Over the past few weeks, we've been creating a road map for taking your business from start up to eventually selling it; if you want. We've already covered the start up and implementation phases. Today we are covering the sustainable phase.
A Sustainable Business
A Sustainable business is a business that is starting to look like a real business with clients and money flowing but also the team is growing and the vision for the business is getting bigger.
This is the place that most start up businesses dream of getting to as quickly as possible. When you are in the sustainable phase, you know that your business has “legs” and it's only a matter of hard work to finish building the foundation you need to scale bigger.
How do you know when you've arrived?
- Consistently working the plans and tweaking the plans designed in the start-up phase
- New clients are coming on board regularly
- Clients are seeing results
- Minimal or no repeat clients
- Business is making money regularly but still not consistently
- Team is starting to expand
- Visibility and credibility are both improving
- Lack of self confidence in business system because it is still hard to recognize the concrete evidence that they system works
- Inconsistent sales and follow up
- Lead generation is working but has a long way to go
Next Phase
Your work is not done. Yes, you've made it to the next phase – but your work is not done quite yet. The ultimate goal to stay in your business is to get it to the scaleable stage – a place were you can grow it big. Here are the things you need to work toward to make it to the “scalable phase”.
- Consistent cash flow
- You are on the payroll
- Consistent lead generation
- Consistent sales & follow up
- Self assured in the business model & systems
- Cohesive support team
- Holding events (if applicable per your Plan)
