Why Growing Your Business Isn't Always About Growing as Fast as You Can

Growth is something most business owners want.

More customers. More sales. More profit. A bigger team. New products or services. Perhaps even new locations or markets.

And when your business starts growing, it can feel like proof that everything is moving in the right direction.

But growing a successful business isn't necessarily about growing as quickly as possible.

Because the important question isn't just: 

“How can I grow my business?”

It's: 

“How can I grow my business in a way that makes it stronger?”

Growth can create fantastic opportunities. But it can also put pressure on your cash, your time, your people, your systems and your ability to deliver what your customers expect.

The aim isn't to avoid growth.

It's to make sure the business can support the growth you're trying to create.

Faster doesn't always mean better

It's easy to assume that if your sales are increasing, your business must be getting stronger.

But sales are only one part of the picture.

Imagine your sales increase by 30%, but you need considerably more staff to deliver the work. Your costs increase, your margins fall and you find yourself working longer hours to keep everything moving. 

The business has grown.

But has it actually improved?

That's an important distinction.

Growth should ultimately help you build a stronger business.

Depending on what you want from your business, that might mean increasing profit, creating more capacity, building a team, improving your systems, reaching more customers or making the business less dependent on you.

Simply getting bigger isn't necessarily the same thing.

Growth magnifies what's already happening 

One of the reasons growth can become difficult is that it often exposes weaknesses that were already there.

A process that works reasonably well with ten orders a week might become impossible to manage with fifty.

A spreadsheet you've always relied on might be perfectly adequate until the volume of information doubles.

A task that takes you ten minutes per customer might not seem particularly important until you suddenly have three times as many customers. 

And if every important decision, approval or problem already comes back to you, increasing the size of the business can increase that pressure too. 

Growth hasn't necessarily created those problems.

It's magnified them.

The opposite is also true.

Good systems become more valuable as the business grows.

Clear processes make it easier for other people to take responsibility.

Good financial information helps you understand what's changing.

Spare capacity gives you room to take on additional work.

You don't need to have everything perfectly organised before you grow.

But the stronger the foundations are, the easier it becomes to manage what comes next.

Can your business support the growth you want? 

Before focusing on how quickly you can grow, it's worth looking at the business that's going to support that growth.

Ask yourself:

• Do you have enough capacity to take on more work?
• Are your systems and processes able to cope with increased demand?
• Do you have enough cash to fund the growth?
• Can you maintain the same level of quality and customer service?
• Is the additional work actually going to be profitable?
• Do you have the right people, skills or support in place?
• What currently relies heavily on you?

You don't need perfect answers to every question.

The point is to understand where growth is likely to create pressure.

If you know that before it happens, you have the opportunity to do something about it.

More sales don't automatically mean more cash

Cash is one of the areas where growth can catch business owners by surprise.

More sales sound as though they should automatically mean more money in the bank.

But there can be a delay between spending the money required to generate those sales and actually receiving the cash from them. 

Imagine winning a large new customer.

You might need to buy stock or materials, take on another member of staff, pay contractors, increase production or cover other costs before you've received anything from the customer. 

If they then pay you 30 or 60 days after you've delivered the work, your business has had to fund that gap.

The sale is still good news.

It just doesn't necessarily create cash immediately.

And the faster you're growing, the more money you may need to fund that growth.

That's why understanding your cash position and looking ahead becomes increasingly important as the business grows.

You want to know what the growth is likely to require before the money needs to leave your bank account.

You don't have to take every opportunity

Growth opportunities can be difficult to turn down.

A big new customer approaches you.

Someone suggests a new product or service.

An opportunity appears to expand into another market. 

You suddenly receive far more enquiries than usual.

When you're trying to grow a business, saying yes can feel like the obvious response.

But not every opportunity will be the right opportunity for your business. 

A large customer might generate plenty of revenue but require so much resource that your existing customers suffer.

A new service might bring in sales but distract you from something more profitable.

A sudden increase in work might look fantastic until you realise you don't currently have the capacity to deliver it to the standard you want.

Sometimes the right answer is yes. 

Sometimes it's not yet.

And sometimes it's simply no.

Choosing where you want to grow is part of managing growth, rather than allowing growth to happen to you.

Growth shouldn't come at the expense of what already works

It's also worth thinking about what you want to protect as the business grows.

Perhaps customers choose you because of the personal service you provide.

Perhaps your reputation has been built on quality.

Perhaps you've created a great team and want to protect the way they work.

Or perhaps you've built a business that gives you the flexibility or lifestyle you wanted when you started it.

Growth doesn't automatically mean sacrificing those things.

But if you don't think about them, it can happen.

The aim isn't simply to make the business bigger.

It's to make the business better.

That might mean more revenue or more customers.

But it could also mean better profitability, stronger systems, more capacity, a better customer experience or a business that can operate without everything depending on you.

Growth can take different forms.

So how fast should your business grow?

There's no single percentage or measure that's right for every business.

A pace of growth that is perfectly manageable for one business could create serious problems for another.

Your industry, margins, cash position, capacity, team, systems and ambitions all make a difference.

So instead of asking: 

“How quickly should my business grow?”

A more useful question might be:

“How prepared is my business for growth?” 

That changes the focus from how quickly your business should grow to whether it's ready to support that growth.

A business that's well prepared may be able to grow quickly without creating problems.

But if your systems are already stretched, cash is tight or you're at capacity, even relatively modest growth can put the business under pressure.

And that doesn't mean you should always grow slowly.

There may be times when you deliberately choose to grow quickly because the opportunity is right and you've got the resources to support it.

The important part is that it's a choice.

Make growth intentional 

You don't need an enormous growth strategy or a complicated plan to be more intentional about how your business grows.

Start with a few straightforward questions: 

Where do I want the business to grow?

Is it revenue? Profit? Customers? Products? Team? Capacity? A new market?

Why do I want that growth?

What is it ultimately going to help you achieve?

What will that growth put pressure on?

Think about your cash, workload, systems, people, customer experience and your own capacity.

What needs to be ready first?

There may be systems to improve, cash to build up, people to recruit, processes to document or information you need to understand.

That doesn't mean spending months preparing for every possible eventuality.

It means looking far enough ahead that growth doesn't continually take you by surprise.

Grow at the right pace for your business

There's nothing wrong with wanting to build a bigger business.

And there's nothing wrong with wanting to grow quickly.

But speed isn't the only measure of successful growth. 

Good growth strengthens the business rather than constantly stretching it.

It is supported by the systems, cash, people and capacity your business needs.

It allows you to take advantage of the right opportunities without feeling that you have to chase every one.

And, most importantly, it moves you towards the business you actually want to build.

Because growing your business isn't about getting as big as you can, as quickly as you can.

It's about growing intentionally, at the right pace, in the right way for your business.