According to the AdAge, the only thing we have to fear is fear itself. So why are some business leaders afraid of expanding? High-performance real estate coach and trainer Josh Phegan examines the fear and how to beat it.
Too often business leaders fear, rather than celebrate, the swift growth of their business. Management becomes overwhelmed and bogged down in processes that hinder rather than aid expansion. However, the one area you should never get too afraid about is business growth and the pace at which it is building.
Business growth should never be about speed, but rather your capacity to understand who your next employee is and the systems needed to keep up with that demand.
Building your capacity for growth starts with alignment; ensuring everyone on your team understands the business vision, what their role is and how that contributes to success. To keep everyone on the same page you must first know and understand your Big Three primary functions.
- You must be good at what you do in order to succeed. If you’re mediocre or worse, the business will fail.
- You must clearly communicate your vision, direction and expectations.
- You must build capacity of scale so your business can grow consistently without stalling.
To foster and cope with growth, great business owners must employ great employees. They need to let go of nonessential tasks and find the right team members with the right skills and the right attitude to take care of important tasks and do them well.
This allows you to focus on your primary role and performing it well. The key is to have a recruitment plan in place so you’re hiring ahead of time and not waiting until you’re overwhelmed.
Three critical leadership functions include:
- Your clarity of vision sets the direction your company will take. Know where you’re going, what markets you will serve and determine your product and service mix.
- The capability of each new employee determines your ability to scale successfully. Forget about snazzy titles and think about what each potential employee can bring to your business. What is their value? What are their strengths and will they strengthen your business? You’re much better to have a really good quality office manager that
can take ownership of key business tasks and allow you to focus on scaling the business. - Your systems for recruitment and onboarding must ensure alignment and scalability. One of the most important roles in any real estate business is deals support. Who do your sales consultants go to for advice on their latest listing or sale? Failure to provide focus and clarity on such a big factor can lead you to scale too fast and that creates stress and a desire to have a much simpler business.
Sustainable growth requires highly functioning people, regular team planning, capacity for growth and systems that work.
With these elements in place you can’t grow too fast, as you’re well prepared in advance for every leap forward.
