Scaling up a business can be a daunting task. Many entrepreneurs often struggle to take their business to the next level due to lack of direction and clarity. In this blog post, we'll take a deep dive into the four different stages of a business and provide you with insights on how to scale up your business effectively.
Stage 1: Startup
The startup stage is where you conceptualize your business idea and put it into action. At this stage, you have no idea who your audience is or whether they exist out there. You'll be throwing a lot of spaghetti marketing at the wall to see what works. You'll be talking to a lot of people, changing your phrasing, messaging, and trying all sorts of things until something sticks. This is the entrepreneurial phase where creative people get to run rampant and take their ideas, splatter them all over the place, and hope for the best.
However, most businesses don't live past the three-year mark because they put a ton of money, effort, and energy into it, and nothing is sticking. But some businesses make it and move on to the growth stage.
Stage 2: Growth
In the growth stage, you figure out what works and start doing it over and over again, bringing it to other audiences. You start off with your internal audience - people who know you, like you, love you, and trust you, and want to do business with you. Once you have those established, you can then bring it out to your affiliates, people who know, like, and trust you and want to introduce you to their audience. It's a loving, trusting relationship, which is great because it also means that you're going to have fairly good conversion rates with their audience.
Stage 3: Scaling
The scaling stage is usually when somebody will take what's working and then they bring it to the masses and do the exact same thing over and over again. This is when most ‘entrepreneurs’ want to sell their business because they hate that stage. However, most ‘business owners’ love this stage. This is when the clouds part, the angels come down, and you'll start seeing real money coming in. You'll be doing the same thing over and over again and bringing it out to new markets and new places.
Stage 4: Exit
The exit stage is when you sell the business off to somebody that's either wanting to grow their business or wanting to buy a new division to augment their business. It's usually a really corporate conversation that's going on.
So, as you’re reading this you’re probably thinking, “Yes, so how do I scale my business now?” It really comes down to the balance of money vs time. If you don’t have a lot of time to go through the start up and growth stage, there are ways of simply putting a lot of money toward digital ads (Google, Facebook, etc) and this can shorten the time spent finding the right audience and the right message. But, if you don’t have the money to put towards those things, then investing your time in ‘working’ your business will serve you best.
Focus on:
Your ideal client,
Their ideal journey through,
Your Product Ladder of Ascension by knowing,
Their emotional messaging.
Once you have that at a high enough conversion, you can “invest a dollar in ads to make two dollars”, predictably.
Conclusion
Scaling up your business requires patience, persistence, and a lot of hard work. Knowing the four stages of a business and where you are in the process is crucial to scaling up effectively. Remember, the scaling stage is where the real money happens. So don't be afraid to take the plunge and scale up your business whether it's through time or money.