After helping over a hundred Australian small businesses become profitable and achieve consistent financial growth, the team here at The A Firm realized that scalability in business requires hitting (and breaking) plateaus.
One such plateaus is – and this may elicit gasps from long-time, one-person businesses – giving up running every part of your business, in favor of: leveraging the help of experts.
Any successful business owner must be able to take over any part of their business at the beginning. But what separates a small from a big business is knowing when to let the experts take over, so you can focus on directing your company and doing what you do best; whether that’s sales, marketing, networking, or even starting a new business!
If you’re looking to scale your business to the next tier, consider leveraging the valuable experience and services of the following experts, to free yourself up for more CEO duties!
#1 Equipment Brokers
If you’re providing a service that requires machinery, transport, vehicles, or specialized equipment, then an equipment broker can secure you a loan to make these more accessible. It’s also a great way to upscale and reinvest in your business.
If you’re in the finance sector (such as a financial advisor) then you may even consider partnering with a broker; anyone who’s looking for a loan will likely appreciate advice on how to repay said loan in the most efficient manner.
Consider the services of an equipment broker if your business requires:
- Transport vehicles (trucks, cabs, utes, vans or a fleet of vehicles)
- Construction machinery (diggers, cranes or bobcats)
- Specialized equipment (cherry pickers, generators, hospitality-grade kitchen machines)
- Agricultural equipment (seeders, balers, tractors, etc.)
#2 Organic & Digital Marketing Experts
Inbound lead and sales generation is the lifeblood of many large businesses. There will come a point in many businesses where there simply isn’t enough time for the director to be meeting with every new lead – this is where strategic planning comes in.The business will need to be generating income automatically; this will free-up time consuming footwork.
Marketing is by definition the method of attracting sales and leads passively, without you having to put in any direct facetime with your customers. A good marketing agency will have new leads & sales knocking on your door! Thankfully, in contemporary times there are plenty of channels you can explore marketing to, such as:
- Social media ads (Facebook & Instagram)
- Google Ads
- LinkedIn Ads
- YouTube Ads
- SEO
#3 Outbound Sales Experts
Just as marketing will be bringing you leads & sales automatically, it’s still important to be creating new sales actively. Depending on your type of business, your product or service may require a more personal touch, or a higher time & effort investment on your part to close the sale.
Hiring a trained sales expert is an excellent method for directly scaling your profits. This is especially the case if you are not yet ready to give up doing sales yourself, but simply don’t have enough time yourself to get to all of your leads in a given week.
#4 Accountants & Bookkeeping Experts
There is simply no better way to scale your business than by investing in an accountant or bookkeeper. Their job is to literally save you money & tell you how to make more!
A good accountant will offer advice on how to get the most out of your tax return for both your personal and business bank account. They will also inform you what assets are working best for you and where your business might be leaking profits.
In fact, The A Firm’s bookkeeping experts will even design a financial scaling strategy tailor-made for your business!
#5 Joint Ventures Expert
This type of expert can combine a service or product that you offer with another business to create a fantastic partnership or offer. This allows both businesses to provide additional value to their customers, while at the same time branching out into otherwise unreachable markets (and even their competitors – if the two decide to play nice.) Joint ventures do not need to be between two similar businesses; oftentimes, the most successful ventures are businesses from completely different industries.
Hiring this expert will give you access to their extensive network of contacts and may even provide new ideas for your products or service!
The experts on this list are a mixture of specialized and broad recommendations; however, it’s important to remember there is plenty of expert help out there! The main takeaway is that you understand when it becomes important to let go of doing every part of your business and start only focusing on what you do best. Our CEO and founder Annette Bedford is now offering a free 15-minute session to strategise exactly how to use expert accountants & bookkeepers to scale your business!
