As a business owner it’s easy to focus on your immediate goals, whether chasing leads or shifting stock. However, you might also want to focus on scaling your business to ensure continued success.

Scaling a business comes with its fair share of challenges, but when done effectively, it can give your business a new lease of life. Explore the different ways to scale your business with Adobe Express and discover how it can help your business thrive.

What does scaling a business mean?

Whether you have a successful side hustle designing websites or run a brick-and-mortar business full time, there might come a time when you want to expand. This could mean hiring employees, expanding your premises or introducing new products. This process of growing your business’ potential is known as scaling.

There are multiple ways of scaling a business and the options you choose will be determined by your business and your goals. Ultimately, the aim is to increase profit, which in turn could lead to other opportunities for business growth.

Some common examples of scaling include:

• Streamlining
• Hiring new employees
• Franchising your business or opening new locations
• Automating tasks.

It’s important to note that scaling a business doesn’t mean increasing your profit by any means necessary. Instead, it focuses on the potential within a business. This requires strategic planning that requires you to take potential business challenges, inefficiencies, expenses and more into account.

What are the challenges of scaling a business?

Scaling a business often means taking on new responsibilities and changing how you work. For many, this new approach comes with a fresh set of challenges.

• Meeting new demand. Hopefully, once you start scaling up your business, you’ll see plenty of new customers. However, adjusting to keep up with the new demand can prove tricky, especially if your business accelerates at a speed you weren’t expecting.
• Retaining old customers. As you begin to expand, you might have to start doing things in a new way. This could be anything from shipping times to the amount of time you can devote to clients. If your original customers see a change they don’t like, you may be at risk of losing them.
• Adapting your marketing strategy. As you pivot away from your original model, you’ll need a marketing strategy that’s in keeping with your new business. As you scale your operations, you’ll also need to scale your marketing.
• Misunderstanding the customer. Occasionally, in the rush to scale a business, you might mistake what made you successful in the first place. Ultimately, there may not be the demand for your product you first imagined.
• Money problems. Whether it’s funding the initial expansion, purchasing more stock or paying new employees, you’ll need substantial funds to kickstart your scaling. If you expand too soon or without outside help, you may find you’re unable to fund your business.

How to scale a business.

The best way to scale your business will be unique to you and your circumstances. However, there are some common aspects of scaling that most businesses undertake.

Take a look at these eight essential steps, and see how Adobe Express can help you start scaling your business.

1. Check your business is ready to scale.

Before you dive headlong into scaling your business, you should ensure it’s the right choice for your business. Things to consider include your financial management, your approach to growth and whether there’s enough demand to warrant scaling your business. Knowing as much as you can about your business, customers, and yourself can help you make the right decisions.

2. Create a business growth plan.

If you’ve confirmed that your business is suitable for scaling, it’s time to draw up a plan. Not only will this help you establish clear goals, but it’s also an opportunity to spot any gaps in your knowledge. It’s important that you create a realistic plan so you can prepare for all eventualities.

Not sure where to start? Make the most of free business plan templates from Adobe Express to help you plan out this next phase of scaling your brand.

3. Set your budget and secure the funds.

As mentioned earlier, scaling your business will likely mean an initial rise in your outgoings. To ensure you can still operate successfully during this period, you may need a cash injection to pay for things upfront. This could be a loan from a bank, savings you’ve accumulated or money from investors. On top of this, you’ll need to budget so you don’t overspend.

4. Review your existing suppliers and processes.

The current way of doing things might work like clockwork, but once you begin scaling your business there may be complications. The suppliers that originally served your business might struggle to keep up with your demand and your existing processes may be outmatched by your new goals.

To prevent friction between the business, your suppliers and internal processes, it can help to hold a review across the board and check everything will work as it ought to.

5. Expand your team as needed.

Whether you’re opening a new location, increasing your output or taking on new clients, it’s likely you’ll need new employees. Knowing how many employees you need can be tricky. It’s important that the workload feels manageable but not so manageable that your staff have nothing to do.

Once you’re ready to expand, you can create a hiring poster with Adobe Express. Simply select your design, add your branding and share on your website and socials.

6. Manage your money.

Aside from budgeting, expanding your business can come with additional financial complications. These can be often handled by an accounting firm but if you don’t employ one, you may have to do some additional research into tax and employment law.

7. Adopt a fresh approach to marketing.

For many small businesses, social media marketing is a great way to attract new customers and engage with existing ones. So, you might find the way you market yourself may need to change as you scale. While you may have previously held social media at arms-length or avoided paid ads, now can be a good time to expand your marketing approach and look at advertising options.

8. Address management challenges.

Unfortunately, running a small business doesn’t always directly translate into running a larger one. The larger the business, the less direct control you can have.

If you’ve come from a startup where you’re the only employee, entrusting others with your business can be tough. However, with help from mentors, industry experts and contacts in similar situations, you can overcome these managerial tough spots.

Editable template ideas to help you scale your business.

How can Adobe Express help with scaling a business?

Adobe Express offers a wide range of tools and templates for businesses of every size. When you’re ready to start scaling, you can use the platform to:

• Pitch your new business plan to stakeholders and investors. Use the Pitch Deck Maker to turn your business plan into an effective pitch, to help you win over internal and external stakeholders, reach out to new investors, and bring new suppliers onboard.
• Tailor your marketing strategy. Present and share your marketing strategy to show how your marketing efforts can be scaled in line with your business. Simply select your preferred marketing plan templates and edit to reflect your brand and business goals.
• Expand your social media marketing in just a few clicks. Once you’ve got your plan agreed, it’s time to put it into action. You can use the Social Media Scheduler to plan out your content for the coming weeks and months, plus use editable Instagram, Facebook and TikTok templates to help scale your social media marketing efforts.
• Use Adobe Express for Business to streamline your processes. As you continue to scale your business, you might want to upgrade your tools to suit your growing business needs. Adobe Express for Business can help you streamline your workflows, collaborate with other teams and build out your brand kit in just a few clicks.

Try Adobe Express for free now

Good to know.

When should you scale a business?

The best time to scale your business is when the demand is higher than your supply. Whether these are your products or services, if you’re constantly sold out, it’s a good sign your business is ready to expand. What this means for you, however, will depend on your business.

For example, if you constantly have a queue outside your bakery and know that customers are travelling across the city to buy your baked goods, you might want to consider scaling by opening a second location. Alternatively, you might want to scale your business online to offer UK-wide orders.

What is the easiest business to scale?

While all businesses face challenges when scaling, some of the easiest options include digital products or services. Digital means there isn’t finite stock on a shelf that needs to be continuously produced. Likewise, the costs of delivering digital products are minimal compared to physical products.

Is Adobe Express free?

Yes, our free plan offers many core features, including thousands of templates, photo editing and effects, animation, and 5 GB of storage. See our  pricing page for details and to compare plans.