Introduction

The easiest part is starting a small business. It's harder to keep it going at a level which meets your initial goals. It is harder still to make it grow significantly.

Business growth isn't continuous – it comes in spurts, especially for very small businesses. It's a huge jump from a one-man operation to having more than one person doing the work just as it is a huge jump from having the receptionist/secretary run five salary cheques on her PC book-keeping program to having proper accounting procedures. Each of these jumps is a tremendous challenge for a small business and requires a structured approach to ensure success.

Five steps to make it more likely that such jumps are successful are:

1. Make sure you need to go to the next level. If what you have is still working, delay taking the plunge. "Working" means that there are no negative effects on your customers and you're not losing valuable employees.
2. Make sure you have sufficient resources to complete the changeover. "Resources" means enough money to cover estimated costs and contingencies, enough people to carry out the changes and the material, hardware etc. needed.
3. Plan. Break the project down into manageable jobs. Assign responsibility for the jobs. Schedule the jobs. Assign responsibility for monitoring spending and completion of the jobs.
4. Make sure that there is a mechanism for detecting spending over budget and delays and make sure that everyone knows there is a such a mechanism. "George will let me know if he's spending too much," is not a mechanism. Tracking costs from bank statements is.
5. Set goals for completion at the beginning. When the goals are met, the project is finished. Changes, corrections, optimizations etc. are new projects with new budgets and new schedules. Nothing cripples a small business experiencing rapid growth like an endless improvement project.