Try these six expert tips for scaling your small business to achieve optimal results.

There comes a time for successful small businesses when they know that they’ve grown beyond their initial dreams and that it’s time to take the next step. For many entrepreneurs, reaching a stalemate at which they’re too busy with current business practices to expand and grow is a sure sign that it’s time for scaling the business.

So what steps need to be taken to reach the next level of small business ownership? Here are six expert tips for scaling your small business.

Outsource the Extras

If you’ve been handling most of the work in your small business up until now, it’s time to outsource some tasks to free up some of your time. At this point, you should be able to afford to invest in outsourcing, which will ultimately pay for itself as you free up time to focus on what matters: growth and continued success.

There are many ways to outsource aspects of your business. Streamline your communications by using call center services from Ameridial and ensure that callers get directed where they need to go. Hire a virtual assistant or social media manager to handle some of your daily tasks, from answering customer service requests to curating and creating eye-catching social media posts. Delegation is the key to success—and to successfully scaling your business.

Perfect Your Time Management Skills

Time management is essential for small business owners, but it becomes even more so during the scaling process. Audit your time and see what’s getting done versus what needs to be done. Are there any low-value tasks that are eating up your day that could be delegated? Are you spending more time on non-work related tasks that are making your day longer?

Conducting a time audit to see where your time is going, then creating a routine around that will help you manage your business better. Use tools like the Eisenhower decision matrix, the Pomodoro technique or good, old-fashioned list making to identify what needs to be done so that you can block time to do it.

Make an Action Plan for Scaling Your Business

As the saying goes, a goal without a plan is just a dream. To successfully scale your business, you’ll need to make an action plan. Think of your vision for the next year, 18 months, five years, etc. Where do you want your business to be? How many customers do you need to reach that goal? How many employees do you need to support that goal? Think out the various moving parts and make an action plan with some specific numbers in place to strive for.

Once you’ve created an action plan, you can start to make the necessary changes to your business strategy to enact it.

Invest in Smart Marketing Efforts

Many small businesses start out with a basic social media strategy: post regularly and try to get through the noise. To scale your business, you’ll need to go above and beyond your current approach and create a targeted strategy that will attract the customers you need to support your goals.

Take some time to learn the basics of Google analytics and SEO to get a basic understanding of how these important aspects of digital marketing can drive your efforts. Consider outsourcing to a digital marketing consultant to help you create a strategy that will take your business to the next level and reach the people you want to bring through your doors.

Take Small Steps When Scaling Your Business

If your business has been successful thus far, don’t make the mistake of throwing all of your eggs into one basket for the sake of scaling. Instead, invest a small amount of your budget into slow, sustainable scaling efforts while leaving enough assets available to keep your day-to-day operations running.

In other words, don’t go hiring a digital marketing consultant, five new employees, and subscriptions to the best SEO and social media marketing tools all at once. When you create your action plan, work these various facets into it and break the investment down into smaller, more reasonable tasks. Do a few small things well before moving onto the bigger picture.

Advocate for Your Business and Yourself

Be the driving force behind change in your organization. Lead by example and focus on the tasks that matter to get you where you need to be. One of the hardest things entrepreneurs have to do when running a small business is setting boundaries. Whether it’s saying no to opportunities that distract you from your goals, or setting business hours after which you won’t be checking emails, boundaries and self-advocacy matter.

Small business owners who don’t set boundaries, especially when working on scaling the business, risk running out of resources. Time is a commodity, money can only stretch so far, and self-care can only be put on the back burner for so long before burnout takes hold.

Start setting limits for what you will and will not accept for your business so that you can push beyond your current limitations and achieve your goals.

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