- By: Áine Byrne
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3 warning signs you're not ready for scaling your business
It’s your business and you’re passionate about it. What’s more, it’s looking healthy and you’re hungry to grow, thinking it’s time to start scaling your business. That’s great news! But before you do, you need to ensure you’ve got a rock solid foundation from which to grow. You don’t want to be like a tree on a cliff edge, looking strong today but vulnerable to the next storm.
It’s the same for your business. Before you start accelerating, you should be asking yourself if your business is ready to handle it?
3 common warning signs to look out for when scaling your business
If you take your time, evaluate your business as a whole, you can identify where cracks might appear, and with the right approach ensure these areas aren’t just shored up, but turned into strengths. Let’s identify them and see how you can mitigate against them.
1. Decision-making bottlenecks
If every decision, no matter how big or small, needs to go through you, or a small group of leaders it’s a red flag. It will slow everything down, and create unnecessary stress. As your company grows, there will be more actions and more work pulling at you and your leadership team, so you need a structure that empowers others to make decisions confidently and quickly.
Quick fix:
Clarify roles, delegate authority, and trust your team to take ownership.
2. Inconsistent processes
Are these aligned across the company? Similarly, are the tools unified? It might be fine to have your team messaging on WhatsApp and Teams when you’re small, but when it comes to scale, it can cause chaos. Messages get lost, important discussions happen in isolation, and new team members struggle to find information. You will need standardised processes because without them, you will struggle to maintain quality, efficiency, and a consistent customer experience.
Quick fix:
Document your core processes and align your teams around shared systems and best practices.
3. Financial or operational blind spots
Here at adexe we love a good spreadie. Especially one with awesome formulas pulling in data from multiple sheets. But if these aren’t kept up to date, particularly the financial ones, you will be flying blind. You need real-time data on your key metrics, like cash flow, customer acquisition cost, and team performance to scale with confidence.
Quick fix:
Invest in the right systems (not just excel!) that give you clear, up-to-date insights into your business performance.
Preparing to scale your business
If you haven’t started scaling yet there is good news, we have a quick checklist for you to download and use. If you have, it might still provide you with good insights into areas you may have thought were solid but might not be.
If after completing the checklist you’ve identified problem areas, don’t worry. It’s actually a really good thing. It shows your company is evolving and moving forward. And if you need a hand understanding how to navigate your way through them, well, we’re just a quick call away!
Download our business scaling checklist
Evaluate the health of your company for growth with our 15 point checklist, and make sure you’re set up for success.
Remember, scaling is a journey. By reinforcing your foundation now, you’re ensuring your business stays firmly rooted, not precariously perched, as you reach new heights. The stronger your structure, the smoother the ride will be.