Steps To Turn Your Chaos Into a Scalable Business

Have you been feeling like your business is a bit chaotic, or like you’re trying to hold it all together on your own? Let me tell you, you are not alone. Most women entrepreneurs start out doing everything themselves. There comes a time, however, when the business cannot grow by ‘holding it all together yourself’. Your business needs structure. Maybe it’s time to take steps to turn your chaos into a scalable business.

How Is It possible?

How is it possible to turn chaos into a scalable business? Believe it or not, that chaos could be a good sign.

When all seems out of control, it can indicate that your business is telling you something. It is saying it is time to scale. It is time to take the step that truly turns your chaos into scalability.

How? It starts with one word, my friend, processes! Processes will help you turn the corner from chaos to viewing it as a business. It will take a bit of time and organizing for you to prepare your processes. This is the beginning of structuring your business.

“It is the first step that will have you thinking & acting more like a CEO rather than a rodeo host. Processes will pull you out of your comfort zone but make it worth it. Processes take you from that chaotic pile of to-dos to the mindmaps and workflows of running a team. Processes create a business that is finally scalable.”

tammy durden

The Three Pillars of Scaling: Equip, Structure, and Empower

Let’s talk about three pillars that can help you scale: equip, structure, and empower. Equip and structure really go hand-in-hand. They should happen at the same time. Finding the right equipment, however, is the first step to take to help make your business scalable.

Equip Yourself With The Right Tools

Equipping yourself and your business with the right tools is a necessity. One of which is helpful to prepare your processes, including a project management (PM) system.

To find a suitable project management system (if you haven’t already), consider the following points.

1. “You must find a system that works like you work.” That means if the system works opposite to how you work, then you will not use it. For example, if you love lists and first thing in the morning, you review your post-it list of to-dos, then you may not like the card version of PM, such as is used in Trello, to help organize yourself. While Wrike may work better for you because you can create it as lists, by project, or by client. Wrike also allows you to set up a system with lists, cards, and other options.
2. Test out the system for a minimum of a month. Do not give up after a day, but don’t keep fighting through it if you know it is not working. Simply try another system; there are plenty to choose from.
3. Once you find it, commit to it. Once you find the system that really works for you, then don’t keep trying out every system (I raise my hand here too, as I have that shiny object syndrome). Once a system is working, then go for it and commit fully to it. Set up all your projects (clients) in it. And open it at the beginning of each day and follow it.
4. Create your Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) or Manual of Operations within your system. The next part of equipping is utilizing your new tool, a project management system, to document your processes for at least one client task. This is a document or a task list, in this case, within a PM system. You need to list out the steps (processes) to complete one of your client tasks. The one you will give to your first subcontractor, perhaps. <wink-wink> You can document it within the system or on a Google or Word Document, and upload it to your PM system.

Creating processes helps you begin to build out your structure.

Structure

To start scaling your business, you must set up your structure, beginning with your processes or SOPs (standard operating procedures). This is a necessary step because after you create your processes or step-by-step instructions (and videos) on how to complete a specific task in your or your client’s business, it will be time to hire or bring on a subcontractor (team).

In an online service business, it is important to outsource (bring on a subcontractor) client tasks first. You can add your business’s tasks later once you have a good system up and running. This will allow you the freedom to bring on new clients and build up the business. By adding a team of subcontractors, you are adding an army to help you scale.

Of course, I do not recommend adding more than one subcontractor at a time, but eventually having a team (if you have enough clients) will give you a great structure or system to continue to build your business on. This structure will serve as your system as you scale.

After you have set up your structure and equipment, you will want to empower your team.

Empower As You Scale

Empowering within your business includes all who are around you as well. In this case, empowering as you scale is about bringing on subcontractors. It is nearly impossible to scale without subcontractors (or employees) in place. You will inevitably hit a revenue wall that you cannot scale without this help.

As part of a scalable plan, you need to bring on a subcontractor first. This step is about empowering your subcontractor to help them take your business to the next level. This means delegating tasks to them.

Why is this important? It is important because if you do not empower those working on your team, you do not give them the ability to help you and your business. Not to mention that it is the right thing to do.

Lifting others up is always right.

Delegation

You may be asking, how can you empower your subcontractor?

You can empower your team through delegation. By creating your processes and systems properly, you will be able to easily delegate to your subcontractors.

Consider the last week, what is one thing (task) that really stressed you out? Then consider which tasks give you joy to complete? The client or tasks that caused you the most stress may be because you no longer enjoy doing them, or you simply do not do them well. Perhaps a tech task you are unfamiliar with, for example. Make this the first task you delegate to your subcontractor.

You can empower your team by having them use your documented processes in your PM system for the tasks you want them to do.

Next Scaling Steps

As you begin to take those liberating steps toward freedom, you will want to check the bandwidth of your subcontractor. It may mean not only hiring one subcontractor but two or three (one at a time). Split up your client tasks first. If you can boil them down into categories, it is helpful.

For instance, I created departments in my digital marketing agency. We had social media, email marketing, SEO blogging, and graphics. If something changed in social media, I did not need to meet with the entire team; I only needed to meet with my social media team.

Take each category and create the processes within it. If, for example, you have a social media management client, you may want to have a social media category or department, as in my above example. Within this category, you will have tasks such as daily checks, analytics, and reporting, to name a few.

You could also have an email marketing category where you have processes for your client tasks. Then you would eventually assign one or more subcontractors to this category (or department). The number depends on how many clients you have in this category. This allows the team to work on tasks they enjoy and will help them stay longer with you.

The Scalable Result

Being equipped, adding structure, and empowerment mean you developed a strong, scalable business! This is how you work less and earn more!

Watchout, with these steps you may even begin to enjoy your business again.

Tammy S. Durden is an award-winning business coach who specializes in helping women online service providers grow a business to fit their lifestyle rather than squeeze a life around their business. This generally means she helps women build and grow an online agency or add a subcontractor to their solopreneur business.

She is also a thought leader, course creator, and speaker in the online service industry.

Tammy has established herself as an authority figure over the last 18 years while creating and growing several online service businesses.

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