How to Delegate for Sustainable Growth at Every Stage of Business

Here’s something I share with many entrepreneurs during one-on-one sessions: yes, it’s possible to scale your business without a team.

For a little while.

The strategies you use for growing your business vary depending on what stage of business. The model I like to use is the 5 Stages of Business Growth by Todd Herman. You can read more about them here, but for a quick summary they are:

1. Start Up

You’ve got an idea and you think you can make it happen. In this phase you’re talking to potential clients, refining the concept for your product or service, and getting ready to go into business.

It is way to early at this stage for outside help! Make sure to talk to the people you want to serve personally, and get their feedback on exactly what they need and how they’d love to get it.

2. Ramp Up

You have a client. Now you need more. This is all about finding and implementing systems aimed at building your client base and your audience in general. Hold off on massive infrastructure – for now, just focus on systems designed to reach the people you’re trying to help.

A good web designer is gold here. Also, for some, this is a good time to bring on help with social media – but you should always spend some time injecting your own personality there first before you bring someone on to represent you.

Moreover, it is officially time to get a bookkeeper involved! You’re officially the owner of a small business, which can get extremely confusing faster than you think. Get ahead of this issue right away, and whatever you do, do not wait until tax time!

3. Build Up

You have a full roster of clients, so now it’s time to design the systems that will help you support them not only extremely well, but with enough efficiency that you’ve got a bit of time left at the end of your day.

This might mean bringing on people that can serve your clients directly, along with people who can help with the admin end of things.

It also means that it’s time to move into more serious systems like ActiveCampaign or ConvertKit for sending your emails, or shopping cart solutions other than the default ones provided by your web host.

4. Scale Up

Okay, time to get serious about growth! This means developing a stable and sustainable marketing plan (with a regular monthly budget!), as well as looking for new avenues for outreach and lead generation that feed directly into your existing funnels.

Scaling up in a serious way means one thing people tend to miss: reliability and sustainability in all of your systems. Make sure the people you have on your team are dependable, that you’ve designed the business to handle people getting sick or needing to be replaced, and that your systems are not only super reliable but they also provide a huge amount of information about what’s working really well and what needs improvement.

5. Leader Up

This is where you move into the next level, creating a sustainable regular income in the six to seven figure range. You do this by having the right people in place to handle every facet of your business that isn’t exclusively in your specific area of genius, and developing systems that can handle large numbers of clients at any given time.

If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together.
– African proverb

No matter what stage of business you’re in, you don’t have to do it alone, or spend a ton of money on delegating. Book a Team Planning Session to get personalized guidance on what to outsource and whom exactly to hire for your specific goals. Or, discover exactly what you can delegate with my free guide, 5 Tasks Crushing Your Business Growth.

Please share below: what stage of business are you in? How can delegating help you reach the next stage of growth?