What’s the best way to scale your business for success?
Here are my thoughts.
But first, I have a very quick question for you.
What do the following all have in common?
- Kindness.
- Honesty.
- Caring.
The answer is that they’re attributes that are valued, extremely highly, by everyone. We are attracted to people who are kind, honest and caring. And given the opportunity, we prefer to do business with people (and brands), who are kind, honest and caring, too.
Now. Hold that thought.
Scaling your way to success
One of the BIG buzzwords right now, is ‘scaling’. Business owners are being told that it’s a cornerstone of commercial success. And that the best way to scale their business, is to automate pretty-much everything.
For example.
- To let AI chatbots handle first-line customer service enquiries.
- To have call trees handle incoming phone calls; especially customer service calls.
- To automate their social media accounts.
- To create impersonal, email / forum-based, drip-fed versions of their services.
In short: To cut back on the human touch as much as possible, whenever possible and wherever possible.
The huge limitation with that approach is clear. Automation software is…. well… software. And as such, is incapable of the human characteristics of kindness, honesty and caring.
The reason for the growth in automation-based scaling, is that it promises a lot and is extremely simple. It requires almost no effort. And it’s sold by the gurus pushing it, as a magic way to cut your overhead back to the bone; both in time and money.
Here’s the snag with automated scaling
As more business owners embrace automation-based scaling, prices and fees in their industries are being driven down and down. It’s a race to the bottom for those who’ve bought in.
Paradoxically, it’s also a race, which no one actually wants to win. This is why we hear these same business owners complaining about attracting fee-sensitive clients and how hard they find it to stand out and get noticed.
They’re discovering that it’s extremely difficult to build a successful business, with the most fee-sensitive clients, wafer thin profits and a customer base who will drop you in an instant, for a lower priced competitor.
Shrug!
Another way to scale… that actually works
While some business owners embrace the race to the bottom, where the winner is the cheapest provider, others have identified a far more profitable way to scale.
It’s a different race. A race to profitability and success. A race, where the winners attract the best clients, work on the best projects and earn the best fees.
You see, it turns out that kindness, honesty and caring, scale. In fact, they scale to infinity. People tell their friends about remarkable service. So, the word spreads. And they remain loyal to providers, who go the extra mile to look after their needs. So, they keep their clients for way, way longer too.
Yes, the cheapest prospective clients in your marketplace will always shop for the bottom dollar provider.
That’s perfectly fine.
Because every marketplace has a large and massively profitable niche, who eagerly pay a premium fee for a premium quality service. People hate automation and only opt for it as a last resort.
And even the bargain basement crowd seldom remain with an impersonal service for long. They often realize their cost-cutting error, once they’ve tasted the frustration and expense, of suffering with a problem, which can’t be resolved by automation software and requires a person. And there’s no person available.
So my friend, I suggest you scale your business for kindness, honesty and caring. It’s an excellent foundation on which to build a sustainable, valuable business.