Are You And Your Business Prepared For Growth?
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“Yesterday no one knew about these guys, and now they’re everywhere!”…
Sounds familiar?
Well those companies, business people, or bloggers authors/writers probably were prepared for growth. If the goal with your company or your blog is to expand and grow to a comfortable level, or even start hiring more people, and, of course, earn a decent amount of money, you really need to prepare yourself, your team, and make sure the tools you use are up to date to support that growth. Or else it just won’t work. You can’t really run a business, and expect it to work and grow, if you’re not prepared or if you don’t have a plan.
My Monday Morning - And The Reason For This Post
The reason I’m writing this, is because I was looking at my blog(s), kinda took a step back, and realized it’s not totally ready for growth! I experienced hosting problems on Monday and realized that it wasn’t ready… Let’s put it this way: If I was earning 4 or 5 grand a month from blogging (which is not the case yet, but still), that 4-6 hours downtime on Monday could’ve been catastrophic for my business. Since my “business” is blogging (or if you prefer, writing and networking) I really need to think about the future and prepare myself and my business/blog for growth and fix things.
Why A Lot Of Businesses Will Fail Within The First 2 Years
Well, one of the reasons is… not prepared for growth! There are a lot of other reasons, but if you’re not prepared, most likely it won’t work, or your business will simply not expand to its full potential.
So are you prepared? Do you work with the right people? Is your team prepared? Do you have a business plan? Do you think you’ll still be in business in 2 years if you’re not prepared for growth, and you don’t fix those minor bugs? A minor bug now, will turn out to be a major one eventually (and usually that happens when you’re not expecting it).
Please share your experiences, either from running an “offline” business, or an “online” business, or a blog. What are the decisions you had to make, the things you had to fix (or things that still needs fixing) in order to grow your business or your blog?
Thanx a bunch for sharing your own tips and tricks! It will surely be beneficial to others. :)
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I like to develop people. Develop a team.
You can’t back yourself into too bad a corner doing that like you can by investing too much in infrastructure and capital assets.
But a critical asset like hosting for a blog … yeah, that’s not gonna fly as you grow.
Freelance Switch is promoting Rackspace and I’ve actually been looking at them for an online project in the offline world. I like what I see so far. A little pricier, but mission-critical ready.
Investing too much on infrastructure (instad of advertising that business) can cost a lot more in the long run. You kinda want to spend money not only on infrastructure.
I agree with you, I like what I see, Rackspace seems pretty interesting - “fanatical support” - I like that! :)
Insightful post. Hit the nail on the head with the “Do you have a business plan?” quote. All businesses that fail because of too much growth, aren’t prepared for it.
Hi Josh, thanx a lot! Appreciate your kind words greatly!
It’s true most business fail because they can’t handle that growth, or in the case of blog, the sudden bursts of traffic. Gotta be prepared. We put a lot of efforts into our businesses so it’s kinda sad to see one fail after all those efforts.
Thanx for stopping by! :)
For me personally, I have to prepare for growth with server capability and staff.
Running an online community can place high demands on a server. Similarly there is no way I could continue to develop a community without help from moderators.
I also like to have contingency plans in place for many scenarios. If my chat forum software company were to go bust for example, I have already researched and trialled an alternative so downtime would be minimal.
In conclusion, delegation and contingency are the two most important factors in determining my capacity for growth.
- Martin Reed
Martin, good points! “delegation” is so important, it’s almost impossible to grow a business without delegating things. We can’t do everything ourselves.
I hear you - “server capability” :)
[…] from SmartWealthyRich.com writes about the importance of ensuring that you and your business are prepared for growth. Sure, your business may be small right now but if it is to successfully grow, you need a […]
what you really need is vision. The ability to do what few others are doing. While evryone is clammering on the I train going where all the rest are going the really smart out there are service minded. servive being anything that you cant drop onto your toe that creates cash flow.
Most out there cant write. The punters are prepared to pay big dollars to those in The IT growth area. You can read about this on www.thebaldchemist.com
Dont get bogged down with chasing what every man and his dog are doing-attempting to nake easy bucks. Do something really great but differently. Not to be different is suicide in business. Good luck BC
Hi BC! I really really like the way you put it “Not to be different is suicide in business” I totally agree! With all the “make money online” blogs out there, one could expect to find a bunch of “make money online” posts on my blog, especially because of the domain name. But instead I try to go a different route. And so far seems it’s working pretty good :)
I read a lot on your site, excellent stuff. Will definitely read more!