There comes a time when your small business stops being exactly that – a small business. You grow and start seeing an increase in clients and employees, hopefully along with an increase in profits.

But then, you realize the business and technology structure you’ve been using may not be able to carry you into the future. That’s when you should begin thinking about transforming your business and preparing it to handle the growth.

But what do you need to do to prepare your small business for growth? Let’s have a look.

Revise your business plan and mission statement.

The business plan and mission statements were critical in creating your business. Now that you’ve achieved much of what you wanted and outgrown your plans, it’s time to revise them.

You can expand on your old plan and statement or, if you have really grown bigger, you might need to start from scratch.

Study your new market and demographics.

As your business grows, you’ll be joining a new market. Your audience will change as you come head-to-head with newer, bigger competitors. Your entire marketing strategy, your demographics, your target audience will need to be examined and updated.

Look into restructuring and manpower allocation.

Perhaps, when you were a smaller business all you needed were a couple of contractors and your ingenuity to keep things steered in the right direction. But, as you grow and introduce new processes and more advanced technology to increase acquisition and production, you’ll need to take a look at your manpower.

If you already have the expertise on board, make sure each person fits in the organizational structure. If not, you should start looking for new talent to join your company.

Upgrade your technology.

Breaking into new markets and catering to a larger number of customers will put a strain on your technology – both software and hardware. Things you might look into include:

• Your website (especially ecommerce sites) will need to be able to withstand an influx of visitors and processes.
• Your web hosting server should be able to carry the load of additional requests that will come with your new, expanded client base.
• The overall security of your website and the hardware that carries it will need to be revamped as you cater to people from a wider market, who will entrust you with their personal and financial data.

In fact, the bigger your business becomes, the larger (and more appealing) a target you will become to hackers who will be eager to take advantage of your new status.

Take stock of your inventory.

Nothing is more annoying to an online shopper than searching for hours for the exact product or service they’re looking for, heading to the website and then finding out it’s no longer available.

If you sell products, make sure your inventory has been restocked and is ready to ship. On the other hand, if you’re service provider, take stock of your manpower and see if you and your colleagues will be able to deliver on your promises – on time and as promised. If not, start looking for the right people to hire.

Make sure you have enough funding.

As your business grows, you’ll need more and more money to keep it running. In other words, to increase your profits, you’ll also need to increase your investment. Make sure to have enough sound financial backing or funding set aside to quickly access and pour into your business when and where necessary.

Take your marketing to the next level.

If you want to continue growing, you need to keep finding new and emerging audiences to sell your product or service to. That means taking your marketing to the next level – invest in new marketing platforms and strategies to reach more people. You might need to develop new social media campaigns, new email content, new experiential campaigns and more.

Your business is growing – be prepared!

The most important piece of advice you’ll get is, should you make it past the ominous five-year milestone, you need to be ready for your business to take off – that is the point where your luck (and your business’ survival rate) tilts in your favor. If you’re passed it already, congratulations! Keep working hard and your company is sure to thrive.