Ann Carden, Business Growth Consultant, Discusses The Differences Between Scaling vs.Traditionally Growing A Business

Ann Carden is a Business Growth Consultant with 41 years of business experience, 13 years in corporate business management and 28 years building six businesses for herself and selling five of those. She has consulted with business owners in over thirty-eight different types of companies from $0-$5M and educated thousands of professionals through speaking, workshops, and seminars as a Speaker.

“If your dreams don’t scare you, they are too small.” ~ Richard Branson

The business world has the power to take a lot out of business owners and that’s the reality. Many entrepreneurs and small business owners experience frustration, unnecessary stress and so much wasted time and money attempting to grow their businesses and produce the income they want.

Ann Carden has started and grown several successful businesses over the last 28 years and generated millions of dollars, but it wasn’t always as much fun or profitable as it could have been. Ann experienced the same barriers and pitfalls every business owner experience when attempting to grow a successful business, but through experience and education, she developed a process proven to set businesses on the right track.

Ann explains that when a business is growing, but the business owner is working harder, not seeing the profitability or his income increasing with all the extra stress and work, then that owner is experiencing the challenges of business growth most owners and entrepreneurs experience.

Scaling vs. Traditional Growth

She goes on to say, “Scaling is about leveraging your time, money and resources. Scaling a business is not the same thing as growing a business. Growth means increasing revenue. However, with revenue growth in the traditional growth method, there are also rising costs and expenses. Whereas scaling a business is more strategic. It is about looking for ways to continue growth while leveraging time and money, not to experience the same increased costs incurred or the loss of efficiency and quality with traditional growth.”

Get More Revenue

An example of this is, looking for ways to increase sales without increasing marketing costs to get more revenue. An up-sell, cross-sell, or down-sell strategy can add as much as 30%-50% to a business annually without additional marketing expenses.

But as Carden suggests, “Increasing sales conversion is another way to increase revenue without spending more. If a company can increase their closing ratio significantly, the business can grow revenue without client acquisition costs rising.”

Increasing an ROI on marketing dollars spent to get a client can also help a company scale. This can be accomplished with a marketing strategy vs. marketing tactics. Most businesses are not strategic in their marketing and they spend more to make more.

“I was able to help one of my clients increase their marketing ROI in his business from break-even on marketing dollars to a 2200% return on every dollar spent. Additionally, we were able to implement additional revenue and profit growth strategies. These helped this small business almost double (adding about $1.5 million) in twelve months, while adding more profits to the bank account than ever before,” Ann Carden stated.

“By being more strategic and innovative in growing the business, we were able to maximize the revenue growth while optimizing the money and the operations. As a result, the owner enjoyed more income and time back into his life than he had in the previous ten years.

All of this while he bought and acquired another company to add to his existing business. He was able to pay cash for the business from the extra profits we had built and needed to reinvest. This is what it means to scale!” Carden added.

The Next Phase

According to Forbes and most business brokers, only 20%-30% of small businesses end up selling.

She goes on to say, “Once you have maximized the money, it’s time to step into the next phase of scaling to try and remove yourself from the daily operations.” This means optimizing the operations by implementing systems, processes and team members to get business owners out of working “IN” the business, so they can work “ON” the business without it declining.

It has been reported that most business owners and entrepreneurs never get to this point in their business. and it is why they burn-out, stay broke or fail. “When I was running four of my businesses at one time, I had no choice but to scale to survive. As a result, I was able to sell all of those businesses for significant profits. The new owners were easily able to step into each of those businesses and take over,” Ann commented.

Traditional Growth is Exhausting. Scaling Builds a Dream Business. It is important to work to build a business as if the business owner would want to sell it tomorrow and the next owner could step in without any disruption or decline in the business.

Eventually, everyone leaves their business one way or the other. They fail, they quit, sell or pass it on to someone else. But, everyone leaves their business at some point. Ann states that, “Learning how to build a business that makes excellent money, gives the owner freedom and runs like a well-oiled machine while it continues to grow is a business many would want to buy.”

“I have done this for myself many times (five). Selling the businesses allowed me to step into my next business venture. So, how about your business? Where are the gaps or the bottlenecks that are keeping you from scaling your business?” Carden expressed.

Whether you need to turn your company around or you’re ready to see how you can make a greater profit, by assessing your business’ weaknesses, Ann Carden will set your business up with a foundation for success. You’ll improve  your marketing strategies, generate customers and close more sales, giving you the opportunity to create a profitable, sustainable business while saving valuable time.

“Is it time to step into your next-level and SCALE LIKE A BOSS!” Carden concluded.

Contact:
Ann Carden – Business Growth Consultant
Websiteanncardencoaching.com
Facebook: facebook.com/Next Level Coaches, Experts and Entrepreneurs
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/business-consultant-coach/
YouTube: Ann Carden