How To Know If Your Business Is Scalable

Is your business scalable?

This is a question many entrepreneurs face when trying to expand and take it to the next level.

If you have offices in Florida and want to start operations in Texas, what does that need? First, you'd have to hire people in Texas to run the operations there. And what if you want to expand into Georgia? Mississippi? California? Again, your first step would be hiring people to run the operations in those states.

So let's say you get operations up and running in Texas, but then 2 or 3 people quit. What happens then? If you have to fly out there to take care of it personally, your business isn't scalable.

If you, as a business owner, have to be the one to put out fires, you are not scalable.

And that is the biggest difference between a business and a company.

It's not the number of people you have or the amount of money you make. That's not the differentiating factor as misconstrued it may be to people.

A business revolves around you. You're the rainmaker; you're a solo-preneur. That's a business.

There are a lot of solo-preneurs with 1, 2 or 5 other employees. But if the owner doesn't go out and produce and make it rain, there's no money.

?Don't get me wrong--there is nothing wrong with that. I know a lot of people that have these solo-preneur businesses and they do well. They do $250,000 or more in revenue and are running their business out of their house or have a small business.

Now a company is different. A company should run without you being there, dealing with the day to day. It is not dependent on you being in there, pitching every day.?

If you would like to grow, you have to decide which one you want to have.?

Do you want a solo-preneur business? And there's nothing wrong with having a successful business. You go to work, put in your effort, and get paid.?

Or do you want a big company that doesn't revolve around you? You're able to be free and not be working IN the business as opposed to ON the business.

You may be one of those people who want to make that jump from a solo-preneur business to a company. What is the differentiating factor? How do you get from being? the one working IN the business versus the one working ON the business?

The first thing you need to realize and acknowledge is you are working in the business, and not on it.

Most people working in the business think they're working on the business, and they're not.

So what does working in the business mean? It means you're behind the counter, you're answering the phone,? you're making sales calls. You're the one driving the business.

You are in contact with the customer, and when something goes wrong, you're there fixing it.

If someone needs a copy of an invoice, you're getting a copy of an invoice. If a customer calls, you're answering the phone.

That's working in the business. People who work in the business don't grow as quickly or as big as those working on it.

The difference between the two is the person working ON the business can have an exterior viewpoint. You can think bigger and and orchestrate everything towards achieving long term goals.

From the very beginning, I asked myself,?

"Okay, how do I build this into a company? How do I build this business into a company?"

Because I started as a small business, I went out, called doctors, did everything, and wore all the hats.?

I scaled it to the company it is today.

Part of that will mean you won't make money. There was a period when my receptionist made more money than me - true story.

That was because I was trying to set it up to where I had a company, and could could step back from the day to day operations. I had people handling &delegating tasks, so I could step back for a more mastermind approach to things instead of being IN the business.

You need to set systems and processes in place to get there and get yourself in a similar situation. But it's also a decision that starts with you. I decided that I didn't want my business to revolve around me.

Why? Because it wouldn't create that quality of life that I wanted.

At the end of the day, you're designing your life the way you want. I didn't want to create a life that involved the whole business revolving around me.

And you don't create value that way. No one's going to give you billions of dollars for something that revolves around you.

Why would they do that??

You get hit by a bus or decide to go do something else. It's over. If you want to grow, you have to decide to build something that doesn't revolve around you. And then follow through and set it up to where it is a flourishing company that can grow in double digits without you being "the guy" or "the girl" that makes it go.

That's worth hundreds of millions of dollars, if not billions of dollars.?

So if somebody is stuck in that spot or has 5-6 employees-make the decision. That's the first step. After that, you have to follow through with it. I can't look at everyone's business, but I know commitment gets results.

The best way to do this is to ask yourself, "What am I doing? how do I replace myself?" That's all I did.

"Oh, I'm doing this now. Okay. That doesn't make sense. How do I replace myself?"?

"I have to hire a sales manager. I don't have the money. Am I going to make less money? Yes, okay, great."?

I made less money than most of my employees for four or five years. I did that knowing that it wasn't going to last forever.

But you have to make that sacrifice-knowing that your company will eventually? "hockey stick" and reach those expansion and revenue goals you've set.

That's the difference.