Is revenue the same thing as scaling? Until recently, I thought it was. My name’s Jerry Beerman. I’m the owner of Alluring Glass. I’ve been in the trades for 18 years. I’m also the co-founder of CAP, which is the Conduit Apprenticeship Program, where we get high school students ready for businesses like yours and mine. Also, the co-founder of Conduit, which is a platform to help leaders like you and myself grow personally and professionally. We make these videos to provide content to leaders and owners like us to help us grow so we can get better together because we believe a rising tide lifts all ships.
Today we’re gonna discuss the five strategies to scale your business. But before we start, I’m gonna ask you to like, subscribe, and share the content and give us a comment on content that would help you grow personally and professionally in your business strategy.
Number one, to scale your business, optimize operation efficiency. While that’s a mouthful, let me give you some context around this. To scale your business. And remember, scaling is not the same as revenue, right? So scaling is the pre-work. Do you have a CRM, a client relationship management software? Do you have a project management software? If not, it was advised to me to get a CRM in place.
The second thing is to build the processes. Like what processes? The Alluring Glass way. Document all your processes. What about staff? Oh my gosh, this is a big one. We use EOS. So GWC, do you have staff that gets it, wants it, and has the capacity for it? Do you have the right people in the right seats? The next thing is fuel. Do you have cash? How much cash are you gonna need to scale your business? When you’re looking at operation efficiency, you’re gonna look at some of these components that you’re gonna need as a foundation to build revenue upon. Remember that scaling is the prep work done, and the prep work needs to be done to make sure that when you scale, when the revenue increases, it is efficient and effective.
Strategy number two, to scale your business, is your brand presence. Strengthen that brand presence. What is your brand? I’ve been taught that your brand is your reputation. So when you’re looking at the brand presence, what’s your website look like? What do your social media platforms look like? So you look at your website or your Facebook account, make sure that you hire somebody that can build a professional website. What’s your online presence? If you’re looking at Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, or LinkedIn, are you getting some coaching on the content that you’re putting out there that is going to strengthen and support that brand presence that you need and want to scale your business? Again, remember, strategy number two is to build that brand presence. It’s a foundation. We’re building that foundation.
Strategy number three, to scale your business, is to expand your service offerings. Now there’s a caveat here. My hope is that you guys all have a coach or a mentor that you can run these ideas past. One of the things you might want to do is create some width and breadth of your offering. For instance, for shower glass, which is the business that I own, maybe mirrors would be an offering that would go together with shower glass. What’s an additional product offering that you could explore to expand your breadth and depth of your offering? But again, I would seek wise counsel on this. When you look at building some width or depth to your offering, you’re gonna also need to identify if you need more staff. If you need more staff, then what’s the training gonna look like for that staff? For instance, we’re buying a glass edger. So now we not only have to buy a glass edger so we can do mirrors in-house, again creating an offering that we feel is in alignment with shower glass, but now we have to train somebody for that as well. If you’re adding a product line, getting coached or mentored to add a product line, make sure that you’re also considering the staff that needs to be trained. Again, this is scaling, creating foundation.
Strategy number four in scaling your business is to foster strong relationships, inclusive of networking. What sphere of influence? Within the trades, what networks? For us, it might be Conduit, where we’re going to tap into other like-minded folks or the Home Builders Association, NARI, etc. The different trade associations that you could be a part of. You never know who you’re going to meet that might introduce you to somebody, a resource that you may need. I could tell you countless stories of attending networking events where I met somebody that introduced me to a person or a resource that I needed to help build a foundation and infrastructure to start scaling my business.
Strategy number five to scaling your business is financial management and access to capital. How much fuel does it take to launch a space shuttle? I’ve heard it takes 80% of the fuel just to get the space shuttle launched. In the context of scaling your business, how much cash are you gonna need? Remember, we’re doing prep work. This is pre-revenue. How much money do you need to build that infrastructure? Seek wise counsel and make sure you understand. For us, it’s seeing our fractional CFO, making sure that we have enough cash to build that financial infrastructure pre-revenue. One of the tools that we use is a cash flow forecast. If we keep spending the way we’re spending, how much money are we gonna have in three weeks, four weeks, six weeks, nine weeks, twelve weeks, etc.?
So, build the financial infrastructure to make sure that you have the fuel, aka cash, to build that infrastructure pre-revenue. As a recap, the five strategies to scale your business:
- Optimize operation efficiency.
- Strengthen your brand presence.
- Expand your service offerings; seek wise counsel on that.
- Foster strong relationships and networking.
- Financial management and cash flow.
Thanks for watching. Please remember to like, share, and comment. Please give us your feedback on content that would help you grow personally and professionally. Check out the video here: https://youtu.be/qiqC9Pv2tVw