Of course it’s great when your business begins to grow, but growth can generate a fair few challenges too. In this Masterclass Andrew Walsh, founder and CEO of AW Repair Group, will look at some of the issues entrepreneurs face as they start to scale up.
There’s one particular danger that they need to look out for: the temptation to spend too much time working in the business rather than on it. For Andrew, the image that springs to mind is of a captain who’s down below in the engine room when they should be upstairs on deck with their hands on the wheel. If all their attention is on shovelling fuel they won’t notice when the ship starts heading towards the rocks.
So as their business gets bigger, entrepreneurs need to accept that they can’t do everything – or at least that they can’t do everything well. They need to build a team and they need to learn to delegate.
Andrew reflects on the qualities to look for in a new recruit and on the strategies you need to keep people fully motivated and playing to their strengths. When you’re dealing with a small workforce, it’s not too difficult to keep in touch with your people’s feelings and ambitions, but as you scale up, you’ll soon need to introduce more formal review procedures.
You need to talk to all of your people, at all levels, and be approachable and communicative – but without getting too pally. If that happens, it can get tricky when you need to impose discipline and issue reprimands. As in so many cases, it’s a question of balance.
Getting this balance right can be tricky. Walsh goes into more detail in the YouTube video above.
