Rapid growth is a testing time for any company but by being kind to your staff, focusing on your product and ensuring you have enough resources to see you through, it can take you to incredible new heights. By following the tips below you can fortify your business so that it’s designed to handle fast growth in the future – meaning there’s no limit on what you can achieve.

1. Outline your game plan

Lightning-fast growth is rarely accounted for in an entrepreneur’s initial game plan (unless you’re particularly optimistic). If you’ve already flown past all your original projections, the coming months are practically a blank canvas to you. And that can be scary. Here are some steps to counteract this:

• Set aside some time to outline your game plan. This will require you to resist all of those reactive requests you’ve become accustomed to jumping on. Plan ahead by booking out an afternoon or even a full day and sticking to that. Remove yourself from the office if you have to.
• Plan for the medium-term. Your long-term strategy probably looks a little redundant now because rapid growth has changed the goal posts or sent you in a different direction. Short-term goals feel almost pointless – they could change day to day. Focus on your medium-term goals and stick to them. For example, you might sketch out a 12-month business strategy instead of the five-year projection you put together originally. This brings direction without losing focus.
• Get buy-in from your senior team. Are your projections realistic? What obstacles haven’t you factored in? Before committing to your strategy, get plenty of feedback and buy-in from your senior team. This will require headspace for them too, so encourage them to set aside time, even if it might mean getting a little less done in the short term.

2. Crunch the numbers 

Looking at the commercials will probably give you mixed feelings at this point. On the one hand, look at all that revenue! On the other… Well, those overheads are making your stomach turn.

Poor cash flow management is toxic to a rapidly growing business. As your operational costs increase, you need to ensure you have enough money in the bank to keep things moving.

You can ensure that you have enough cash into your business account to make your growth financially sustainable by:

• Automating invoice follow-ups. Some accounting software will allow you to schedule automatic follow-ups so you spend less time chasing invoices. That way, you get more payments in without having to find any more time to do so.
• Migrating clients to direct debit. Moving any regular payments into your business over to direct debit is easier for both parties — all it requires is that conversation. Some clients may object on the basis of their own cash flow requirements, but even migrating a small share of your client base can give you enough financial breathing room to get you through the next few months without sinking into debt.
• Liquidating spare assets. If you’ve got any assets that you could turn into cash without hurting your future prospects, now might be the time to do it. If you have a plentiful supply, map out how much you’d need to liquidate each month to make up any cash deficit. Planning monthly means you don’t cash in more assets than you need to, which is especially important if you expect them to increase in value over time. 

3. Get the right people

No matter how strong your product or service may be, the wrong team could stunt your growth and send potential customers over to the competition.

Many employers know the dangers of making bad hires, or worse – keeping them. But when under pressure that comes from fast growth, those decisions don’t seem so clear cut.

The problem is that if someone isn’t pulling their weight or your team is understaffed, it can cause burnout or employee dissatisfaction, which stops your business in its tracks. Here are some measures you can take to ensure that doesn’t happen:

• Promote from within. Upskilling staff is a great way to increase retention and staff satisfaction because you’re rewarding them for their hard work. Plus, existing staff are likely to have played a key part in your growth in the first place, so giving them more responsibility will help your business.
• Alleviate pressure with short-term outsourcing. Recruitment can take a long time, especially if you’re working in a niche industry. You can buy yourself some time to make the best decision and prevent staff burnout by outsourcing some work to freelancers in the short term. Be selective about the work you send out, though: hiring a bad freelancer can damage your reputation if the proper quality control measures aren’t in place.
• Focus on quality in recruitment over quantity. If you’ve outsourced work, you’ll have breathing room to recruit the best people rather than going for the best of a bad bunch. It’s better to wait four months to make the right hire for that crucial position than hire in the first week and have them leave four months later with your company in worse shape than it was before they arrived. 

4. Stay focused on the core product

A lot of businesses that grow too fast do so because they’re so busy expanding into new areas that they don’t take the time to refine their core offering – the one that’s creating all that growth in the first place.

How much of your focus goes toward improving your core offering? If it’s less than half of your resource, chances are your product or service will be redundant in a few years. All it takes is for someone to take your idea and do it better.

If you’re not sure how to improve, listen to your customers. Make the most of review sites and ask for honest feedback in the form of anonymous surveys. Honest customers are incredibly valuable because they’ll identify the flaws or restrictions of your product that you didn’t know were there.

Build your refinement strategy around feedback, and prioritise it over those exciting expansions into new markets you’ve got in mind.