Scale and Transform Your Firm: 4 Business Best Practices that Really Work

Audacia Strategies doesn’t just help other companies scale and transform. We are also scaling and transforming our business. (Gotta live up to our name, right? Be bold, be daring, be audacious!) When it comes to business best practices, we believe in continuous adaptation as a necessity—not something to fear.

What this means for clients is that we approach each project with a focus group mentality. We aren’t afraid to experiment. In our philosophy, that we haven’t yet worked out the perfect pitch deck is not a good reason to sit quietly on the sidelines. We do our research, of course, but we also recognize that significant insights can be gained by stepping out of our comfort zones.

I’ve been thinking about successful business best practices that we use with our clients and that we’re applying at Audacia Strategies as well. Over time, I’ve identified a few tactics that help businesses successfully scale and transform.

Start with the Goal in Mind

“If you aim at nothing, you’ll hit it every time.” ﹣Zig Ziglar

“Shoot for the moon. Even if you miss, you’ll land among the stars.” ﹣Norman Vincent Peale

These quotes might belong on one of those motivational posters we all love to hate, but that doesn’t mean there is no truth to them. Often when leaders or teams are feeling lost on a project it’s because they have lost track of their goal. So start with a goal in mind and refer back to it often.

Ask yourself and key players: Where do we want to be?

For Audacia, this means living up to our core values and thinking big. One value that we hold especially close is: Bold Actions Get Bold Results. But taking bold actions and getting bold results doesn’t have to mean selling out. Too often, firms treat big moves as a zero-sum game. They see transformation as synonymous with volatility.

True, there was a time when business best practices directed managers and leaders to seek out stability as a primary tactical goal. Now, with technology and automation bringing down the cost of starting a business considerably, leaders at large corporations must learn to adapt. They need to ask themselves where they want to be and figure out how to get there without disrupting what is working well. To be successful here, anchoring themselves in their core values is essential.

Breakdown the Walls Surrounding Your Goal

Ask yourself and key players: What do we need to achieve our goal?

When we miss our business goals it’s because we haven’t figured out (yet!) how to circumvent an obstacle. This is one reason we spend time in the beginning working with our clients to do a full analysis of what it will take to hit their big goals. It might feel like overkill in the beginning, but it’s better to identify potential problems and work solutions into the plan from the start.

Besides, what’s the worst that could happen? The potential problems don’t actually arise and your project finishes ahead of schedule.

In strategizing with clients and other business partners, I welcome opportunities to consider where we might face gaps in talent, technology, or process. I don’t shy away from looking for these gaps because I trust that we can come up with creative solutions. So, bring on the Murder Board!

Scaling can happen in different ways, for example. You might not have the resources to bring in the big shot consultancy firm, but perhaps you could hire a freelance consultant to assist your startup on a project basis.

Sometimes by thinking differently about employee engagement or adjusting internal processes you can find new ways to shift time away from administrative and toward strategic tasks. Figuring out how to get more hands on revenue-generating tasks is a perfectly acceptable way to scale.

Prepare for Talent Gaps

One challenge rapidly scaling companies face is a talent gap. You hustle and hustle working your sales funnel for months, then suddenly you’re inundated with work. It could be more work than your current team can handle or it could be work that calls for a skill-set no one on your team currently has.

Ask yourself and key players: What do we need today vs. tomorrow?

If you can anticipate the talent you’ll need for when you meet your goals, you can hire talent beyond the current need and avoid gaps that hurt the bottomline. Great people are hard to find and in a lot of industries they’re even harder to keep. Bear in mind that while you can train for business skills, you can’t train for passion or engagement.

Whenever you can, hire the best. Look to hire those with diverse thought, processes, and backgrounds. Studies show that diverse workforces are more innovative. Under strong leadership, collaborative teams that value constructive criticism as much as uplifting praise will bust through any challenge you put in front of them.

Best business practices for hiring:

• Don’t be afraid to get creative: Do you really need to go through a lengthy hiring process to find a full-time employee or can a part-time employee or contractor fill the gap? Could you outsource any part of the project?
• Don’t forget about onboarding: I’m working on this one for Audacia. How do we bring new team members up to speed quickly? How do I introduce contractors who are geographically dispersed? And how do I help them come together on the various projects they’re each responsible for?
• Do document key policies and processes: Start doing this as soon as possible. Make sure these align with core values and beliefs about how to engage with clients and partners. Bonus: Looking at key policies and processes forces you to be very intentional. You will be deeply aware of critical interactions and intersections within your business as well as the roles and responsibilities required for success.
• Do spend time thinking about company culture: Build it and reinforce it every day in every interaction and with every hire, client, and partnership.

Bring Partnerships in Alignment with Strategy

A list of business best practices wouldn’t be complete without discussing how strategy and partnerships inform one another. We are better when we cooperate with peers. Of course, you don’t want to give away your secret sauce, but be confident enough in your product or service to share when it’s mutually beneficial.

Ask yourself and key players: Are there opportunities for co-marketing, surge capacity alliances, filling in vertical vs. horizontal gaps in explicit capability and experience?

When you align partnerships with business best practices strategy, you will be more likely to spot 1 + 1 = 3 partnerships. I’m talking about business partnerships that go way beyond basic synergy. It all starts with knowing your business strategy and focusing on building the right business relationships.

These business best practices are really the tip of the iceberg. There’s so much more. If your firm is ready to take bold actions with a team that gets bold results, let’s talk!

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