How To Better Navigate Challenges in Business Growth

Most people launch a business hoping it will grow. Growth, after all, can be one sure sign that a company is succeeding. But scaling up smoothly comes with multiple challenges. You need to expand in ways that make sense and do so in good time. 

One wrong move and you’re not rising like an Apple but rather, you’re crashing like a Zynga. Just as you faced trials in getting your business started, you’ll face challenges as it begins to grow. Here’s some advice on navigating them as your company starts making progress toward its full potential.

Let Data Drive Your Marketing

The magic of digital marketing is not just the reach and messaging you can do on the front end. It’s also about all the rich and informative data you can mine from the back end. Merely relying on your gut about what’s working and what isn’t is so 20th century.

Growth marketing plays two key roles in helping your brand grow. First, it’s grounded in data that’s reviewed constantly and tested and retested with innovative approaches. It keeps the proverbial finger on the pulse of your marketing and adjusts with agility as needed.

Second, it goes deeper than the top of the funnel where customers meet you, click through your website, or purchase a product. A growth marketing strategy is all about building long-term relationships with customers. They don’t just keep buying from you. They also become brand ambassadors who end up doing the selling for you.

Growth marketing uses data gathering and analysis, SEO, content, digital PR, social media, email, and more. Doing all this with the required focus and agility would challenge the best in-house marketing teams. Partner with a growth marketing agency with a proven track record and let data drive you faster than your competition. 

Refine Your HR Operations

As your business grows, it’s inevitable that you’ll also need to hire more people. You can’t expect your current workforce to shoulder all the additional demands. And since recruiting and retaining great talent can be a challenge, you’ll need to take your HR operations up a notch.

Avoid the temptation of hiring quantity versus quality. New hires are inherently disruptive to normal procedures and to productivity. The massive time and resources dedicated to recruiting, onboarding, and training interferes with everyone from leadership to entry-level employees.

One of the best ways to confront this challenge is by using technology, although one size might not fit all. For example, applicant tracking systems work well when you’re hiring for a salaried position. But if you’re filling an hourly opening, time is of the essence. Your tech needs to be designed for high-volume hiring instead.

Technology can also automate payroll and benefits administration, shift and vacation scheduling, and more. If you’re experiencing a growth spurt, you can also consider outsourcing some HR roles all together. That leaves your in-house staff time to focus on retention and reducing turnover once employees are on board.

Stay True to Your Culture

When businesses start out, their cultures are largely a reflection of their founders. It’s easy to shape and maintain that culture with a small number of employees. And it’s easy to find talent willing to embrace that culture and become part of it.

Culture is one of those items that can fall by the wayside during periods of rapid growth. In a company’s haste to recruit and hire enough human assets to keep up, a brand’s identity can get lost. Values, promises, and goals can disappear with it.

It’s important to remember that culture fuels a company’s success, which draws more and more people into its orbit. You need to keep your culture front and center when recruiting. Otherwise, you will dilute your brand’s values with people who aren’t beholden to them.

As you grow, lead with your culture’s values. Make sure they’re driving individual, team, and corporate goals, and hire employees who want to commit to them. After all, your people are your business.

Stick With What You Do Best

Competition will grow right along with your company. Your brand’s successful evolution will embolden other businesses to enter the fray. Moreover, as you grow, you’ll be looking for new audiences to engage with and new markets to enter. As you do, you’ll be meeting up with new competitors.

Your challenge will be to avoid spreading your company and its resources too thin. That’s easy to do if you try to go head-to-head with potential competitors who lie outside your current purview. Efforts to add new products or services or to enter new markets when they’re a stretch are doomed.

That doesn’t mean you won’t have strategic opportunities to diversify. For example, opening a new warehouse to expand delivery into a promising new market may be a lucrative investment. Just make sure potential opportunities align with your goals and don’t compromise the core of your company.

As new competitors take a run at you, stay true to the strategies that have made your business a target. As you look to new markets and audiences, do so through the lens of your core business. Remember that that’s what has brought you to where you are and holds the potential for where you can go next.

Grow Well

Growth is progress and progress is challenging. Using data, innovation, and agility to market your company will help it grow strategically. So will refining your HR operations, maintaining your corporate culture, and holding true to your core business as you branch out.

Growth, in and of itself, isn’t necessarily indicative of success. Growing well, however, is the key to long-term achievement while your company remains firmly rooted in the soil.