As mumpreneurs, our toughest challenges can sometimes come from our greatest successes.
Business milestones – like sales skyrocketing, landing a large contract and achieving exponential growth – can suddenly see us faced with some very real and very confronting issues that we may not have planned for in our start-up.
Sometimes all it takes is one big client, one good referral, one great media article or one photo, status or campaign to go viral and you can be faced with a flood of enquiries and an influx of sales.
So how do you deal with business growth easily and effectively?
Here are six tips to help you plan for and cope with business growth successfully:
As a mumpreneur, growing your business can bring about a unique set of work/life balance challenges. Trying to spend as much time with your family as possible, run a household and manage a growing business is no small feat and sacrifices often need to be made.
Instead of making these in the moment when you’re likely to be in ‘do whatever it takes’ mode, discuss and brainstorm a plan for growth on the home front with your partner and how you will join together to make it work. Talk about where you are both comfortable for sacrifices to be made, childcare options and sharing or outsourcing more household chores for when you become busier in work.
When making this plan it’s important to remember why you are in business, what your priorities are and what your non-negotiables are (i.e. amount of time spent with your kids, what times you work or don’t work), as this will protect the boundaries between work and family and help you determine how much you personally do in your business and how much you pass on to others.
When your business is small it can be tempting to jump at every opportunity that comes your way in order to generate more sales. But by saying yes to everything, you can soon find you don’t have enough time for anything.
The key is to identify opportunities that will help you reach your business goals, connect you with people you want to reach, strengthen your business standing or generate more clients and sales. If an opportunity doesn’t fall into these categories then don’t pursue it.
Creating systems as you go about your daily tasks is an easy way to streamline your business, increase your productivity and manage growth phases effectively.
By developing templates of emails, forms, proposals, quotes and documents, and designing comprehensive flow charts, checklists and “how to” sheets you can outsource tasks easily and with minimal direction so you can effectively focus your time and efforts.
Amanda is the founder of Velocity Media and Communications.
