How SME’s can achieve scale without sacrifice

There is a rebellion rumbling among small business owners towards traditional ways of achieving scale and I’m proud to be part of this ‘scale without sacrifice’ revolution.   Here’s why.

We entrepreneurs who poured heart and soul into our start up’s so many years before, whilst relishing the buzz that a new business offers - devouring the challenge’s presented with gusto and celebrating the flexibility and creativity as drivers of new ideas  – are now faced with that all important growth step.  And asking ourselves – how do we deal with economies of scale without sacrificing the core, founding elements that make our small businesses so great?

When looking down the barrel of future success, questions about brand identity, staff loyalty and the ability to maintain quality control, often by our occupational habit of needing to ‘hand hold’ every aspect of the business process start to form. We want the financial clout, value and big banker clients that large businesses demand without losing the essence of our own company in the process.

Academics have gone one step further, calling it a ‘failure to scale’ challenge faced by all small business owners on the cusp of growth.  Harvard Business School talk about it as a ‘flounder or fly’ situation - particularly relevant to small business entreupreneurs who have all the drive and competitive edge to get the show on the road but once the business is moving at a good pace, develop a sudden urge to park the idea and move onto something new that ignites our passion.  

I’m not sure we are all that ‘fly by night’ in nature, but scale is certainly a challenge.  All our start-up single mindedness and go getter energy is replaced by doubts about how scaling up will hamper our loyalty to comrades who have been with us from the get go, a constant desire to remain at the heart of things and an in built hesitancy to make any sacrifices.

There is a quote that sums up the challenge - “Every organisation has to prepare for the abandonment of everything it does.”  Or so it goes.  We know that as small business owners, the need to consider scale if we want to play the big game and grab a slice of the real action is essential.  We want to secure the big paying clients who as a rule don’t issue contracts that pay more than 30% of a company’s turnover and we want to achieve a worthwhile valuation.   Otherwise, how do we evolve?

I’ve discovered a new model for SME’s that we can be part of without sacrificing the elements of our business that we love.  And this is where the revolution starts.  We get to retain our hard fought brand identity and passion without getting bogged down with traditional mid size business model fatigue.   Jeremy Harbour, world-renowned entrepreneur talks about ‘agglomeration’  - a term that literally means cluster together.  

An idea we are putting into practice with new, International ‘agglomerate’ - The Marketing Group (TMG PLC)  - a global initiative that joins the most creative small business together as part of a truly synergistic relationship.   Black Marketing joins One 9 Ninety, Nice and Polite and Creative Insurgence as the four founding partners. 

Working as world wide collective of great minds, there are enormous benefits. We can pull in talent from across the globe to serve big brand interests and offer the full spectrum of services as an agile, creative, dynamic team whilst still retaining control of our individual companies.

So the rumbles of revolution have started.  Small business owners and daring entrepreneurs now have a choice.  A collective organisation – an agglomeration - that exists to deliver the small business owner the scalability they need without sacrifice.

I am looking forward to working with my fellow founders of The Marketing Group: Laurent Verrier, Prakash Somosundram, Ross Anderson, Aaghi Yadav, Conrad Swailes and the Unity team Callum Laing, Jeremy Harbour, Toby Street and Hannah Middleton and James Downton at ClickVerta  and going our exciting journey.