What is your first thought when you hear the word (business) growth? It probably makes you think about positive, desirable, and exciting outcomes, both for your business and for you as a business owner. However, since growth is often described as the ultimate goal of every company, many tend to underestimate the level of risk associated with it. For growth to be healthy and sustainable, it has to be handled well.

A journey of scaling is different for every business, depending on its nature, capacities, and level of experience, but also conditions under which the growth is happening. One of the most important things to have in mind is that fast growth is not necessarily good. 

Yes, it does mean that you are doing something right as long as you are enabling the growth environment, but scaling too fast can lead you to the opposite of your intentions in the long run.

What does this mean?

If you fail to recognize what has caused the growth in the first place, i.e. to define your activities that generate the profits and market acceptance, you are risking a poor distribution of your resources, which is likely to create damage in the long run. A fast pace of scaling can have you compromise your standards of quality, leading you to loss of market share and negative response from your customers. 

Adapting your business model to occurring change is one way to keep track of your goals and optimize your resource allocation.

The inability to keep the focus on your core purpose and to prioritize and manage processes effectively can make you miss out on the big picture, leading your business straight into failure. To avoid this, you should keep track of your goals and refer to them in every decision-making process. For a solopreneur, this can be especially challenging since sometimes you need an extra pair of eyes to help you expand your vision, or an extra pair of hands to help you keep things under control.

Another risk associated with fast growth is the risk of surrounding yourself with the wrong people. As the business grows, you need more people to work for you and naturally, you will start searching for talent. However, if you’re pressured to act fast, you won’t have enough time to go through the selection processes carefully, reducing the chance of hiring quality talent. And you already know what harm that can potentially do to your company.

Unfortunately, not only hiring new personnel is what can cause the damage. Working at a face pace can also result in burnout and have a negative effect on company culture. Overworking yourself, and your employees will start producing negative outcomes faster than you think. Therefore, make sure to bring enough attention to your employees, ensuring they have a healthy working environment where they can be efficient and productive. Putting their well-being among top priorities is what ensures the long-term well-being of your company.

Profitable or sustainable growth comes as a result of successfully implemented business strategies over time. It is important to understand that scale is a pace and that growing healthy is more important than growing fast.

The ability to adapt to changing trends and ideas is a common trait among successful entrepreneurs. The propensity to adjust your business and test different strategies is one of the most effective ways to approach the growth stage.

Taking a step back to look into your core business will allow you to manage your resources more carefully and resist the imposed challenges. And remember, the faster you run, the greater the risk of losing control and falling harder.

See how we’ve helped businesses handle their scaling journey.