Every business will reach a point when its leaders must choose to keep doing the same old things or take the plunge and invest heavily in its systems, processes and people, and thereby transition from relying solely on the founders or a handful of executives to becoming a flourishing business with the potential to maintain sustainable growth.

Scaling a business is about more than just increasing revenue and the bottom line, which can be achieved through the right controls and processes. Successful scaling requires business leaders to build the systematic processes that ensure consistent outcomes.

The CEO Project has some useful advice on this: “Success in scaling a business requires the right systems, processes, and leadership for growth before you decide to chase big scaling goals. This means that growth is both sustainable and not at the cost of quality, culture, and efficiency.”

The first step in achieving this is recognising the key drivers of your business or the key steps that convert your business’ potential clients into paying customers.

For most businesses, irrespective of the industry, these key drivers usually boil down to sales and execution.

Sales

How do you build a sales function that can:

1. Generate sufficient leads.
2. Efficiently and timeously engage with those leads to determine probability of closing.
3. Convert the lead into a customer who is ready to pay.

Execution

Once the lead has committed to being a customer how do you ensure that you can:

1. Seamless onboard them.
2. Timeously deliver on the value proposition you promised them.
3. Get them to pay for your product or service in the shortest possible timeframe.

Businesses need to develop clear controls and processes for each of these key drivers; invest in the right technology systems to make sure the controls and processes are efficient and can scale; and, most importantly, hire and invest in the kind of talent that will spearhead these key drivers in the business.

Investing in talent can set a business on the right path. Business website Business.com calls employees “the lifeblood of your organisation’s success”. “The right team members carry out your mission, influence customers and propel business growth.”

Business founders can do so much, while “staff members are the ones who translate your company’s purpose and core values into action. For instance, if your brand promises excellent customer service, that promise relies entirely on the frontline workers interacting with your clientele,” says Business.com.

It does not matter how long your business has been operating or how brilliant the management team is, achieving sustainable growth and scale requires a commitment to continuous investment in the systems, processes and people that ultimately create a business that has value.

Thuto Motsie CA(SA) is the CEO of Thamani, an audit and advisory firm founded in 2014, with offices in Rosebank, Johannesburg and Polokwane.