The idea of rapid growth may sound attractive to your business, but can eventually lead to your demise. According to reporting from Fortune magazine, leaders of the fastest growing companies that ultimately fail make crucial mistakes. Some of those mistakes include remaining essential to some aspect of running the company, falsely assuming financial viability is the end of the business journey, only producing incremental improvements and acquire innovative companies and drive top talent away.
However, there’s less information out there on how to combat those mistakes and some of the secrets behind kickstarting and sustaining rapid growth. Balancing the good fortune of growth with its perils is precarious, but can be done. From improved collaboration to skipping analysis paralysis, here are some of the secret strategies for rapid growth.
Improve collaboration with team members
Your growing company can’t work without continuous improvements in your collaboration with team members. Whether you’re delegating new tasks or going over new projects and client details together, businesses need better tools to collaborate and keep track of their workflow.
Virtual office software provides a comprehensive way to integrate your business phone with visual voicemail, instant messaging and video calling. Launch a video conference call right from your virtual office the next time your team has a meeting. You can also hop on instant messenger to discuss a client call and send SMS messages to follow-up on a pitch or proposal. The more comprehensive and simple your virtual office desktop is to use, the easier it will be to run your business.
Create realistic goals
Consider how realistic your goals are, and what it will take to reach them. For example, deciding to double your revenue in just a few months requires rapid scaling that probably isn’t sustainable and could topple your business under pressure and increased overhead. Instead, focus on realistic goals that you can meet in a time frame that’s realistic yet ambitious. Successful companies push themselves to do more but stay on a consistent and stable path to steady their journey forward.
Find a mentor that will help you to achieve rapid growth
Businesses who have never experienced rapid growth need support and guidance to walk them through the process. Look for a mentor in your industry to talk through how to overcome the pains of scaling and growing rapidly and how to manage next steps, Entrepreneur suggests. Your peers, colleagues and the personal network could serve as a mentor in different areas of your business. For example, a former boss could help with financial matters while a vendor you worked with last year could give insights on how to productize your business.
Skip the analysis paralysis
Overthinking every step of your growth can feel debilitating and lead to analysis paralysis. Soon you’re spending too much time analyzing every part of your business instead of moving the needle forward. Forbes reported on needing to develop a “bias to action” mentality and making swift and informed decisions on the best available data.
It’s still important to walk through the process of researching, analyzing and meeting with your team over decisions. But remember that rapid growth has no room for the paralysis that can come with overthinking every decision.
Get rid of the wrong people
When you’re scaling so fast, you can’t get enough people through the doors. It’s easier to hire anyone who seems like a reasonable fit. In reality, not hiring the right person from the start can lead to a mismatch in your business. Also, it can lead to expensive and costly turnover. Instead, hire temp or contract workers while searching for the right employees from the start. You’ll sustain the growth of your company while keeping the door open to top talent, Forbes says.
