip number five, because what tends to happen is things move quickly during periods of rapid growth. it can be really easy to forget things or to overlook things because you need to make decisions quickly. You need to move quickly. You need to make things happen. And there can be periods of
[00:14:38] Reactivity, where you're not having the head space and the time to sit and think and be proactive, but rather you're in reactive mode and just doing what needs to be done. And what I've seen happen so often is business owners will then fill those gaps in relation to the team and bring people on really quickly because they have a need.
[00:14:58] And it needs to be done now. And there's no time to negotiate terms and there's no time to sit down and prepare documents or to reach out to your business lawyer and say, Hey, can you do me a contract for this person? There's no time. And because you are in a reactive mode, you're doing the things that need to be done now in the business.
[00:15:16] But what that can do is leave the business exposed later when you realise important contractor agreements have not been executed. They're not in place. They don't exist or employment agreements haven't been issued to team members. And so when there is time to breathe and there's a moment for some reflection, You realise there are misaligned expectations between you and some of these key players, between you and your team, there are some misaligned expectations.
[00:15:47] There are some misunderstandings, genuine hand on heart misunderstandings because things weren't set out properly in the first place in the documentation that you need. And this is not setting your business up for long [00:16:00] term, sustainable success. This is now going to draw resources. From the growth journey, it's going to draw resources from serving your clients, because now you need to spend time managing these issues and sorting things out because documentation wasn't in place and things weren't set out clearly at the outset.
[00:16:20] You're now bootstrapping it. Plugging holes and you're on the back foot again. So making sure your documents are in place before you start this period of rapid growth is really, really important. And of course, your contracts and agreements extend well beyond your team. So it extends to suppliers. It extends to your clients.
[00:16:41] If you're in a period of rapid growth in your business and you are really quickly adapting and there's new offerings going out and whether it's a new service offering or something new on your website, or you've decided to share something with the community and people want it and so you sell it, but there's no terms and conditions in place via your website for you to send out, there's none.
[00:17:03] That's not setting you up for long-term success and positive relationships with new clients either. In fact, you run the risk of reputational harm and brand damage. So again, make sure that you have your contracts and documents in place for all your service offerings.
[00:17:21] Everything you're doing on the website, your team members, employees, contractors, your suppliers, all of that. All of them can be the difference between a smooth business journey or the opposite. So you can see where all this ends up. Setting yourself up for long-term sustainable success applies to smooth, quiet periods in business, and it supports you really well in business when you have periods of rapid growth.
[00:17:46] So my five tips based on what I've seen as a business lawyer for navigating fast business growth for business are ensuring you have the right business infrastructure, making sure you're across your financial [00:18:00] management. And that means with the right bookkeeper and the right accountant on your team.
[00:18:04] Having solid processes and systems in place, making sure you're focused on team acquisition, having the right people with the right skills in the right places and keeping up with your contracts and agreements. And that's for your team, your clients, your offerings. All of it by focusing on these things, you are setting yourself up for growth, for success, for long term positive relationships with clients.
[00:18:33] You're protecting your reputation and your brand. and ultimately You're setting your business up to achieve the goals and objectives that you have. If you do all of these things and you do find yourself in that position of rapid growth, you can ride that wave with sheer pleasure.
[00:18:50] It can be exhilarating if prepared for, and if set up right, it can be one of the most exciting parts of the business journey. But. If your business isn't set up to handle it, it can be devastating. It can be soul destroying and it can end up in places that we don't even want to imagine.
[00:19:08] So like I always say, there's no substitute for preparation. Please don't put these things off. Prevention is better than cure. You can avoid the pitfalls. I hope you have found this episode helpful. If you're enjoying the episode, I would be ever so grateful if you would take a moment to leave a review.
[00:19:27] Leaving a review helps the podcast reach even more business owners that need the insight and guidance that I like to share here. As always, thank you so much for listening. I'll catch you next time.
And this listener has asked, what are my favourite legal documents to design? I love this question so much, and I'm really delighted to be able to share with you my absolute hands down favourite and why. So my absolute favourite legal document to draft for a small business [00:01:00] owner is the client service agreement.
So it's the agreement that the business enters into with their clients. You can call it anything you like, a design agreement, styling agreement, client service T's and C's. It doesn't matter what it's called, but it's that agreement or those terms that a business issues when they're working with their client.
And I love this so much because of the opportunity I get to dive so deep into a business when I develop these and because of the magic that these documents can bring to a business when they're done well. That's why I love it. So when I'm working with my clients, and the majority of which are coaches, creatives, and consultants, I like to spend time getting to know the business owner and asking all the questions around how the business operates.
What do you do in your business? I love this part so much. And this is where the business owner gets to share with me all the things they think are important and all the things they want me to know when I'm setting them up for success, developing these [00:02:00] documents, so I hear pain points, I hear concerns, anxieties, someone told me this, I've heard this, do I need this?
I ask the questions around how do you operate? What do you do and how do you do it? Do you work in stages? Do you break your projects up into phases? Is it one fixed fee for the whole thing? How do you manage your workflow? How often do clients want to pause? How often do clients become non responsive?
What's your average turnaround for a project? Those are the sorts of questions that I love to dive in and ask because it helps me do what I do really well. And, of course, money. We want to talk about money. How do you get paid? And often, believe it or not, there's a better way for business owners.
