As business owners, we often hear about the importance of scaling – building more impact, income, and influence without burning ourselves out. But what does it truly take to scale effectively?…
Here’s the truth: It all comes down to one key concept – leading with operations. If your operations are disorganised when you start scaling, you’re going to feel the pain -fast and hard. Scaling isn’t just about doing more; it’s about growing smarter, optimising your workflows, and ensuring your business can support that growth without collapsing under its own weight.
My scaling experience:
When I decided to transition RVPA Limited into an agency model, I knew that our backend systems would need some serious attention. It wasn’t that things were a total mess, but if I’m being honest, in true founders fashion our internal operations weren’t getting the level of care and refinement that we’d been giving our clients. And although I’ve always known that strong operations are the backbone of any growing business, it wasn’t until our internal operations were really put to the test that I truly felt it.
What Does It Mean to Lead with Operations?
Leading with operations means you’re not just reacting to problems as they arise – you’re proactively building systems and processes that mitigate those problems from occurring in the first place and keep everything running smoothly.
In a conversation with my team recently, we discussed how culture is something we actively cultivate together and our operations are the same. Every decision we make, every process we implement, accumulates over time to create our operational ecosystem. That ecosystem includes everything from how we communicate as a team to how we track client deliverables. It’s all interconnected. And just like our company culture, our operations need to be nurtured and optimised continuously.
Growing Pains: Treating the Cause, Not Just the Symptoms
When scaling, growing pains are inevitable. Whether it’s a breakdown in communication, a delay in project delivery, or inefficiencies in your systems, these challenges will arise. The key is not just to address the symptoms but to find the root cause and fix it. Growing pains are real, and if you’re not actively seeking out the problems in your business and solving them, the journey is going to be much harder than it needs to be.
Even with the best operations in place, problems will still come up – that’s the nature of growth. But by continuously refining your operations, you can mitigate the impact and keep things moving forward.
My Biggest Lesson: Regular Audits Are Non-Negotiable
One of the best pieces of advice I can offer is to regularly audit your business. This includes auditing your systems, team efficiency, expenses, client delivery, and more. If you’re not clear on where your business stands at any given moment, how can you make informed decisions that move you toward your goals?
At RVPA Limited, we’ve built a culture of auditing everything. Our team conducts efficiency checks, project reviews, and client feedback sessions regularly. We’ve set up systems that provide us with real-time information on how we’re performing. Whether it’s our marketing efforts, team productivity, or client satisfaction, we know where we stand.
But gathering information is just the first step. The real magic happens when you use that information to make improvements. That’s what leading with operations is all about – not just identifying areas for improvement, but actively taking steps to optimise and future-proof your business.
The Operational Ecosystem: How Everything Is Connected
I like to think of our operations as an ecosystem—everything is interconnected, and each element relies on the success of the others. There are five key pillars that make up our operational ecosystem: Marketing, Team, Systems, Finances, and Delivery.
For example, client delivery relies on marketing – if there’s no marketing, there are no clients. Marketing relies on systems – if your systems aren’t working, your marketing won’t either. It’s all a web of interdependencies, and that’s why it’s so crucial to ensure every piece is running as efficiently as possible.
Within our business, we’ve implemented systems that help us monitor and improve every aspect of this ecosystem. After every team meeting, we rate the meeting and discuss ways to improve. We conduct monthly efficiency checks by reviewing time sheets and seeing where we can streamline tasks. Our KPI tracking helps us stay on top of performance metrics, and we encourage constant feedback from the team on ways to improve.
The Takeaway: Build a System That Grows With You
Leading with operations isn’t a one-time thing. It’s an ongoing process of evaluating, optimising, and future-proofing your business. As your business grows, your operations need to evolve with it. So, if you’re looking to scale sustainably, my best advice is to start with a gap analysis. Identify where you are now, where you want to be, and what’s standing in the way. Then, audit everything. Your systems, your expenses, your client delivery – and build a process for regular audits moving forward. By continuously refining your operations, you’ll create a business that not only scales but thrives.
