Five Tips for Managing Small Business Growth

By: Stephane Jasmin, President & CEO, DisclosureNet™

There aren't many things more satisfying for an entrepreneur than watching your business grow. It makes you feel like you’re on top of the world, that you’re capable of anything, and like you can finally say “I did it” to naysayers from the early days.

But it’s easy to get caught up in the whirlwind and forget that while business growth is your friend, it can also become a challenging foe if you don’t manage it properly. 

I’m fortunate that during the economic downturn over the past four years, my business has both remained unscathed by financial hardship and experienced healthy growth.

In fact, small businesses are key economic drivers in Canada and they continue to prosper in Toronto and beyond. In an effort to maintain this great track record, it’s important for SME’s to create conversations surrounding growth management. Below are some tips that I've gathered over the years from my own experiences and from talking to peers who have handled business growth challenges.

1. People are paramount

People are the most important way to ensure your company’s long-term health and growth. Talent acquisition may appear easy, but finding people who are skilled, reliable, dedicated and passionate is a tall order. High growth periods usually mean that businesses need to not only recruit new employees, but also avoid hiring impulsively just to get bodies where (and when) you need them. Be picky. Hire only those individuals whose personalities truly fit with your corporate culture and demonstrate the exact qualifications to fill the role.

What about existing employees in your organization? When businesses are growing, things can get chaotic and it becomes easy to forget that the single most important engine driving your business is your employees. Let them know their value within the organization by encouraging a culture of openness, innovation and collaboration. Establish a formal process for employees to offer their ideas for the business both internally and externally. You don’t have to accept every idea, but creating a forum where suggestions can be acknowledged and discussed is key to employee engagement and morale. And believe me; you’ll hear some really great ideas, so having a feedback process in place is a win-win situation.

2. Keep your hands dirty while learning to let go

After surviving the blood, sweat and tears of starting your own business, and powering through hours of number crunching and seemingly endless work, it can be tempting to distance yourself from the company once it’s flourishing. While a little time off is perfectly okay (and actually really healthy), it’s important to stay involved in all aspects of the business to make sure it doesn't go off the rails.

With growth comes new employees, customers, processes and considerations that can affect how your business performs.  Learn about all the moving parts in your business as it matures, so you can understand exactly what’s working and what isn’t. Involvement in your growing business will ultimately help you make better decisions that can enhance future performance.

On the flip side of this, it can also be very hard to loosen your grip on the business. If you’ve hired carefully (as mentioned in the first point) then you’ve got an extremely talented and dedicated staff that, under your direction, will execute seamlessly. Trust them to do this and trust that you and your business will be better off in the long-term for sharing the responsibilities.  

3. Keep humble pie on hand

If the latest recession has taught us anything, it’s that corporations that took years to build can crumble in mere moments. It’s easy to feel infallible when your small business suddenly kick-starts into an accelerated growth period, but it’s important to stay humble and remember that there are always factors at play that may threaten your success.

Whether it’s detrimental financial circumstances (in or out of your control), or bad publicity that happens to go viral, the wind that puffs up your sails through times of growth can easily disappear and leave you desperately paddling to stay afloat.

Be proud of your successes and look forward to all the opportunities ahead, but remain humble, remember where you came from, and be realistic about the possibility of bad luck or failure.

4. Listen to your inner penny-pincher

Most entrepreneurs have learned a thing or two about how to stretch a dollar over the years. While business growth can alleviate financial pressures, it’s important to find and maintain a balance between being stingy and a spendthrift.

Splurging on a few high priority or “fun” items is okay occasionally, but otherwise, err on the side of economical. Remain knowledgeable about the company’s finances and always consider whether spending is necessary or superfluous. Ask questions like “Is there opportunity for ROI with this purchase?”, “Will spending this money improve the employee/customer experience?” or “Do we need this right now?”

It’s best to stay on budget: you never know when you may benefit from having extra cash flow.

5. Take advantage of your network

Networking can be as casual as happy hour drinks with industry peers or as informal as following a colleague on Twitter.

Seek out those you’ve met (or whose work you’ve admired from afar) that have experienced success and failure in business, and talk to them one-on-one about what they’ve learned. In turn you can share your thoughts and experiences. Building these relationships over time are all part of the learning process, and you’re sure to stumble upon some fantastic ideas that will help you manage your small business’s growth.

Seeing your small business grow is, above all else, exciting. However, keeping these tips in mind will help you manage that growth and might be critical in ensuring your venture’s long term success.

Stephane is the President and CEO of DisclosureNet™, an online solution founded in 2002 that helps business professionals unlock intelligence in global corporate disclosure filings. DisclosureNet™ was a 2012 semi-finalist in the Toronto Board of Trade’s Business Excellence Awards in the category of Business Growth.