My Business Has Grown, Now What?
By VICKY BROWN
You might find yourself in this situation too – and again – honestly, it’s a good thing.
Now, don’t get me wrong – being a referral business is a wonderful thing. And it will be the most successful way to get your business up and running in the beginning. But the golden chalice is when your clients are people who don’t know you or your people. They have been drawn to you because they heard of you ‘out in the wild’ if you will. Through content marketing, or brand awareness efforts; public speaking or articles, blogs and books.
That’s when you know you have exponentially expanded your market universe. You are reaching people outside of your circle; your message is connecting and resonating with the wider market.
That’s some heady stuff. But it also holds massive challenges. You know what they say – new level, new devil.
So, all these new clients and prospects – they probably aren’t as relationship connected to you as you’re used to. With referral clients, there is some sort of built in connection. They feel they know you, and you feel like you’re in relationship with them – even before you start working together.
And that relationship compound goes a long way toward filling in any service cracks that might pop up.
When something goes awry, you can hop on the phone, engage your winning personality, stand on your reputation, and have a good conversation about how you are going to make it right.
But, when the client doesn’t have that type of connection to you and your personality; when they don’t know your reputation from beans; well then you’re going to have to work a lot harder to figure out a meaningful way to make things right for them. And actually, because they don’t know you, or your company – and haven’t had any real time to experience your commitment to excellence; it will be really easy for them to come away with a negative impression – and, they might even decide to look elsewhere for a solution.
Don’t worry. You’ll get used to it. You’re running with the big dogs now – and you have to face the fact that it will take a different level of process, training and strategy to be successful in your new world.
First off – with all these new clients, and their new expectations – well, that has an impact on your team. You’re asking them to do more, probably in a shorter time frame. And it requires always being in ‘first impression’ mode. So taking uber care with every detail, for more people, with less time.
So, all that to say – you team might be feeling the heat a bit. And on top of all that you might have to ask them to start doing things differently.
“…Your process needs to have a built in feedback loop…“
Your process will need to level up to meet the new demands of the business. Where before maybe your sales rep would have a detailed conversation with the client, getting to know them, and doing a deep dive on their needs, then go to the customer service team and explain everything – or even more likely, work alongside them in servicing the client – well, that may not cut it with the new volume of clients.
Yes, you want to get to know them; yes you want to really understand their needs. But you simply may not have the time for that long conversation, like the old days. That means you have to figure out a process that meets or exceeds the client’s time expectations, and still gets you the information you need to do a good job.
And by the way – that sales rep was most likely you. Well now, with the new prospect volume, you can’t be the only person dealing with leads and prospects. Other people will have sales responsibilities. And when a team expands, then the communication style and frequency needs to adapt too.
And what about execution and quality control. There’s too much going on now for you to walk around, double checking everything. Your process needs to have a built in feedback loop. As in, the thing gets done, the thing gets reviewed, the thing gets fixed, the process gets updated, and rinse and repeat.
Remember, quality control isn’t static – if the process isn’t alive, if it doesn’t have a way to improve itself, then it isn’t going to do you any good.
You’ll have to put concentrated focus on your brand and reputation. Like I said, these new client’s don’t know someone they trust, that knows you – they’re cold to you. So you’re going to have to solidify your brand one brick at a time with them. Get in front of people, offer your expertise in webinars and keynotes. Provide value in content marketing like blogs, videos and podcasts.
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And most importantly, create outstanding procedures for your business. Nothing builds a brand or reputation faster than providing the same thing, at the same level of quality, every time. That consistency builds your reputation faster than anything else. And to get consistency, you have to have procedures. And they have to have a way to get updated and up leveled.
Now, you don’t have to try to do all this by yourself – engage your team, ask their opinions, seek out their help in putting procedures together.
And finally, you have to grow. At this point, I shouldn’t even have to say it – you have to get yourself out of the weeds. Delegate, delegate, delegate. Stop doing things that aren’t your super power – because, now, more than ever, you company needs you to be a visionary leader. To have the ability to build a strategy that will sustain the company through the growth phase and far beyond.
But, when you’re busy answering phone calls, composing eMails and building powerpoint presentations for clients – you aren’t giving yourself the space to expand your thinking and be creative about what comes next. And that’s what your company needs. You’re steering the ship, so you have to be able to point out the way to go.
Build your knowledge – read, mastermind with people, attend seminars, take an online class. And remember, if you want your business to grow by 30% you’ll have to personally grow by 60%. So, give yourself the time, tools and space to grow. Your business will be better for it.