Do You Have A Solid Startup Expansion Plan For When Your Business Needs It?

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In business, you can often find that no two day is the same. When you first start out, it may be the case that you’re throwing your all into every single thing you do, waiting for it to pay off. Then suddenly, it does. Regardless as to whether that means you’re starting to see an increase in sales, a healthy profit, or the right levels of engagement when you finally start hitting your milestones, it might be time to think about expansion.

Even if it’s still early days for your business, if you have big dreams for where you want it to go, you’re going to want to be prepared. By pulling together a solid expansion plan, you’ll know only know what you want to achieve and have a rough timeline for when it should happen, but you’ll also know what your next should be when your business is ready to expand.

Know Your Goals

First things first, in order to know when you’re going to be ready to expand, you need to have goals. Now, these aren’t just ideas in your head, like you’d love to earn a million dollars some day, but real, genuine, achievable goals. If you’ve not yet set some business goals, you’re going to want to get some thought out and written down. Then, when your revenues, sales, or audiences reaches your target, you’ll know you’re close to expansion.

Know What Capital You Need

Alongside having goals, you may also find it useful to have figures in mind. Not only does that mean you should have targets for sales, revenues and profits, but also what you’re going to need in order to expand. First up, you should know what level of revenues you need to be consistently hitting in order to expand. Then, you also need to know the amount you need to cover off each expansion option or idea.

Have A Hiring Plan

And then it will be on to making plans or figuring out options for how you can expand your business when the need arises. One of the first things that you may need could be staff. When you’re ready to grow, you can often need the people to support it. So, you may need to look up how to recruit for IT, finance, sales, and marketing. Or figure out what kind of people you may need to create the right departments.

Have Options

You also need to figure out a few options for physical expansions. Right now, you may be operating from your garage, or a small office space you’re renting for one. But when business booms, you need to know where you can go or what you can do. It will help to have options for office locations. So, have a look around and see what sort of space you can get for different budgets. It will all be useful when the time comes.

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Utilize Your Website

When you first started out, it’s likely that you built your website to facilitate your current needs. It may be basic, have a little information about your business and what you do – with contact details. While that was okay at first, now that you’re looking to grow, you’re going to need to push that. Plan to add ecommerce facilities, or advertising, or anything that can boost your business as you expand.

Have A Fail Safe Contingency

During your expansion planning process, you might also want to think about covering off a few contingency options. It’s important that you can stay on track during your expansion. But, as you’re likely to be working with new ideas, new processes, and bigger operations, there is a higher risk. But, if you have a few fail-safe backup plans, you’ll be covered.

Know How To Measure Your Performance

Then, it’s also a good idea to figure out the best way to measure your business”s performance. However, the way in which you decide to do this will depend entirely on what your personal business goals are. You need to work out the best performance measurements for your own operations. This could be through sales, profit, or reach, as a few examples.

Have Investors In Mind

And finally, when your plans are starting to fall into place, you might want to have investment options lined up. They don’t have to be firm, but it’s helpful to know where to look, or who to approach when the time is right. That way, you won’t have to rush around when you are in desperate need of investors to push your expansion.