Growing Up

Growing even the most promising entrepreneurial company involves making some jarring psychological adjustments. Most important-and ironic-you'll have to suppress some of the entrepreneurial instincts that got you this far, namely, your need for complete control. To expand your company successfully, you need to be comfortable delegating and managing instead of doing everything yourself. And the bigger your company gets, the more you'll have to let go.

Making solid hiring decisions will help you feel good about delegating major responsibilities to others. You also need to recognize that your current staff may be apprehensive about your expansion plans. They may feel uncertain about job security; they may feel left out. Communicate your growth strategy to employees, keep them informed throughout the process and encourage your staff to give you feedback along the way. If you involve them in the expansion, it should foster a strong sense of commitment to the company.

One of the toughest questions a small-business owner may face in growing a business is whether to reorganize staff. But re-engineering is often a fact of life. "Sometimes you outgrow your staff," says Reimer.

Taylor agrees: "I've never done a strategic plan where [a company has] gone to the next level and not needed reorganization. That usually means people changes, too." This isn't to say a complete personnel purge is necessary. Just assess your team and work on strengthening any weak links.

At Pet Food Savemart, Carolyn Gibbs says a good management team helped facilitate a smooth transition when the second and third locations opened. Adding staff during the growth phase wasn't easy, but through trial and error, the Gibbses learned to make good hiring decisions. "Now we go beyond our gut feelings," says Gibbs. Opening multiple locations has also helped the Gibbses make plenty of contacts in the pet food industry, and those connections have helped them find skilled management staff.

This article was originally published in the July 1996 print edition of Entrepreneur with the headline: Growing Up.