5 Steps to Developing Your High-Growth, Scalable Business

The following is adapted from Building an Elite Organization.

As an entrepreneur and business owner, your ultimate goal is probably to take your startup and turn it into a high-growth, high-profit business. But launching a company and making it profitable is very different to keeping that business growing and thriving.

There are five steps to go from a profitable startup to an established, scalable, wildly profitable business. You may have done some of these already when you were starting your business, but as you begin to pivot into a high-growth business, you will need to revisit them. 

In fact, you will probably need to work through these steps—from defining your core values to finding your why, what, and who, to identifying and developing key leaders—with your senior leadership on an annual basis. Regularly working through these steps will make sure your organization will continue to grow in a meaningful way.

#1: Capture Your Core Values

The first step to turning your organization into an elite organization, where high-growth and high-profit are consistently achieved, is identifying what you really value and writing it down. If you have never taken pause to define your core values, this can be a time-intensive process. 

The point is to go beyond the usual core values. You know, the ones like “treat people well,” “do the right thing,” or “have integrity.” These statements are too general. They do nothing to relay the actual guiding principles of the organization. 

To get beyond these, think about what drives your decision making on a day-to-day basis. If you can, identify four to six of the values that might differentiate your company from everyone else and write them down. 

If you get stuck, look at the people you admire in your organization. List out the characteristics of each—for example, knowledge seeking, positive outlook, enthusiastic, or gritty—that impress and inspire you. Do this annually, because your values may change over time, or you may add new ones.

#2: Define Your Purpose

Once you come up with a list of core values you’re reasonably comfortable with, it’s time to move on to defining your purpose. Your clients and team members want to understand what you do, but they also want to know why you do it.

People are motivated by purpose. They want to be inspired. They need to feel like they are in alignment with something that serves a greater good. 

This is why defining your purpose—your why—is so important. What is the impact you’re looking to make in the lives of the people who work in your organization and the clients you serve? What gets you up in the morning and drives your passion to see your business expand its impact and its reach? 

These are big questions, and there are no right or wrong answers. Your answer could be that you want to make a lot of money, and that is certainly a legitimate purpose.

However, I’ve found that in most cases there is more. Along with being financially successful, there is usually something deeper that drives people to go into business and to persevere, even during the times when it’s very difficult. 

#3: Map Out Your Mission

If your purpose relays the why of your business, your mission conveys the what. In other words, your mission reflects the strategies you use to achieve your purpose. Your purpose is inspirational; your mission is actionable. 

In crafting a mission statement for your organization, be bold when describing what you do. For example, my company, DLP, has a mission statement that clearly conveys action: To lead and inspire the building of wealth and prosperity with our partners through the relentless execution of innovative real estate solutions.

Display your mission statement on your website, in your marketing materials, and in all your job ads. When people interact with your organization or any of its team members, you want them to know and feel that you are dedicated to fulfilling your mission each and every day. 

#4: Identify Your Core Client

Next, in order to steer your company along the path to high growth and high profit, you will need to identify your core client. This is the person you think about when you are building your products and designing your services. This is the client you want to keep, the avatar for all the clients you want to reach. 

Think about your top three, five, or ten customers. Figure out what makes them your best clients. Be specific about the qualities they possess and write those qualities down. For example, DLP’s core client is a principal or owner with $5 million in assets and a desire to invest in real estate. 

Keep in mind that your core client doesn’t have to be exactly who you are serving today. The idea is to define the type of person you want to revolve your business around, because knowing this person inside and out is going to dictate a lot about how you are going to go about growing your organization. 

#5: Identify Your Key Leaders

After you know your core client inside and out, the next step is to determine who your key leaders are. These are the people who are the core of your internal organization and may be your executive team. 

Look also to the people in your ranks who, although they don’t carry an executive title, are crucial to your present operations and to your future expansion. These are the people who right now, today, are driving results for your organization. 

Your success depends on them. Make a list of these people. They are your leaders, or possibly your future leaders. You need to do everything possible to nurture and develop them, because your success and ability to get to the next level depends in large part on them.

You Can Do It

Building the kind of business you’ve created so far is an achievement in and of itself. Now, with the five steps outlined here, you have the ability to take that business and dramatically increase its profitability while setting it up for long-term, exponential growth. 

Remember, things change. But if you revisit these steps every year, you will have a strong foundation to deal with the changes and challenges you’ll undoubtedly face as you work to grow your business into an elite organization.

For more advice on scaling your business into an elite organization, you can find Building an Elite Organization on Amazon.

Don Wenner is the Founder and CEO of DLP Real Estate Capital, a leader in real estate investing, private direct lending, construction, management, and sales. DLP has been ranked as an Inc. 5,000 Fastest-Growing US company for eight consecutive years, with an average three-year-growth rate exceeding 400 percent and more than $1 billion in assets. Named one of the top fifteen real estate professionals by REAL Trends and The Wall Street Journal for seven years straight, Don has closed more than $4 billion in real estate transactions. He resides in St. Augustine, Florida, with his wife and two sons.