Navigating the 4 Levels of Business Growth

Growing a business is a bit like being on a never-ending roller coaster: it’s the ride of your life, but filled with exciting ups and downs. You’ll rarely stay in one place for long, and even if you do, you’ll encounter twists and turns. This is fun when you’re on a theme park ride, but when the health of your business it at stake, you’ll want to have a road map to help you navigate the different levels of business growth.

This is where strong systems and effective coaching come in. You can’t control changes to the market, but you can build the foundational systems your team will need to keep your business going strong through all the ups and downs – and you can choose to get guidance from people who have been there and are committed to your success.

What do you need to build, and who do you need to hire at each stage though? Each business is different, of course, but there are specific roles and systems you’ll need at each level. Keep reading to find out what they are!

Level 1: Solopreneur (but Not for Long!)

You’re just starting out, or maybe you’ve been in business for a while but you’re looking at growing. It’s just been you, and maybe a virtual – and while things are working pretty well, you know you have way too many things on your plate!

“I need to start building my team, but who do I hire first?”

“How do I onboard them, and how can I know they’ll understand what I need?”

“Everything about my business lives in my head…how do I even explain it all?”

These are great questions, and they’re completely valid – but don’t let them stop you from hiring the people you need to support you as you grow.

We call these the 4 Pillars of Successful Business Management: Planning, Marketing & Sales, Culture & Management, and Financial Controls. This let’s you easily give certain tasks a place to live! 

As you’re working through the 4 Pillars, this will allow you to get some daily tasks off your plate so you can focus on what really needs your attention – giving your clients excellent service and putting the systems in place that will help you grow!

One of the first thinks you need is an Assistant.  Someone to help with all the day to day.  But really hold strong to the mantra that this person is there to make your life better and protect you as a gatekeeper.  That is why you should consider this person an Executive Assistant to really help you as the Owner to be shielded from lower level tasks.  You will also need to start building your General Systems. (And yes, in case you were wondering, we do help people with both of these because we know how important these are! )

Level 2: Building Your Team (2-4 Team Members)

This is when it starts getting real. When you were working on your own, you could control the direction of your business fairly easily – if something fell through, it was your fault (and it was simple to correct). Bringing on a team is great because doing so takes things off your plate, but at times, it’s also a little scary.

I’ll share a secret, though: it’s also pretty amazing. Having the chance to develop your team members, to hear their perspectives and take your ideas beyond where you thought they could go is one of the best things about being a business owner. (It’s actually one of the reasons I started Upleveling Your Business – I missed growing and developing my team!)

There is a right and a wrong way to do this, though. This is the phase where many business owners will hire out of desperation rather than hiring strategically – and where they tend to expect their new team members to train them on what their responsibilities should be.

On the surface, this doesn’t seem like a great idea; when you dig into the reality though, it makes sense. When you’re growing quickly, you’ll get to the point where you just want something off your plate, and if someone else says they can do it, fantastic. They already have their own systems, right?

They might, but that doesn’t mean they’ll fit in with your team or align with your values and goals. In the long run, that’s what’s going to make the difference. This is why you’ll need to be proactive about putting YOUR systems and strategies in place. Take 5 minutes and talk through what you want done and why and this will go a long way to building more stable long term systems.

You’ll want a superstar Marketing Assistant to handle the daily, weekly, and monthly execution of your marketing plan (you don’t need to spending your time on social media and emails). This person will immediately free up a good 10-20 hours of your time each week. Imagine what you could do with that!

The other person you’ll want to hire is a Client Happiness Coordinator – someone who can stay in touch with your clients, make sure they’re happy and satisfied with the service they’re receiving, and who can notify you quickly if anything does go sideways. As much as you may want to be the main contact with every client, this just isn’t possible as you grow. Even just having a Client Happinesss Coordinator for 5 hours a week with clear documented tasks will be huge to growing raving fans!

At this stage, you’ll also want to focus on building out your Financial Controls Systems. You probably already have a Bookkeeper (and if not, you’ll want to find one); as you start to grow your team and your business, however, you’ll need to start delegating more. This means that you’ll need specific systems in place for handling your money in/money out, obtaining the reports you need for monthly and quarterly planning, and being notified immediately when various thresholds are met. Bottom line, you need to be a good money manager before you grow further so get this in place early!!

Level 3: Growing Your Team (5-9 Team Members)

Level 3 is an exciting phase! You are feeling more comfortable with managing and developing your team, and your business is starting to grow in some amazing ways. I encourage you not to get too far into your comfort zone, though; that’s the one place that growth won’t happen.

At this stage, delegation needs to be in full swing. You’re still overseeing many of the areas of your business, but you need to be able to keep this at a higher level (i.e., you need your team members to have the tools and systems they need to perform their daily tasks without your direct supervision).

You’ll be building out a variety of systems at this stage, all designed to equip you to more easily hand over roles and tasks as your team grows. These include:

• Marketing Systems
• Sales Systems
• Admin Systems

And of course, you’ll want to build your Hiring Systems and Onboarding University. Streamlining your hiring processes and having a clear, systematic onboarding procedure are two of the most important aspects of finding and retaining the superstars that will make up your team!

Bear in mind that you shouldn’t try to build all of these systems at once. Each one will take about 6-8 weeks to build – I actually prefer to devote a full quarter to building them out in my business. This gives me a chance to work with my team, put the initial systems in place, and refine whatever processes need a bit of extra attention. (And yes, we can help you build all of these – we have packages available if you want a DIY solution and Coaches who can help you if you prefer to have 1:1 guidance!)

There is one completely new role I strongly recommend hiring for at this stage: a Billing Clerk. More than likely, your invoicing and collection tasks are starting to take more time than you like, and a strong Billing Clerk can both save you precious time and increase your cash flow. (One of my clients increased her cash flow by 6 figures by hiring a Billing Clerk – definitely a worthy investment!)

Level 4: Scaling Your Team (10+ Team Members)

Ah, Level 4. This is the level many business owners are looking for – where we feel like we’ve “made it.” This is where you can scale your team, hire department coordinators, and step back from a lot of the day to day.

There are some challenges that come with this phase, but if you have the right systems and team in place, they’re a lot less challenging to overcome. (If you’re at this level and believe you may need to go back and build some systems, that’s ok – just plan in the builds and let us know how we can help!)

As each of your department teams start expanding, your team members will “niche down” what they do. Your Marketing Assistant who used to handle everything might find themselves now specializing in social media management, video editing, or graphic design. Tasks that used to be part of their job might now be handled by someone else, allowing them to focus more on what they love to do.

Sounds great, right? But if this person doesn’t understand their new part of the workflow, you will likely find that time (i.e., payroll) is being spent duplicating tasks – not because they don’t trust the other person, but because they honestly don’t know who’s doing what and they don’t want anything to fall through the cracks.

Or, you might find that your “go-to” person is taking on 80% of the team tasks because “they know how to do it” – meaning that the rest of the people on the team are not being delegated to, and are not able to fill their role. This results in a ton of stress for your “go-to” and boredom and lack of job satisfaction for the rest of the team. Neither situation bodes well for employee retention.

This is what can be avoided by creating strong workflows and evening out the workloads. (And yes, we can help!)

There are also some positions you’ll want to start planning to hire for, including:

• Client Engagement Specialist – this person can take on many of your sales tasks, freeing you up significantly.
• Marketing Coordinator – as your Marketing Team grows, having someone to handle the details and keep everyone on track can be huge.

This is also a good time to audit your systems to see what needs to be built, what needs to be refined, and what is working well.

If you would like any help building your systems or creating a strategy to help you effectively grow to the next level, just contact us – we’re here to help!