Growth is a good thing, but with growth most companies also experience growing pains. This does not have to be the case. In fact, with proper marketing, planning and positioning you can minimize or even eliminate these growing pains. Keep in mind the companies staff, future, and financials when making decisions regarding growth.
1. Your company is nothing without your staff.
Your company has been built by the collective of you and your dedicated staff members. This is a very important fact to remember when deciding how to handle growing pains. You can over-stress and over-work your staff or you can grow your work force and spread the load. Companies sometimes tend to forget that people are people and have a maximum load capacity. If you want your workforce to be at the top of their game, and to be ready to give you their all (and not leave for another employer), then make sure that this is the first thing you analyze when your company starts to grow.
2. Your Company’s Future Matters
You are not the only one who believes this sentence. I can guarantee you that everyone on your staff believes this too. After all, you do provide the means necessary for your employees and/or investors to provide for their daily needs. Your company’s future matters to your customers as well. You are after all their choice provider for the service you provide. They do not want to spend the 6 months shopping around again, nor do they want to leave. If they did, they would no longer be your client.
3. Your Financials Will Grow
You are worried that growing your staff will slow your financial growth. I hear you, we have all been there. The reality is not growing your staff will hurt worse than hiring new staff members. When you are running your company on bare bones with over worked employees it is only a matter of time before someone (or all of them as I have seen in the past) crack, and then you fall further behind. The goal is to get ahead, when your staff has some (not a lot) free time they are able to be forward thinkers of how to make you more money, save you more money, etc. See the pattern. Your staff longs to build your company for you!
Ultimately, growth always comes down to appropriate staffing. Do you have the appropriate staff to handle your current workload? If not, maybe today is the day to evaluate how you can alter that, your staff will appreciate it. I promise!