Scale. Almost every business is going to think about it at some point in their timeline. Whether it’s increasing production, employees, output, and ultimately profit, Scaling is absolutely essential for business success. We like to think that scale is limited to profitable businesses, but the growing pains of expansion affect startups just as deeply. In all our years of experience, we can point to one thing and one thing alone that is pivotal to the success or failure of a business in a scale phase. Infrastructure.
Having the proper infrastructure in place can be the difference between all your processes running smoothly and constantly having to put out fires. Every aspect of your business can be affected by the strength of your infrastructure: Your employee productivity, your marketing dollars, your ability to retain clients, and most importantly, your revenue. Ezzey President and Co-Founder Ross Denny was recently published in Entrepreneur talking about the importance of having the right building blocks in place to allow your business to scale efficiently.
“You might want to think of constructing your infrastructure like planning a vacation. Most vacationers don’t put their families in the car and take off for the week without prior planning. They create a general road map based on their goals, their budget, the number of people and maybe some very personalized factors such as preferred types of restaurants or lodging. The road map would need to be flexible enough to handle pivots but sturdy enough to provide a definitive guide, perhaps with a few guardrails.
The same is true for business. When you’ve invested in a framework for scaling up, you reward yourself with a higher likelihood of seeing your business scaling strategy come to fruition. You also make scaling less stressful because everyone is working toward the same objectives rather than moving toward cross-purposes.”
Read the full article here
It seems like a pretty simple concept, but not having the right pieces in place can be an Achilles heel for businesses looking to grow. On paper, everything looks primed for growth, and then a few processes or technologies end up throwing a massive wrench into the engine. Therefore, it’s critically important to always have one eye on the efficiency of your infrastructure. Always measure how things are working, and don’t be afraid to take the time to update your processes and technology to help get you where you want to go.
If you have any questions about how your marketing infrastructure is working for your business, the Ezzey team can quickly get under the hood and help you identify any potential problems you could be facing when it comes time to scale. Contact us today to learn more!