Perhaps you’re happy with your small business. Maybe you’re content with the money you’re earning, and you’re fine with having a small workforce that you’re close with. But think big. Think of the possibilities and opportunities that come with increasing your reach.
There’s a lot of planning involved with something like franchising. While you might not want to turn your business into a globally recognised brand (yet) there are some steps you can take to prepare it for expansion. Not everything on this list will apply to you, but they are all things that a business will encounter when trying to spread their wings.
Your Business Needs a Larger Workforce: Recruit People for New Departments
Your business is going to need dedicated departments for specific tasks. You’ll need people in charge of human resources to handle recruitment and relationships. You’ll need a tech department to handle all the computers and networking that in the office. You need a legal department to law issues and trademarking. The list can get pretty large and pretty intimidating.
Start small by first listing all the things you’re currently outsourcing. If you’re hiring tech professionals on a per-job basis to deal with computers, then consider how much you have to call for their help and make a wise judgement on how many people you need to hire. Do the same for everything in your business. Do you really need a finance department, or are you fine hiring a single person to deal with bookkeeping? Do you need to hire a new person for graphic design, or do you have a member of the team who’s a budding artist? It all depends on your current business and the staff you have.
How to Hire Your First Employees While Running Your Startup
Your Business Needs to be Publicised: Brand Your Vehicles and Get a Professional Logo
If you’re going to hire new departments then chances are you’ll also need a dedicated fleet of vehicles for your daily tasks. Whether it’s transporting goods, delivering items, or even ferrying people—you need to brand your cars and trucks so people know who they belong to and to show off your brand.
Consider using something like Nitrotherm Spray to brand your vehicles. Speak to freelancers to design your logo. Share your vision of the company with them, and work together to create an eye-catching and distinctive design so that your clients and customers will remember you. You don’t want to be “that” company with a poorly designed logo that people mock.
Your logo will speak a lot about your business, so it needs to stick and it needs to be relevant. After all, you’re going to be using this logo on just about any media. Emails, letters, flyers, web pages—wherever the people are, your logo needs to be there too.
Branding for lean startups: How to brainstorm a simple and strong business name
Your Business Needs More Reach: Scout Locations
Depending on what sort of business you are, you might need to expand into unknown or different territory. This doesn’t exclusively mean brick and mortar stores either. Expanding could also mean investing in web infrastructure such as an online web store, and it could also mean utilising different advertising channels such as social media.
10 Things to Consider When Scouting Locations for Your Pop-Up Shop
Make sure you’re constantly scouting for new locations. An additional store or office is a big investment, so make sure you’re researching the area so you know there’s demand for your services and products. Similarly, if you’re selling something that is applicable to the internet, advertise it online.
