One of the challenges of growing a small business is managing rapid growth – it’s a great problem to have, but you have to have a plan set so that you can keep your growth going without things getting out of control.
Brad Krauskopf, CEO of Hub Australia, has been running his own businesses for the past 20 years, including his main focus in the last 7 years of growing Hub Australia, from one shared office space in Melbourne to four, including Sydney, Adelaide and Brisbane.
Read more: How to defeat the top 5 obstacles to scaling your business
Hub has grown from a small startup into a national brand servicing over 1,500 members across Australia. During the length of his career, Brad has focussed on learning by doing.
An inevitable part about growing your business is making mistakes and learning from them, including adding contingencies for future errors – some of which can be expensive not only to your business but also to yourself.
Brad is fond of sharing insights about what he has learnt in the world of growing small businesses, to assist future entrepreneurs – as the founder of a coworking space, he is a big believer in collaboration, and sharing knowledge with any entrepreneurs looking to scale their small business as he has.
Read more: The Art of Networking in a Shared Office Space
Top 5 keys to successfully scaling your small business:
1. More people (staff) does not necessarily mean more capacity to service members
Efficiency is not simply about people power, but also processes and resources. All need to be focussed on and developed.
2. Grow the company through the core service offering
Know your differentiators, and develop the core of your business – if you have all the bells and whistles, but a weak core offering, your business can’t succeed to it’s fullest.
3. Holding others accountable for what they say they will do is part of your responsibility in being accountable
If you’re in a team where there’s someone consistently putting their hand up for tasks only to fail to fulfil them, a conversation may need to be had – reliability is important, and when you’re accountable for the outcome it’s important to have a managing hand.
4. Inaccurate data kills businesses and the ability of individuals and teams to perform.
Without real and accurate analytics available, there will always be an element of shooting blind. Ensuring your data is up to date and accurate allows you to set realistic KPI’s for the future.
5. If a revenue or expense is not on budget, and it happens more than once, it’s probably a pattern.
By definition, patterns are bound to repeat themselves, even if someone says to you that it will not. Don’t wait a month for the pattern to repeat itself until you rectify the variance.
Read more: 10 Things All Startups and Small Companies Should Do
Want to learn more about the awesome community of entrepreneurs and growing businesses that are Hub’s members? Join us for a tour at any of our locations.
