Scale it up so you don’t mess it up
Do you feel you have surpassed that second stage phase of your business and your ready to turn your business into the next phase? As a person who has a startup that is moving into the SME stage and growing at 300% per year, all eyes are on me, to grow the company consistently. After having a meeting with my board of trustees and mentors, I put together a list of items I will have to work on to help me to do that.
The right circle
Surrounding yourself with the right team, the right people, and the right mentors and connections. Your team is really the one that allows you to reach your big vision and those targets. I am a stage where I definitely need to evaluate who on my team aligns with my goals to grow and who I should add on to assist me in fulfilling the company targets.
PR yourself
As a business owner you should be bigger than life, and you should be able to inspire not just your team but all members of society, the press. Your communication channels should act as tools to describe what your vision and mission is and your bio should be accessible to the masses. I personally make it my business to make our company projects clear and visual on the website, and the profiles of my team members up there as well.
Making the transition
Making the transition from managing director to CEO is a crucial move. One of the biggest common mistakes found in businesses that don’t grow year on year, is the owner of the company is too busy managing day to day activities instead of focusing on strategic moves that can evolve the business and reach its potential.
I find myself very much in this transition, very comfortable and equally stuck, managing client deliverables, providing creative consultancy to clients stuck in a rut, and reminding my staff to double and triple check facts and reports. It seems the minute I take a step forward I take two steps back and adjust back into the cycle of day to day manager instead of working on the calculated moves that can allow us to open our second office in Khobar.
Networking
We heard this word way too many times as students; it got tossed around so much it became cheap. To me networking is a privilege, the more I do it, the more I realize its power, and the more I feel I have earned the privilege to be able to have worked hard enough that my firm manages itself and I am able to be social attending events, seminars, conferences, and grow both my influencer and network. It is easy to get carried away with networking and lose focus with your aim and vision, it can also be a waste of time should you attend events that have the same amount of people at them or if events don’t benefit you in terms of content or network. It is also important to strategically network, defining clearly your goals, and lining up ideal organizations and firms and the whose who list that can get you there.
Financial Expansion
As a self-made firm, we are now at a crossroads where we need to take out the loan to expand our company and open our first office in Khobar. It would be hard to expand in the rate that we want without taking that risk, and hiring the right people who can get us there. My accountant is my second right hand man, I go to him to discuss all matters of the business, to understand the amount of risk we can take at any given time.