Often I can add value here. And I love to do that in terms of what you can ask for, how you can stage this, when to issue your final invoice, what to do. And then let's talk about [00:03:00] what happens if someone doesn't pay? Do you have the right under your client service agreement to stop doing the work? Do you have the right to put somebody else in the workflow ahead of them to charge them interest, to charge a restart fee, to charge a delay fee, all those sorts of things.
And what I love the most is when clients say to me, gosh, Tracey, I'm already feeling so much better. And that's before I've even started the drafting process, because I have a unique approach to the way I do this, which is Legals by Design. And I talk about Legals by Design and what it actually is. It's my signature approach, and I dive deep into it in episode 169 of the podcast.
So if you haven't listened to that, I'd love it if you did, and I'd love your feedback. What do you think? Let me know. I always love hearing from you. But this is where I take the time to dive in, in my own unique way, to make sure I'm getting everything I need to, and I'm supporting the business owner in every way that I can to achieve really stellar [00:04:00] outcomes.
I love leaning into my client centric approach in my business. I love collaborating with my clients. And this is one of the reasons why I love developing these client service agreements so much. And I do have a way of communicating and breaking down complicated and turning it into simple and making it achievable and all the things by using better communication.
It really is that simple, but it's so important and too often underestimated. So I love bringing that to the table too, to collaborate with a client because developing these legals really is teamwork. It absolutely is. It is a collaboration. I can't do it without the client's input and they can't do it without me.
So it works beautifully. And I love that. Where the real and lasting impact happens is when I've set a client up with their beautifully new branded, tailored, gorgeous client service agreements, and then we spend time on implementation because it's not just, here's your documents, I've changed the name, see you later, good [00:05:00] luck.
That feels awful and yuck, and that's not what I do, but implementation is really important. And if you're a long time listener, you'll hear me talk about that a lot on the podcast, but spending the time understanding, how do your processes and systems work? How are you going to issue this? What's the communication you're going to issue this client agreement with, or these Ts and Cs with?
Can I have a look, please? Send me a dummy one. Let me see it. Let's see the wording. Let's see what this looks like from a client perspective. And the client user experience, very important. Let's see what that looks like. And let's make sure we've got all the things in all the right places, with all the wording, just where it needs to be, saying exactly the right thing.
And this is where the lasting impact is made, because I feel like I'm setting my client up for success, not just by having their beautiful documents tailored for them, but by ensuring that they work and that the client knows what they're doing with them so that it becomes a set and forget in their internal [00:06:00] processes and systems, there's impact right there. Impact for the business because the business is protected, the business owner has peace of mind, knowing that that document is going to be enforceable and can be relied on and impact knowing that the business is setting itself up for success with the clients because it's managing client expectations.
It's setting the bar of what it's going to achieve and then the business owner can go about their business doing the beautiful work that they do and not just meeting those client expectations, but exceeding them. I believe that tailored client agreements can help convert prospects to paying clients for a business.
So they're really, really important. And I feel privileged to be able to play a part in developing those for a business.
You know from listening to this podcast that I've seen what can go wrong in business. I've shared with you so many times, my, my history, my story, my background, and you know that I spent 12 years, a bit more, in litigation and dispute resolution legal [00:07:00] practice. So when it comes to can go wrong in business, there is nothing I haven't seen.
So I know what I'm doing when I'm preparing these client agreements, because I'm safeguarding against all the things that I've seen in those years in practice. And I'm making sure that if my client uses the documents properly in the way that we develop together, that they're not going to need to call a lawyer like me later when things go wrong because we've set them up for success to avoid all of those pitfalls so that those things don't go wrong.
So the client is set up for success, knowing that they're supported by this client service agreement or these business T's and C's, whatever you want to call them. They're supported by them. They know how to use them. They know what's included. They know what it means. So they can go forth and do business and share their magic with the world in a way that's aligned for them and that doesn't leave them exposed legally.
Because this is really important. In my mind, there's nothing better for me [00:08:00] than to be able to enrich lives. And in my business, in the documents I draft and creating these client service agreements, I know I'm enriching the lives of my clients. I know I am that to me sets my soul on fire. That fills my heart with joy.
That's why I do what I do. So that is why the client service agreement is my absolute favourite legal document to draft for my clients. I'd love to hear from you. What's your favourite part in your business? If someone asked you, what's your favourite part, do you know hands down instantly what it is?
I'd love to know, because this is our, why this is what sets our soul on fire. This is why we do what we do. And what I'd like to say is that if you're not quite sure, this might be your little nudge to give some thought to that and to lean into doing more of what you love. It's a privilege. And I'm so grateful.
Thank you for listening to the podcast. I'm ever so grateful for your time. We're spoilt for choice these days with podcasts, and I appreciate that. So [00:09:00] thank you as always for joining me. I'll catch you next time.
Join Me on Social:
Rate, Review and Follow me on Apple Podcasts
If you are loved this episode, please consider rating and reviewing my show! This supports me in helping to empower more coaches, creatives and consultants - just like you - protect what they're building, and move forward with confidence in their business. It's quick and easy - click here, scroll down to the bottom, tap to rate with 5 stars and select 'write a review'. As always, I'd love to know what you think, and what you loved most about this episode. Also, don't forget to follow the podcast to stay up to date with the latest episodes.
