Article by Phil Spensieri, TAB York Region
Over the years, I’ve coached many business owners as they’ve worked to expand their business. Whether it’s the physical expansion of your office space, expanding your workforce, or investing in new equipment or technology, you’ll need to consider everything involved in your expansion.
While there are so many areas to cover, including expansion through business acquisition, I’ve outlined below three key areas that business owners often need expand their businesses, I’ve also have provided some items you might want to review to make sure that you’ve got all the areas covered.
Expanding your workplace environment
There are many options for expanding your workspace, either as a result of growing your staff, increasing demands on your warehouse, or a need to offer a showroom. When looking at your expansion, it’s often the case that owners can become distracted and lose sight of their successful business.
To help you avoid this, keep in mind some of the following:
- What impact, if any, will this have on your current business/staff?
- During construction and the move, will you need to shut down the office?
- Will you be making an announcement on social or to your clients to tell them about your expansion?
- Will there be any interruption in technology, or client-facing roles?
- If you have clients that you meet in the office, where will you meet during construction?
- Will you allow staff to work from home during construction?
- Will there be any before and after pictures taken for social/client updates?
- Are you planning an open house for your clients after the new space is ready?
Investing in your employees
There is no denying it; your employees are the life of your business. Happy employees are loyal and productive ones. When expanding your employee base, you’ll need to consider every aspect of employee work/life balance, not just the salary and compensation package.
- Do you have a complete job description?
- Where will you look to advertise? What type of budget?
- Who will screen the 100s of resumes?
- Who will make the 1st contact with the candidate?
- What are the interview questions?
- Who will interview them? How many interviews?
- Is there a written or hands-on test?
- Once hired, is there an onboarding package?
- Do you need to hire someone to create the onboarding package?
- Will you offer ongoing training? What type of budget will they be given for this?
- Is there profit-sharing or a bonus plan?
- What if your staff need accommodations – do you have a budget for this?
- Can you outsource or hire contract workers instead of employing a full-time person?
- What kind of benefits will you offer?
If you’re finding that running your business’ HR is too taxing, you might want to consider hiring an HR consultant or HR firm to act as your HR department. We spoke about this in our previous blog.
Investing in products, equipment, or technology
Whether you’re investing in a new product, equipment or technology, you will be introducing new ways of doing business, as well as adding new processes and skills to your business.
A few things to keep in mind when expanding your product, equipment, or technology may include:
- Who will ensure adequate training for all staff, not only from a safety perspective, but also from a learning perspective?
- Who has the interest and skills required, and the time to take the lead on this project?
- Should this initiative be led by an outside firm?
- Who will be put in charge of implementation and set-up?
- How will you keep all staff up-to-date on this project?
- How will you introduce this product, equipment, or technology to staff and/or clients?
- What kind of updates are required once it is installed? Do you need a maintenance program/package?
- What kind of warranty does the product, equipment, or technology offer?
To learn more about how you can expand your business, and for one-on-one coaching and advice, become part of a TAB board today.