Strategies For Scaling. Catherine Graham CEO

Transcription

1 Strategies For Scaling Catherine Graham CEO

2 1. Market Validation 2. Repetitive Proof 3. Investment The 5 Stages of Business Growth Though most days might feel like a sprint, entrepreneurship in a promotional products distributorship is more like a marathon. community.commonsku.com 4. Scaling 5. Organization Specialization

3 Agenda Evaluating the current state Planning Building the dream team Creating key metrics for growth Making it happen

4 Evaluate: Current State

5 Evaluate: Your Current Team Start with evaluating your current team:??? What do their roles encompass? What are their strengths and weaknesses? What is their growth potential - can you develop them into more senior roles, is their potential to change their functional area?

6 Evaluate: Current Systems & Processes Are there changes needed in infrastructure, systems and processes before you can start to grow? Where are the bottlenecks that will slow things down with more volume? Are those breaking points or can the bottleneck be eased with a change in

7 Evaluate: Current Systems & Processes

8 Planning: Creating Your Goals

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10 Planning: Start w/ Long Term Dreaming Think 2-5 years out I want to be a $10MM company by 2022 I want to have a $1MM portfolio by 2020 I want my sales territory to be at $20MM by 2021 I want to have an income of $x by 2019

11 Define: Your Company Philosophy What kind of company do you want to be? Bigger is not always better, small can be a great destination.

12 Define: Your Client Philosophy What kind of clients do you want to be working with? Picture in your mind what your ideal client looks like. Are you selling to them now or is a shift required?

13 Define: Your Values and Personal Philosophy What kinds of sacrifices will be required for you to achieve your goals? What impact will it have on your role specifically? Are you OK with that change? What gaps are there in your skillset that you will have to hire to fill, or level up on yourself?

14 Reflect. The outcome of the company, client and personal philosophies will drive the timing of hitting your goal.?? Does the outcome of that thinking conflict with the original goal you wrote down at the beginning? How solid is the foundation you are building on?

15 Building The Dream Team

16 Structuring: The Team A multi step / multi year process is required to map out team structure At every stage of growth you need to be thinking about team structure as this will constantly evolve

17 Setting: The Foundation Building bench strength Provide opportunities for growth to skill up your existing team If there are those on your current team who have limited development potential, can you keep them engaged long term in their existing role Make the tough decisions - some of those who started with you might not be the right people for the next stage of your growth

18 Defining: Future Roles Many make the mistake of continuing to hire salespeople without thinking about specialization If everyone is doing everything across the sales process, the end result can be a lot of duplication and a lack of alignment with strengths

19 Specialize: As Early As Possible Define what success looks like in each role and what key skills are needed to achieve that success Hunters vs. Farmers Creatives vs. Detailed Oriented Big Picture vs. Task Oriented

20 Identify: The Best Structure for Growth Determine what model is right for your business Hunter supported by an account coordinator Farmers who focus on growing existing business Marketing driven growth where leads are brought in an nurtured Or, all of the above

21 Determine: Capacity Based on your structure and processes, define the capacity of each role When will that person max out? How far in advance will you need to hire to get someone up to speed before the team maxes out?

22 Map: Out the Growth Start with the existing sales team Determine how much each person on the current team can sell this year Determine how much could they sell next year without adding any support How much more could they sell if sales support was provided?

23 Create: the People Forecast How many salespeople will you need in each role to hit your long term target? How quickly can they reach their potential? At what rate do you add people based on your model? Build your forecast and reverse engineer at what point you hire what roles.

24 Don t forget: Support & Infrastructure For each incremental salesperson / team how much support is required? How many purchase orders can a production person handle? How many invoices and payables can finance handle? When you need dedicated admin / office management? When will you outgrow your office space?

25 Key Metrics For Growth

26 Identify: Key Metrics for Growth Choosing Indicators: Leading and Lagging Leading: Lagging: Sales pipeline Sales Number of meetings Gross Margin Days to close Profit

27 Choose: Your Tools Set up your tools for tracking and your key metrics Publish as much as you are comfortable with, to your team The more they are brought in, the better they will buy in

28 Get: Granular Break the metrics down to the most specific number and time period as possible Weekly sales tracking against goal of invoiced and book amounts Monthly tracking of gross margin Monthly cashflow forecasting

29 Set: Limits You may sacrifice near term profit for growth as you invest in the business, but this should have a limited time horizon Beware sacrificing gross margin for growth - buying low margin business rarely has a good long term outcome

30 Beware: Cash Death Trap Create processes early on to ensure cashflow stays strong Negotiating terms with all vendors, including extended terms on larger orders. Requiring deposits for larger orders Upfront payment for new customers

31 Making it Happen

32 Recap: Evaluate The output of upfront preparation should be: Current state of the team Current state of systems and processes A company, client, and personal values philosophy

33 Recap: Plan The output of planning should be: Development plan for your current team Hiring plan Key metrics tracking tool (or tools) Cashflow forecasting tool

34 Reinforcing: The Structure Ensure your business is not dependent on one single individual Build out processes and systems so that if you lose a key person, you can easily hire and plug someone else into the role Mitigate risk of key sales person loss by wrapping the client in the brand experience

35 Key Components: For Success Hold yourself and the team accountable Don t let yourself slip on the goals - if you fall short one month, you need to find a way to make it up the next Continuously review timelines If a key hire doesn t work out, timelines will need to be rejigged

36 Final Thoughts: Scaling is hard, acknowledge and celebrate the milestones and wins to keep yourself and the team motivated Reach out to peers during the hard time, odds are someone has been through what you are going through

37 Discussion & Questions