Surviving and prospering as a small business is notoriously tricky. Many small businesses don’t make it past a single year; only a minority are still operating after five. Of the successful ones, a challenge comes from scaling up. Many prefer to dodge this challenge by simply selling the business and starting up a new one. But for entrepreneurs who’d like to achieve sustainable, year-on-year growth, there are a few strategies worth noting.

Taking CMS Seriously

Online businesses will need a slick, intuitive front-end for their customers to navigate. A failure to provide this will result in would-be buyers being bounced back to the search results page. Without a coherent CMS, operating a webstore is enormously difficult. New products need to be updated with minimal human involvement, and that’s something only CMS can provide.

Taking control of your Finances

A successful entrepreneur needs to have an ironclad command of their own incomings and outgoings. The larger a business gets, the more complicated its moving parts will become, and the more opportunities there will be for inefficiency and waste to creep in. Appointing a full-time bookkeeper can help to deal with this, but you’ll also need to be apprised of events yourself, so schedule regular meetings and reports so that you can make better decisions.

Measure your Results

In order to improve the way your business operates, you’ll need to see how well you’re doing. To do this, you’ll need to not only look at feedback provided by your customers (in the form of online reviews), but feedback provided by your staff. Use questionnaires and a dedicated human resources department to find out what your staff think is right with the company, and what they think is wrong. If you demonstrate that you’re taking their concerns seriously, then you’ll prove that you’re a company that’s good to work for – which is crucial, since it’s difficult to grow a successful business while maintaining a high staff turnover.

Investing in Expertise

When it comes to certain tasks, like marketing, small business owners can’t be expected to have all of the answers. That’s why it makes sense to either bring in expert help, or to outsource certain rarely-performed tasks to a dedicated specialist. By the same token, you might appoint a board of advisors to help to steer the company through new and unfamiliar territory.

Securing Finance

Often, expanding the business depends on securing the required capital. There are many ways in which this might be done, including government grants and loans. It’s worth sifting through the available options, as some of them offer unique tax benefits. A Venture Capital Trust (or VCT) from a Funds Management company such as Downing allows investors to pool their money with others, and share that money across several different companies. They are then allowed to collect tax-free income via dividends.